Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 9th, 2017

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

I must admit it was a bit frustrating for us because we were waiting and we could see the bus. You wonder, can we wait a little longer or will they come? They were over there so we waited and waited. I went over and asked what was happening. What they told us at that time was not decisive. They didn't know what was happening. That was the frustrating part of all that. After that we decided to walk.

We were waiting because we could see the bus and thought it would come. After two, three, four minutes, we said, okay, let's go.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Simms.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you to our guests. It's good to see you again.

I know this is very busy for you because, as your system dictates, like ours, in a leadership you pretty much have to get to all 338. So good luck. It is not easy with the point system that you have, and it calls for a lot of travel.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Yes.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

I'm listening to the conversation going on, and the one theme that seems to be coming through time and time again is uncertainty. Am I reading this correctly, that when you asked the person why are we stopped here, I really have to go to the House and why are we stopped, which is a legitimate question, it seemed to be accompanied by a shrug? It was like, oh, a motorcade. Was that the impression you had? Was it the level of uncertainty that was uncomfortable?

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Yes. They didn't know what was happening.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Right. That goes back to the situation we have now, where we have the RCMP on the outside, we have the fairly newly created PPS on the inside, and the communication back and forth. As my colleague pointed out, when I come to the House, and I want to know how much time is left, I find the most reliable person is the person who drives the bus, because they do radio in.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Yes.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

I get the feeling that our security don't have that same luxury, or at least are not informed of such, which I think is a big problem, because I think they should be in tune with it. We also have a situation now where there's a lot of stress in the system. We have a new system, and with all newness comes a level of stress. It's unprecedented. We now have someone in charge, who's from the RCMP, over a service in this House. That was never the case until two years ago. And we see a lot of new faces; a lot of new Mounties, a lot of new PPS. There are a lot of new faces, and they look pretty stressed. I think at this point that communication, that uncertainty, is probably going to get worse, if that's the case, unless we do something about how we communicate.

In the testimony that you heard earlier—I know he's acting, but obviously he has to give his best advice to the new director—what would you say to him?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

In the uncertainty piece, having gone through what we went through in 2014, your first thought is: is there something wrong on the Hill? Have they stopped the buses for a reason other than a motorcade, meaning, is something going on up there that we don't know about and therefore they're sealing the Hill off? That's a valid concern, having gone through what we went through. We were in this room when that gentleman approached. That's the first thought I had: is the Hill being shut down? Is there something wrong? Max went over and found out what it was, so that uncertainty went away.

The advice I would have is this. Yes, you are here to protect a precinct, and it does have geographical boundaries. But it also has a very unique set of circumstances in how it functions, and you should be aware of the function, and that certain functions supersede decisions that you may normally take in pursuit of security.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Do you feel they are aware?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

They had no clue there was a vote going on, and of the importance of it or if it mattered or not. Maybe they understand it's a vote, but they don't know what it means. As I said to Filomena, I think what makes sense is to have more awareness as to what it means. You're doing a great job right now, as a committee, of making sure that people are aware of it and the importance of it.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Yes, I agree, a little bit more education. I think they didn't understand the importance for us of being in Parliament at that time, so that will be important.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

And that would be your advice in this particular situation where there seems to be uncertainty. But circumstances change, too. Mr. Christopherson pointed out earlier that when we first got here in 2004, the buses did take a different route when the bells were ringing. I was in Confederation, I think you were in Confederation as well, and they would go along and just go up the west side. Now, obviously, there's a lot of construction in the way. The second element to that now is that, for lack of a better term, our buses are playing in traffic. They never did back then. Now we go out there on Wellington. We stop in front of Wellington. I don't believe we did that back then. What do we do there? That's a big problem, I think, and it just leads to the uncertainty of it.

The piece about the communication and the function of the PPS, and how it relates to our privilege, which is why you're here, I think should be addressed. The current leadership right now seems to be so new that maybe some of this should be changed. That's just my thought.

Anyway, thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

I'm not sure why we couldn't have had the bells or the lights flashing at the car wash there, so that everyone knew there was a vote coming.

Mr. Reid.

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

It's funny you say that, Mr. Chair, because the same thought had occurred to me, and in fact formed the basis of the first of my two questions. I'll first advise you that as I'm likely to be the last Conservative slot, according to the clerk, I'll divide my time with Mr. Schmale.

It occurred to me that, in the event you had known how much time you had, you might have made the decision to start walking at an earlier point in time, so I'll just ask this question of each of you. If you had just made the decision, when you got to the spot you got to, “I'm just going to walk—forget about buses”, would you have made it in time?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Yes, absolutely.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Yes, for sure.

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

All right, so effectively, the lack of knowledge about how far away the vote was, coupled with the lack of knowledge about how fast the buses were going to be, were the two things that had to happen in order to cause the MPs to stay there, thinking the buses would be faster. At each individual moment, had the buses behaved as appropriate, you would have made it.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Yes.

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

It was a bit like that nightmare where you're trying to get to an exam and you're late. Everybody's had that nightmare. It feels a bit like that.

The second thing I wanted to ask is about the RCMP. The director gave us a very long-winded answer. When I asked him whether the decision was made locally—at the car wash security point—or centrally, he basically took a long way of saying it was made centrally. It sounds like your testimony confirms that, because it appears that the people on the spot literally had no idea why they were doing what they were doing. They were waiting for an order, almost certainly.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Absolutely, yes.

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

Could I ask one last question? We didn't get a chance to ask him, but he's going to come back and we will then get a chance to ask him.

I've asked myself, why would they stop you after the bus was already through? Is it possible they were concerned about something like off-loading all the journalists and that tying up the entrance area? Could that have been it? Maybe that's not a fair question to ask.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

You know, I could never figure out why it mattered that the bus went up on the Hill, and why that would stop MPs or the buses from flowing up on the Hill. It doesn't make any sense to me at all, Scott. That was the reason given, and there was much confusion.