Evidence of meeting #96 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Duguid Liberal Winnipeg South, MB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank my colleague for his remarks.
Madam Chair, perhaps you will allow me to make a general observation. I promise I will tie it to part (a) of the amendment. Madam Chair, as you know, I am a new member of this committee.
My first observation is that this is the study that never ends, as Mr. Lauzon has suggested. There have been a lot of meetings, a lot of witnesses. There have been 17 meetings on this matter of privilege alone. If you count the foreign interference study, there have been many more. I think the witness count is 74, with many of the witnesses appearing more than once. We have been at this motion of privilege study since May, as you know.
Madam Chair, every time we think we are getting somewhere, Mr. Cooper introduces a new motion. While I love the sound of Mr. Cooper's melodious voice and I have great respect for his intellect, I have less respect for his logic and for his approach to this particular study that seems to be never-ending.
Madam Chair, I would draw your attention to the testimony of Eric Janse, acting Clerk of the House of Commons, who testified to the issue of the privilege motion. You will see this on page 30 of the report that we are trying to get to, Madam Chair. I certainly got the sense of urgency that this matter should be dealt with expeditiously.
Let me quote from his testimony. He explained that steps normally include establishing the facts of what occurred, considering whether the events represented a breach of member's privilege or a contempt of the House, and considering proposed remedies.
He went on to say that he urged members to phrase recommendations carefully if the committee chose to make a report to the House, explaining that they should be actionable and should fall squarely within the committee's mandate.
Madam Chair, as I mentioned, this really is about the privileges of all of us, but particularly of Mr. Chong and Ms. Kwan. I know they are waiting for answers and we are waiting for answers, so it is important that this committee get to solutions and to recommendations as was so strongly recommended by Eric Janse, the acting Clerk of the House of Commons.
When it comes to paragraph (a) of the motion, Madam Chair, this is obviously a partisan shot at the Prime Minister and is clearly not helpful to moving forward. I think Mr. Lauzon had some very positive recommendations on how that could be massaged and how it might be put into a more constructive form, but I would just remind all of us around the table that's what question period is for, for those more partisan elements. This committee is trying to get to the bottom of the issue of privilege so that we can protect those members I mentioned, so that we can protect ourselves and so that we can do our jobs.
I have heard Mr. Green many times being very focused on transparency and on documents, and so in the spirit of getting on with it, I think Mr. Lauzon made some useful suggestions that perhaps we could have the clerk reach out to all witnesses who agreed to provide relevant information to this committee, which has not been received and that the information could be submitted within a few weeks so that we could really get to this report, which, in my view, will need some serious work and some serious editing.
We have recommendations from eminent individuals within our public service, some very solid recommendations on how we can protect our sovereignty and how we can protect the privileges of members of Parliament.
I hope that an amendment is coming forward so that we can find some consensus and can move on.
Madam Chair, with that, I will yield the floor.
November 23rd, 2023 / 1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I am always happy to sit with my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
I want to thank you for going over what has happened. I was, unfortunately, unable to be here last Thursday.
It's tough to follow my colleagues because I'm in sort of the same vein.
Obviously, my question with respect to paragraph (a) is this: What's the goal here? If the goal is that we feel that there is documentation that was requested that has not been received and that we would like to receive before proceeding with the report, I'm fine with that.
Obviously, premising a statement with inflammatory language—taking potshots at the Prime Minister's Office, at the Liberal Party and so on—is not going to get us to where we need to be. No member of Parliament would support using inflammatory language.
If the goal is to get the documents that are outstanding—if there are, in fact, documents outstanding, and it's not clear to me that there are—I would support something along those lines. If it's something that will be helpful in terms of determining whether or not Mr. Chong's privilege was, in fact, breached, I'd welcome that.
I think I'd like to get some clarity from the clerk as to whether there are any items outstanding because if there are no items outstanding, I think that this is a moot point that we're having a discussion about.
I don't know if it would be possible for the clerk to give us an update on whether or not any documents are outstanding and, if so, what those would look like. We might be having a conversation for the sake of having a great conversation, but maybe we have already received everything. I'm not sure.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
I'll just answer that.
After a quick conversation with the clerk, I can say that, basically, witnesses who came would have undertaken to provide documents. I remember that word “undertake” very clearly, and it was repeated.
There was no list being created by the clerk to actually know what was owing, because you would think that if a witness came and undertook to provide documents, they would be provided to us in a timely way.
In that sense, that's where I think this conversation is relevant. We could go to see, or if we know what documents we think are outstanding that are not being referred to, then we can know. However, we would all know the witnesses who came. We would all know what we asked them to provide, depending on who asked them to provide it, so we would be able to get that information. We would know because if somebody was offering me information and I did not receive it—because it would be in our digital binder—I would then be able to say, “Hey, I've not seen this document. Can we follow up?” The clerk would be more than willing to do that. I think it's just sometimes a matter of reminding them.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the clarification.
Perhaps that's something we would actually put in paragraph (a). It would be removing the language that obviously none of us would support and saying, as my colleague said, to have the clerk reach out to all the witnesses who undertook to provide us information and ask them to provide that information.
If we can do a cross-reference of what was asked and what was received and then reach out and actually ask for it, I think most of us would support that. It just sounds like we need to know what's outstanding so that we can ask for it and then go from there.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
I think that's definitely food for thought.
We're currently on an amendment that would remove paragraph (a). That is what's on the floor. I hear the comments being made with regard to whether there are documents that are outstanding that would benefit the report because there was agreement that we wanted to respond to the question of privilege that was referred to here.
I would just say to members that if there is a document you're referring to that's not been received, it would be good for us to know, and that could help.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Madam Chair, in that vein, again, I don't know what my colleagues are feeling, but I understand that it was a colleague who was substituting in—replacing me, actually, I think—who moved the amendment to remove paragraph (a). There seem to be conversations that this is not something that people agree with, so I would actually ask for unanimous consent from the committee to remove that amendment and go back to the original, if that's the will of the committee. Then we can discuss amending it.
Is that procedurally better?
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
I would say that, if I don't have agreement, then I would be saying, if we can get to the end of this, we could vote on it.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Then we would see the will of the committee, and then we can get to the main motion as amended.
I'm going to—
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
I would like to explain when people are listening. There are still some side conversations going on. Maybe we could suspend. You could have those conversations. I think they could be productive.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
No, I don't want you to leave. I'm not saying it as a—
Could we suspend? We don't have all the members. I feel Mr. Cooper's motion—
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Mr. Lauzon, you're on the list. Do you want to remove yourself from the list?
