Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 28th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Unfortunately, Ms. Shanahan, you're out of time.

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Mr. Chair, I will be quick.

I just wanted to mention that, in 2015, the Quebec National Assembly made no distinction between members and employees, among other things, and everything was going very well. I think we should ask ourselves whether we should be so worried.

It seems to me that prevention is key. However, we have a code of conduct that applies to both 25-year-old and 75-year-old elected officials. For those people, what are the chances that they will experience harassment or uncomfortable situations? For the next generation, we will have to ensure that generational differences are respected and focus on prevention in that regard. What was acceptable 40 years ago may no longer be acceptable today. Something may be acceptable to me, if there is consent or we joke around, but not to people younger than me.

I find that a lot of emphasis is being placed on the member's privilege, for instance. We chose to be here and we have a role to play, as long as we abide by the code of conduct that we have established for ourselves. Personally, I am eager to see it happen, and I would like to be part of the subcommittee that will be in charge of that. As you know, I am not only an entrepreneur, but also a psychosociologist. I would be pleased to work with the Board of Internal Economy and you.

Mr. Chair, do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

You have 20 seconds left, Ms. Gaudreau.

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

Ms. Evangelidis, what do you think?

[Carolyne Evangelidis]

We understand your recommendation and we are here to support you, whether as part of a subcommittee or not. It's up to you to tell us how we should proceed going forward. We're definitely here to support you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you.

Madam Mathyssen, you have two and a half minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'll try to be brief. I have two big questions, unfortunately, within two and a half minutes.

There's a concern of mine, as we try to move forward—and maybe this would be for the subcommittee to talk about—about getting the opinions of members of Parliament on how we start to deal with these issues.

Obviously, we want that to be protected. Do you have any advice for this committee on how that could happen in terms of ensuring that even former members, members who are not reoffering and current members can be protected in terms of anonymity if we start to survey them? Is there a mechanism in place that could do that on this issue?

The other question I'll squeeze in is about witnesses. We are seeing witnesses not come forward as much at committee. We are also seeing this clipping culture, these gotcha political moments that are now turning on members of academia or those incredible stakeholders that we rely on so much. What can we do to better protect them? They are protected under privilege, yet when they leave here, their testimony is used against them to a point where they may not return, and that's really quite critical. I'd like your opinions on that.

[Eric Janse]

Maybe I'll start, and others can jump in.

In terms of a process of consulting either current or past members, certainly that's one of the tools that's available to any committee in terms of how extensive a consultation it wants to undertake. There might be a need for caucus consultations to see what each caucus has in terms of views.

Your point about witnesses is a good one. Obviously, witnesses and the testimony that they provide are key components to committee proceedings, and any actions that result in a chilling effect and that discourage them from volunteering to come before a committee to provide their advice and their expertise are certainly a preoccupation.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Do those witnesses have any redress if things happen to them in that regard?

[Eric Janse]

Not really, no.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Is there no access to parliamentary resources like we have in the same instance?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

You have just a few seconds, Mr. LeBlanc.

[Jeffrey LeBlanc]

Very quickly, we have very recently started to make some supports available to witnesses, especially witnesses who come forward. I don't know if it's necessarily the situation you're describing, but for witnesses who come forward in the context of very difficult studies, very emotional studies, where there's something very traumatic that they come to share, we've been making available to them the same sorts of supports that would be available to members or other members of the House administration. However, it's a relatively limited thing at present.

In terms of retribution, any sort of retribution against a witness for testimony they give could be punished as a breach of privilege. The expectation is that witnesses come here to share information so that Parliament can do its job, and anybody who seeks to silence them or to punish them for that is doing a disservice to Parliament and to the democratic exercise. However, how does that actually occur? What one does in order to ensure that they're protected is challenging.

What we're used to seeing are reprisals from employers—like if you are a whistle-blower and are sanctioned for coming forward—but to then be subject to attacks in the public sphere online is a different order. It's maybe not something we're as familiar with or as well equipped to deal with at the moment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. LeBlanc.

We're heading into the final two lines of questioning, which will be about 10 minutes, but I will submit now that it would be useful to the committee for our witnesses to provide written answers to anything that members may feel we didn't get the time to address substantively. We would ask witnesses for their co-operation in that matter.

We will go to Mr. Calkins for five minutes, followed by Ms. Damoff for five minutes, and that will conclude our two-hour panel this morning.

Mr. Calkins, you have five minutes.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

These fine folks here do work for Parliament, so I'm sure they would make themselves available to come back if it were deemed necessary.

A lot has been said about missing rules or regulations, gaps, etc., but I just want to get a clear state of where we actually are.

Notwithstanding the labour code issues and everything that's been brought up, we already have criminal sanctions for harassment. We have criminal sanctions for hate speech in the Criminal Code. We also have civil law dealing with libel and/or slander, which I'm not sure has been fully tested when it comes to parliamentary privilege. In the context of those provisions being there, we also have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is premised largely upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which gives us freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

At what point do we encroach on parliamentary privilege and on freedom of rights, including freedom of expression, and why aren't the other mechanisms that I talked about, the criminal sanctions and the civil sanctions, enough to govern this space?

[Eric Janse]

That's a very good question, and I think it would probably be a focus of a large part of the discussion of either this committee or a subcommittee as to definitions and boundaries. You're right. There's a lot that exists right now, but what I think we're sensing from some of the comments that have been made to date is that this is perhaps not sufficient and that there's maybe something in between that should be codified.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Perhaps. I'm not saying that.... Is it an enforcement issue? Is it a resource issue? Is it an actual lack of rules or laws issue? I guess that's the nature of my question.

[Michel Bédard]

The various instruments you refer to, the Criminal Code, libel and slander, have specific thresholds. Those thresholds that are applicable will not be the same as the one that will apply to harassment. The threshold for harassment in the workplace will be different.

You first will meet the threshold for harassment, then civil liability and then criminal liability. One thing that I will add, too, because you mentioned parliamentary privilege and that it hasn't been tested, is that even the Criminal Code makes explicit provision that the hate speech provision does not apply to words that are spoken in the chamber. It's the same thing for civil legal action taken against a member or witness for what they've said during the proceedings. It will be excluded. It will be dismissed.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I appreciate that, Michel. I really do. However, if something is spoken in the chamber, something is spoken in a committee, and it is republished on a social media platform, has that been clarified insofar as the tests of privilege and libel and/or slander?

[Michel Bédard]

This will depend on the circumstances. You're correct that there's no major ruling addressing the issue. If it's an exhaustive reproduction of parliamentary proceedings, there will be a common law protection that will apply. It will be an absolute protection. If it's only an abstract of the proceedings that are republished, that will depend on the circumstances and the intention of the person who did the replication.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Would anybody like to weigh in on the public interest that's also at stake in this conversation, about being able to disseminate information that happens during our parliamentary proceedings and whether or not we should be including the public interest in this conversation?

[Michel Bédard]

I alluded earlier to the absolute common law protections for the publishing of the entire proceedings of the House, which is based on the public interest. It's the fact that people have a public interest to know what is taking place in Parliament and in committee. It's the same thing for when it's an abstract or partial reproduction. There is an exception that is made in the law that if the person did that reproduction in good faith, there will be a protection afforded. I will say that, yes, there is a general interest for the public to see what its representatives are doing to vote laws and to make sure that the government is accountable.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

That's about it.

Thank you very much, Mr. Calkins.

Ms. Damoff, we go to you for five minutes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to talk about physical safety in constituency offices.

Recently, we got a notice from the Sergeant-at-Arms to keep our offices closed. My office is closed all the time now, except by appointment, on recommendation from the Parliamentary Protective Service. There's a sign on the door to that effect.

In particular, we got a notice a few weeks ago about axe the tax demonstrations. That was something the Leader of the Opposition had called for, for the public to go to MPs' offices to demonstrate. Then shortly afterwards, we got a notice that we're to make sure that we're vigilant and to keep the doors locked.

How dangerous is that type of call by politicians to act?

Then it results in us, as MPs, being less accessible and also putting our staff in danger in community offices.