Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 4th, 2017

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I understand. I'm trying to address the issue that was raised by the clerk and find a way to get around this. I will just say that the procedural questions you ask can be answered in almost every instance by the acting Clerk.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Maybe. He doesn't make decisions. He's not involved in it at all—

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I understand.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

—as opposed to the Speaker, where the buck stops, except for the RCMP commissioner.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

That was the point they were raising, that he is both decision-maker and.... I'm just trying to avoid that conflict.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes, me too, but I also want to make sure that we have at our disposal the resources and the answers to questions that we legitimately deserve to have answered.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Perhaps I could help to square the circle, Chair. In the Speaker's ruling, he made reference to different proposals that he's made to the parliamentary protective service. He said:

...some months ago I asked the director of the Parliamentary Protective Service, as one of his annual objectives, to provide mandatory training on an ongoing basis for all members of the service on the privileges, rights, immunities, and powers of the House of Commons....

He has stated some of the role that he has in this. Perhaps, instead of having him appear as one of the first witnesses, it would be more appropriate to have him at some point after we've heard the primary witnesses, to seek from him an update on how some of the objectives he stated are going, and to perhaps as well to seek his guidance on some of the suggestions he would have going forward on how to make recommendations back to the House, and what changes he would like to see from his authority going forward. That is perhaps not to link him initially with the acting Clerk, so that we don't get him bogged down with the current prima facie finding, but rather that we have him attend at a future date, after we have had the initial witnesses, as we go forward.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

With respect, I appreciate what you're trying to do. My difficulty and my concern would be that the further we push him down the process, the more he just by osmosis becomes part of it, whereas if we frame it that we're in fact-finding mode and that's part of it, it seems to me that it might be easier to keep him compartmentalized.

It's our Speaker, and we want the Speaker to succeed, so we want to keep him from that. I just worry that if we push it down too far, it starts to get mooshed together, and it's hard to separate it, whereas if we do it right up front, near the beginning, it's part of the macro, the generic, the background, and a sort of technical briefing, and then we move on to the instant case. That would be my only concern, but I appreciate the suggestions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

At the moment, the proposal is one hour for the history, one hour for any MPs who were impeded, plus Mr. Nater, and one hour for the acting Clerk. On the third hour, we haven't finished the Speaker discussion yet.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Can I just make a suggestion to colleagues that we consider flipping them and doing the historical background first, then the administrative framework, in terms of the Clerk and the Speaker? We've done the macro, and now we're stepping into the instant case—here is the person who was affected; here are other members. Now we're into it and we've kept separate the macro. I might just suggest that one switch. We could have the analyst's historical briefing first for an hour, then an administrative structural review and briefing for an hour with the Clerk and the Speaker, and then in the third hour we would dive off and get into it.

I'm not going to die on that hill. Those are just my thoughts.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I'm just trying to figure out in which place it would be better. I like Mr. Nater's idea, because the Speaker has already ruled that it's a prima facie case. It's coming here. He has done his upfront ruling at this point, and we need to get into fact-finding initially. I think it would be better, if the Speaker came, to have him do so near the end, to find out how all of this....

I think, Mr. Christopherson, in effect you are saying that you want to see some changes, right? You think the way things have evolved over time is not in the best interests of parliamentary privilege, members' privilege, so that would be something better suited to be at the end of the fact-finding mission.

I don't know. It's obviously being debated. My vote is on that side.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

My only worry, again, is that if we leave it too long, by then we'll be into the minutiae. We'll know the details. We'll be seized of it all, and it's going to be harder to keep the Speaker..... I get it; the Speaker shouldn't be involved in this instant case, given his unique role. But, again, if that's what everybody decides, I'll back down. It's just that, in my view, keeping him near the front gives us the information we need about how the system works in general, and he is part of that decision-making. Then once we're done, the beauty is we'll be done, and there shouldn't be any reason to bring him back, and therefore he can't get into....

But I'm open.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I see what you're saying, Mr. Christopherson. In that case, do we have the Speaker at all? We've already had him before this committee on this, and we've asked him questions around this very issue, and you have asked these questions to the Speaker, so are we really gaining anything new by bringing him in again?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

The problem is that if we have only the Clerk, the Clerk is not part of the security decision-making process, so he can talk framework but he can go only so far. He can't talk, in terms of any practical sense, about how a decision is made, because he's not part of that process. The Sergeant-at-Arms is, but—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We could have the director of PPS.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

The director of PPS is, but not the Clerk.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Isn't having the director of PPS more appropriate?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm surprised we hadn't thought of that.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

That should be the most appropriate—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

He should be there too.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Yes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

The three of them should be. In fact, by having the three, the Speaker may need to say nothing. He is there to ask a.... He is so integral to the decision.

I'm just looking at it and saying if we're going to talk about the administrative framework, about how this works, and the chain of command, that's controversial. But as for decision-makers, so far we've had just the Clerk, and he is not part of the decision-making process, so it would make sense to have the director and the Speaker there.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I appreciate where we're going. My concern is that one hour would no longer be enough if we were to have the director of PPS as well as the Speaker and the Clerk.

I would almost think we'd need the full two hours to have that discussion, because when we have the director of PPS, we're getting into fairly substantive issues of how we deal with things. I like the direction that this is going, but I suspect that one hour would be awfully tight to have a meaningful dialogue with the multiple actors in that case, because, in addition to the security apparatus and the administrative framework there, we also have the Clerk's input on privilege itself, which would be an issue as well. I would be somewhat concerned about fitting this into one hour, so perhaps we could move that.

If the committee is flexible, we could designate next Tuesday and Thursday, alternating depending on availability, two hours with the Clerk, the director of PPS, and the Speaker on one day. Then the second day, in whatever order, would be for reviewing the past circumstances, as well as the MPs who were affected. I know that logically we should have the past review first, but if we could have some flexibility to do that...or perhaps if there were a three-hour meeting on Tuesday, then we could do that in the first hour, and then in the second hour, whichever witness would fit in would perhaps be an option for the committee.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Nater, perhaps in advance of Tuesday you could speak to Ms. Raitt and Mr. Bernier to find out whether they are in fact available on Tuesday, so that we could be advised and we could have a sense.... It's difficult, because we won't have another meeting before then, but at least maybe through the clerk, they could advise us whether they will in fact be attending.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I think we can undertake that. I don't know about PROC, but I know that in other committees we have in the past had the option of video conferencing as well. That may be an option, if it's available, for the committee if these two individuals—