Evidence of meeting #29 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was privileges.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
More primary documentation would be appropriate, in my view.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
I am so glad you said that, Mr. Reid, because look at all of this paper I have to go through.
Look at what I have to do here.
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
I'll have to see if I can fit something in here.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
If you are going to hockey, you need to get in something about maple syrup, Mounties, and things like that, so you're being very Canadian.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Very good. I like that.
I will have to focus here. I didn't get much sleep last night. I had my windows open and I live in a noisy neighbourhood. There was a cat meowing all night long, and it wouldn't stop meowing. It gave me lots of time to think, if I can get my head together here.
I will continue with quoting the ethics guidelines from the Canadian Association of Journalists, “We make sure to retain the original context of all quotations or clips, striving to convey the original tone”, which we are seeing in these articles. “Our reporting and editing will not change the meaning of a statement or exclude important qualifiers.”
It's in the ethics guidelines, right there; they do not change the meaning or statement. Look at the articles. If this is not a leak, why are the stories so close together? Why does the wording of both stories show statement of fact rather than just speculation?
I will quote here from March 19, 2001. At that time, the Speaker ruled on a question of privilege regarding an incident whereby the media was briefed on a justice bill, Bill C-15, before the members of Parliament. The Speaker indicated that there were two important issues in that case: “the matter of the embargoed briefing to the media and the issue of members' access to information required to fulfil their duties.”
In that ruling, the Speaker said:
In preparing legislation, the government may wish to hold extensive consultations and such consultations may be held entirely at the government’s discretion. However, with respect to material to be placed before parliament, the House must take precedence.... The convention of the confidentiality of bills on notice is necessary, not only so that members themselves may be well informed, but also because of the pre-eminent rule which the House plays and must play in the legislative affairs of the nation.... To deny to members information concerning business that is about to come before the House, while at the same time providing such information to media that will likely be questioning members about that business, is a situation that the Chair cannot condone.
Mr. Chair, I think we find ourselves in the same type of situation.
This bill was probably the most important bill I will get to vote on in this term, in this Parliament, and—if the voters are willing to return me to this place, which I hope they are—probably in my entire career. Nothing will be as wide-reaching as this bill, the magnitude of this bill.
By the way, I did a constituency referendum on Bill C-14. Of almost 4,000 returned ballots, 78% voted in favour of Bill C-14. It was a good experience to do that and consult the constituents. My riding, Mr. Chair, is not as big as yours, but as the House was sitting at the time, it was a way to consult a large number of constituents in a small to medium-sized area in that short period of time and get a fairly accurate reading of constituents. Everybody, regardless of how they voted, had the opportunity to tell me how to vote. The range of comments was very good, lots of good feedback. People were telling me to vote yes or no based on a wide range of reasons, whether they saw a family member suffer—
Liberal
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
I listened to the constituents, absolutely. I wasn't sure what to expect, actually, coming into that referendum. I had never done that. I took the lead from Mr. Reid, who has done seven or eight of them.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
I am a fan of referendums. I am wearing my Swiss flag today—
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Yes, that's right. They did one. That is a good idea.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
—in honour of the profound respect the Swiss have for democracy.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
I agree. That's good.
Actually, let's segue into that.
Thank you, Mr. Reid.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Speaking of consulting, this is a government that likes to consult, so let's do that. Let's consult. Let's keep looking into it.
You know, we look at the issues that are before us today, and on this side of the House, some of the answers seem pretty obvious, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership or the pipeline issue, building new pipelines to get our oil to market. Those seem like an easy yes.
In this case, I think we have an easy yes here. We're just convincing the other side. We're working on it, though. We're getting there, so let's consult. We all like to consult, so let's keep going. Let's dig in. Let's dig in and keep going. There are many different ways we can take it.
As a reporter, most of the time your conversations come from staff, maybe high-up staff in the communications department. That's why it was important to note, as Mr. Richards did last time, that we're not asking for the Prime Minister to attend, because we're pretty sure it wasn't him. It was on the staff level, probably someone in the communications department, hence the wording of his motion asking for those communications people to attend, because in all likeliness that's the best place to start.
It was often that I would get tips as a reporter. They would come through the communications department because that's who you would have the relationship with. As a new government staring out, they would want to build those relationships with reporters. I think much of the political staff—either from what I've read or staff I knew—would have to be, I guess, for the most part, from various backgrounds, or from different provinces with backgrounds in provincial government. At the same time, a lot of these relationships would be new. They would be fostering these relationships and they would want them to grow.
How do they do that? Possibly, they give a bit more information than they probably should. Judging by the accuracy, I don't think this is a watering hole conversation that happened. This was something a little more than that. We're going to get to the bottom of this.
How is my convincing so far?
