Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 16th, 2016

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I knew you would.

He was referring to some of the claims that were being made, I think by the government side. It seemed the members were making claims that one witness was good enough, and I wanted to ask him if he felt it would be unfair to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's Office, and the Health Minister, if they weren't given the same opportunity as the Justice Minister was given to clear up any suspicion or doubt there might be about whether there was involvement by their offices. Obviously, I would think if I were in their position, I would want the opportunity to clear that up and take the cloud away that was hanging over my head.

I wondered if you thought that was sort of an unreasonable thing to expect, that they would be given that opportunity.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Absolutely not.

I agree. The way the Justice Minister came in and cleared the air, she was very good about it. She answered questions very well. I'm actually quite surprised that the Minister of Health and others would not want to take this opportunity to clear that air, just to get it off their plates, make a point that it wasn't them and they had nothing to do with this, and allow us to actually say that we did more than a one-witness exercise, which does nothing to deter events like this from possibly happening again.

If we do nothing, this will happen again, because there are no repercussions, no fear of being called before a committee. It will become common practice, and then where does parliamentary privilege go? Do we no longer need to see legislation beforehand?

I say that is probably the extreme case, but I think my point is clear. If you reward bad behaviour, it will happen again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Richards, just related to your question, I don't sense any urgency to rush to a vote on the first of your five motions.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Obviously, we would like to see a positive result so that we can carry on with our investigation. We're not hearing that.

We've been led to understand that the Prime Minister's Office has directed the members of this committee to vote down those motions. That's obviously quite concerning. Something that I wanted to talk about in my remarks is just that: the Prime Minister's Office seemingly getting involved in the matters of a committee, telling members and forcing upon their government members what they must do, and that's to sweep this under the rug. That's obviously a huge concern to us here in the opposition.

I would hope that members would think better than that and choose to vote to ensure privilege is upheld and not take their orders from the Prime Minister to sweep this under the carpet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Schmale, you still have the floor.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you, sir.

I agree with Blake on them obviously getting the orders from somewhere. I think we on this side agreed it was odd that they did not want to continue this investigation, especially after our two days of explaining our case for why it would be a good idea to do that, and why, in order to preserve parliamentary privilege, that we continue this investigation....

Now that obviously someone in some department or some agency—probably the PMO—has given direction that it would be in the best interests to shut this investigation down, that to me is equally as concerning. Why are we being blocked from doing our job as directed by the Speaker of the House of Commons? As we all know, within our system, there are checks and balances. It's Parliament's role to keep the government in check, but if the government is directing its parliamentary members to shut down the investigation on certain issues like this, do we not feel that we have had our powers clipped?

Actually, this might clarify something here about parliamentary privilege and why it's so important. This is picking up where I left off:

The primary question asked by the courts is whether the claimed privilege is necessary for the House of Commons and its Members to carry out their parliamentary functions of deliberating, legislating and holding the government to account, without interference from the executive or the courts.

Right there, Chair, that's exactly what I said. How do we keep the checks and balances in place if the executive is shutting down its parliamentary members or giving direction to its parliamentary members to shut down committee work?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Which page are you on?

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

It's page 78. It continues:

In determining its existence and scope, the courts will first establish—

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

On a point of order, Chair, I feel quite offended that we're being accused of taking orders. There's no factual evidence here. It's a completely unfounded accusation from the other side. We're sitting here listening, and if we're convinced of the reasoning for these motions, we will vote according to how we feel, but I think it's completely baseless and unfounded to accuse us of taking orders from anybody—at least not myself. I can speak for myself on that matter.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

If I can respond to that, Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

On the point of order, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

In fact it is founded, Mr. Chair. There were reports in the media that the Prime Minister's Office had in fact put out a statement indicating that they were directing that this motion be defeated.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Who? Sorry? There were reports...?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I can provide the link to the article.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Sure. Did I [Inaudible—Editor]

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

According to Kady O'Malley in the Ottawa Citizen, she says:

...on Wednesday evening, a statement from PMO—which was provided to the Ottawa Citizen—confirmed that was the case....

Then, the statement from the PMO is:

Since the opposition has been unable to offer any evidence that there even was a premature disclosure of the bill during six different committee meetings, the government members on the committee have decided to oppose any motion that randomly calls anyone as part of their fishing expedition.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

We may have decided on our own.... Anyway, at this committee we have not decided—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I had actually seen another article which indicated that the Prime Minister's Office had directed the member, so—

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Anyway, I believe it's—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Regardless of the fact, it seems obvious that the government itself—

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I'm here to correct the record.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

—is looking to shut down the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Blake, hold it. Ruby has the floor. Then you can respond if you want.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I'd like the ability to be able to correct the record and state here before this committee today that no one has told me to vote any which way on any of these motions. Based on your arguments and what we've been presented by the witnesses who have come before us—and not just one witness, but three different witnesses, and five different positions at five meetings—we'll make our conclusion based on what we have before the committee and nothing else.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Is there anyone else on the point of order?

Mr. Schmale, you have the floor, since you're not finished.