Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 13th, 2024

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

He requested House permission for the Prime Minister to receive President Zelenskyy.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Yes, that's right.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

So—

I'm afraid I've run out of speaking time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Excellent. The time is up. The time has come to an end. It was a very exciting five minutes and 30 seconds.

Mr. Lauzon, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here, Mr. MacKinnon. It's always a pleasure to see you.

You've explained the situation very well. You even quoted what the Speaker of the House said with respect to his intentions and his answers.

Thank you again for reminding us of our firm support for Ukraine.

I believe the message to be learned today is that a solution needs to be found to prevent any similar situations from ever occurring in the House of Commons.

I'd like to begin by talking about the role of whip that you held at the time of this incident.

As we know, the government has to follow a process with respect to protocol. This has been clearly explained by the many witnesses we heard from earlier.

At what point did you have to intervene directly in the protocol process surrounding a joint address? Earlier, you were about to give an answer, saying that you had wanted to please your colleagues by offering them seats, but that the number of seats was limited.

Tell me about your role and what limits there are in this joint address process, by which I mean having senators in attendance.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you very much for the question.

I'll be happy to discuss this with you, Mr.Lauzon.

I can confirm that there are very few seats in the House of Commons gallery. Some seats for guests are made available by the official opposition, the Bloc Québecois and the New Democratic Party. Some may even be made available by independent members and the Green Party, but I'm not sure about that.

I've always been told that for an event like Mr. Zelenskyy's address, the allocation of seats for the government was generally prorated on the basis of the number of seats held by members in the House of Commons. Once again, I presume this is still the case. The allocation of seats for government guests naturally includes diplomats and a number of other people who are required to attend because of their role or official duties, which limits the number of seats for other guests.

Our Liberal colleagues have often told me that a typical opposition MP was more likely to be able to invite someone to attend these events than a government MP because of the limited number of seats available to all the parties.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Concretely, your role was limited to that.

Let's discuss this notorious list, which all the previous witnesses were talking about. The list was supposedly supplied by the Speaker of the House, and then passed on to the security team for verification.

Did you have a role to play there? Were you given the list so that you could comment on it or work with the protocol team?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I never saw any such list. I don't think that's how it works.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

In that case, can you tell me whether you played a role in submitting the guest list. The list, which you didn't see, was submitted in compliance with a security protocol. In any event, you had a role to play in terms of security. Did you or your team of deputy whips skip any of the steps in the security protocol for this list?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

No, I didn't play a role in that.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Mr. MacKinnon, we deplore the whole situation that we went through in the House of Commons. It's something parliamentarians should never experience in their political career. When you get up in the morning, you hope not to have to go through anything like that. It's hard to take pride in our country when things like that happen, and we're not proud about what's going on in the world today, as you pointed out so clearly.

However, some people want to take advantage of the situation, and that's lamentable. Some comments about our government's poor handling of communications are being heard from as far away as Vladimir Putin, in Russia.

When an incident like this is used for political purposes, what are the potential international impacts?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I would say that there was a much greater impact when one party in the House of Commons refused to approve or support free trade agreements with Ukraine. That's how I see the situation. It casts doubt on Canada's full and unanimous support of Ukraine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. Gaudreau, it' over to you now for two and a half minutes.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I'd like to get back to that infamous guest list.

My political party's whip was well aware of the list.

My understanding is that the list came from the Prime Minister's Office. you may not have seen it, but there was such a list. Wasn't it the Prime Minister's Office that prepared the guest list?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I don't know who prepared the list. My understanding, and I believe this has been confirmed by the testimony here today, is that it happened outside of all that. The whips, including Ms. DeBellefeuille, are not involved.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

If it wasn't the Prime Minister's office, where did it come from?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

If I'm not mistaken, the protocol office handles submissions or lists.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Do the protocol office representatives speak to the representatives of the Speaker's office or the Prime Minister's Office?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

You'll have an opportunity to ask the protocol office officials directly.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

On the other hand, there something I don't know—

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

You can tell me what they have to say.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I have only two minutes of speaking time left.

As I was explaining earlier, when you're at fault, you should accept responsibility and resign. That's not what happened. There was a gap from September 22 to September 26. I wasn't there, but I would have liked to have been there to hear what was said.

You were there, along with the government House leader. What happened? what was said? Was there an attempt to save the Speaker?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I think that what happened in private is exactly what happened in public, Ms. Gaudreau.

I'd like to, if you wish, take this opportunity to say a few words about Mr. Rota. Although he acknowledged his error and accepted full responsibility, I'd like to say to the committee that Mr. Rota is an honourable man. He served his country and his fellow citizens well. I think that we are currently being overly harsh in blaming someone who made a human error, and who definitely paid the price dearly. Mr. Rota will have to live with this for a long time.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's why we're here.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Indeed. But, don't you find that we're being a little fierce?