Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'd like to express my support right away for the motion that was tabled by my colleague Mr. Calkins.
Without rereading it in its entirety, I'd like to come back to its main elements and explain why it's important.
Remember that this all stems from the study we're conducting on the event that took place here in the House of Commons. It appears that another event to which the same individual was invited took place during the same period.
The wording of the motion begins as follows:
That, given that on September 19, 2023, the Prime Minister invited Yaroslav Hunka to attend his exclusive reception with the President of Ukraine in Toronto on September 22, 2023…
In his motion, Mr. Calkins is obviously talking about the damage and international embarrassment resulting from the honour that was bestowed on Yaroslav Hunka here. It's an embarrassment that could have been avoided if the Prime Minister's Office had done its due diligence in checking the guest list it had sent to the Office of Protocol of Canada.
It even states in the motion that neither the Prime Minister nor any member of his cabinet has yet apologized for this invitation. Therefore, we ask to be given the opportunity to speak about it.
This week, we held a meeting. As you can see, Madam Chair, we made several attempts to ask questions about the Toronto event. The representatives of the government party were quick to raise a point of order and tell us that our questions were out of order and not specifically related to the motion under discussion. You responded to their opposition by asking Mr. Duncan, who was present at the time, to return to the subject at hand, namely Mr. Hunka's presence in the House.
The two events are so intertwined that, when I had the opportunity to question the protocol officer, he himself started talking about the Toronto event. From then on, I was able to continue asking my questions.
Then the point of order was raised again by our Liberal colleagues, asking you to call us to order. However, as you quite rightly pointed out, I was able to continue on the subject since it had been addressed by the witness himself. Unfortunately, I was coming to the very end of my turn to speak.
This leads me to tell you that I had several questions to ask regarding the link between the two events. Unfortunately, if we keep going the way we're going, we won't be able to ask these questions. We weren't able to ask them of the protocol officer, and we won't be able to ask questions related to the Toronto event because every time we do, a representative from the government side raises a point of order saying they're out of order.
However, we can't treat these two events, which took place within hours of each other, as if they were unrelated. We absolutely must be able to make connections. It's not true that the lists haven't been released or that we can't get answers.
What we wanted to know about Mr. Hunka's presence is: Why was he invited to this exclusive reception with the President of Ukraine in Toronto?
We know that a guest list was provided by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. Again, is it normal not to check a list of 1,000 people? We could have asked. Unfortunately, we were prevented from pursuing the matter further.
Does Canada's Office of Protocol, which I'll talk about later, have some role to play in conducting background checks on people invited to events requested by the Prime Minister?
I don't know the answer, because I didn't get to ask the question. However, if the answer is yes, couldn't we borrow the process followed by the Office of Protocol and apply it to invitations issued by the House of Commons?
Are there any differences between the two protocol offices, which must act in concert when it comes to events taking place in Parliament and must otherwise act completely independently? After the meeting, which was unfortunately not public, I had the opportunity to speak with the Chief of Protocol. He explained to me that the Office of Protocol of Canada was called upon for all events, without exception, where diplomats or foreigners were expected, or for any event requiring, in one way or another, protocol activities. This is normal.
On the other hand, this does not apply to protocol activities organized by the House of Commons, which are automatically excluded because this is another area of jurisdiction. This is not a problem. Indeed, we don't want the government's protocol office to handle House of Commons protocol, because we don't want to see the government tinting or colouring the activities of the House of Commons, which is non-partisan by nature and allows every party to be present.
We can still wonder if the Office of Protocol of Canada could have helped us by using the event in Toronto, giving us examples of how it unfolded and letting us know exactly how we could have handled the situation.
Could the folks at Canada's Office of Protocol tell us how they receive these lists and manage the invitations? After the meeting, I also had the opportunity to ask a question that I wouldn't have been able to ask during the meeting, since, as I recall, it wasn't public. My question was about how people are received, who is responsible for making sure that the person coming to the event has their invitation, that it's really the person who's been invited, and so on. This is the responsibility of the Office of Protocol of Canada for all other events. Here, however, our way of operating is different.
There are a lot of very pertinent questions that could be asked, in my opinion, so that we can get to the bottom of this and come up with a report that includes not only answers, but above all, ways of proceeding so that an incident of this kind doesn't happen again.
As you know, I receive comments at least once a week about the fact that we honoured this person in the Speaker's gallery. I'm not going to quote the content of those comments. I think all the members here have received them. I'm still receiving them, even though it's been several months since the incident. We have no choice but to act responsibly.
We can't close our eyes, put on blinders and consider only what happened here, without taking into account the other event, which happened almost at the same time and involved two completely different protocol services. I absolutely want to know the difference between them. I want to be able to ask questions about this incident so that I can put these events into context.
The Office of Protocol of Canada organizes a very large number of events, many more than the Parliamentary Protocol Service. This is to be expected. Canada is a vast country, with events taking place all over the country and guests attending. For example, today we met people from the Parliamentary Protective Service who were preparing for the visit of the French Prime Minister. For its part, the Office of Protocol of Canada had to manage the rest of the visit across the country, which is no mean feat. It's a useful experience, and one we need to address here.
For all these reasons, we need to be able to ask questions about the Toronto event, because it involves the same individual. Even though he declined the invitation, he was invited. I want to know how the process went in the case of that invitation, how far it went, why, who was involved, and so on. The question arises here too.
The second part of the motion refers to Mr. Rota, for whom I have a great deal of respect. He accepted responsibility for this unfortunate event. He subsequently resigned. It's quite rare for someone to resign following a mistake. Since 2015, it hasn't happened very often. It could also be for reasons we don't know. Indeed, we haven't had the opportunity to ask him about it.
Since the beginning of the study, everyone has been beating about the bush. We're trying to get answers from the Prime Minister's Office and the Office of Protocol. We want to know how the invitation was made and transmitted.
We received a letter from Mr. Rota, who assumed his responsibility in a very dignified manner, to say the least. That said, Mr. Rota has the answers to many of our questions.
As I said, I personally received reprimands in connection with this event, and still do. Mr. Rota could explain things to us. He could give us the last word on the situation or tell us something else. We need to ask him questions and give him the opportunity to defend his reputation. Maybe that's what Mr. Rota will do, but I don't know, because we haven't had a chance to ask him any questions. How did things unfold? How did Mr. Rota pass on the invitation? How did he find out about Mr. Hunka? When did he decide to pay tribute to him? Who wrote his speech? How was the speech written? Did he submit this information to the Prime Minister's Office?
It has to be said that this was an important visit, especially in the context of the conflict with Russia. One thing's for sure, though: the government stumbled. In fact, if it wasn't aware of every step and every second of Mr. Zelenskyy's visit, it blundered. If it was aware, then there's a lack of due diligence regarding the guest.
On several occasions, we tried to get answers from several witnesses. Unfortunately, it seems that until we hear, first-hand, the comments of the former Speaker of the House of Commons, that is, Mr. Rota, we won't be able to get answers to these questions.
Mr. Rota and his team—
