Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 11th, 2023

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I can't answer that question, but I've always said that I'm a person who tries to do his best. I think my record is very positive. There have been times in my life when I lacked judgment. When those things happen, I acknowledge my mistake, I admit it, and I apologize for it, in addition to taking action to ensure that kind of thing won't happen again.

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

The problem, Mr. Fergus, is that you acknowledge your wrongs, but then you repeat them.

I would like to translate a statement that you made when you were found guilty of a lack of ethics on February 14, 2023, not long ago. You essentially said that you would redouble your efforts to be more diligent in the future to ensure that you fully meet your obligations under the act. You also said that you hadn't done what was expected of you as a parliamentary secretary.

That was in February of this year. Here we are, less than a year later, once again assessing and discussing your judgment. For members of Parliament, the Speaker is the person who must fairly adjudicate debates and require members to apologize when they retake the floor. Consequently, we may seriously challenge your ability to make decisions that show good judgment.

The clerk of the House was very clear this morning. If you had consulted him, if you had the judgment to consult the clerk, he would've recommended that you not make the video, that you not dress in the Speaker's robes and that you not discuss your Liberal past at an official event in Washington. That seems quite clear.

Despite the fact that you had previously undergone a similar process, you did it again. Mr. Fergus, it's very hard to accept from a Speaker who aspires to be an arbiter, as my colleague mentioned, that you currently think an apology will be enough to erase that act. I turn the floor over to you.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I am certain that apologies are not enough. There also have to be concrete actions.

After the ethics commissioner intervened with regard to a letter I had written for a group of individuals who had no connection with me, I put a process in place so that every letter that leaves my office to request a service from a department or to request something from the Department of Immigration goes through the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, who will assess it.

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

We are talking about the present situation, Mr. Speaker.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Since you raised this point, I just wanted to reply that I had taken steps to make sure that...

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

Why is it always after showing a lack of judgment that you apologize and take measures to ensure that you do not do the same thing again?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

It is extremely important to apologize after showing a lack of judgment or making a mistake. When you do things right, you do not need to apologize. The only reason we are here is that out of the thousands of decisions I make, I made this mistake. That is why I admit it and I apologize. I have taken steps to make sure this kind of mistake does not happen again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. Romanado, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the Speaker of the House of Commons for being here.

I just want to clarify some points, Mr. Fergus.

You mentioned your office received a call from a family member of Mr. Fraser on Monday, November 27, asking for a private video, an homage to a friend, that would be played in a private setting on Friday, December 1. We're talking Monday to Friday of that week. It's a 105-second video that was shot at some point during the week. Do you recall what day you filmed that?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

It was shot on the day that I was made aware of the request. It was on Thursday. I believe that was November 30.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

As you know, Mr. Speaker, when we do professional videos, whether it be the CPAC video or so on, we go to a studio, and we have our little name on the bottom. That's an official video that we do, which we have time to prepare a speech for and so on. Based on this, the request came in. You literally had between two meetings. It's pretty obvious, because of the quality of the video, that you had a staffer do it. You were between meetings. You had your robe on, did the video and went on to the next meeting.

While you acknowledge, and we all acknowledge, that it was an improper use of your role as Speaker to film that video, it's clear there was no intent here to create an official Speaker video for this occasion. Is that correct?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

You are correct. There was no intent to create an official Speaker video. There was no intent to make a video that would be aired publicly, and certainly there was no intent for a video to be played at a political convention. That was a complete surprise to me, but the error still is mine. The error still is mine. I should not have recorded that video in the first place.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Mr. Fergus, before you were even asked to come to PROC, you mentioned that you've put in protocols to make sure that any request, whether it be for letters of support, whether it be for videos, whether it be for something in your capacity as Speaker or a member of Parliament.... You've put protocols into your office so that going forward the grid for decision-making will assist you to ensure that you—but also future Speakers—would not make the same mistake. Is that correct?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

That is absolutely correct.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

With respect to when a Speaker is normally elected, we all know that normally what would happen is that there would be an election, and after the House is dissolved, people would be campaigning to be Speaker and so on and so forth. After a general election, the first order of business is to elect a Speaker.

In your case, it literally was because of the resignation of the former Speaker. Normally, there would have been a kind of cooling-off period in terms of your having time to campaign to be Speaker and so on and so forth. In your case, that was not the case.

In terms of recommendations, we heard from the Clerk this morning about perhaps beefing up some of the briefings and recommendations to train new Speakers on the dos and don'ts of being a Speaker. Is there any recommendation you would also put forward, given this lesson learned, that you think we should also recommend to the House?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

The Clerk brought up an excellent suggestion to beef up the aspects on the briefing and the briefing binder that are provided to the Speaker and to make sure that protocols are put in place so that any outside communication from the Speaker would run through the system. This is what we're putting in place right now.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Perfect.

Mr. Speaker, you're probably not aware of it, but late last night, many members of PROC received letters supporting you in your role as Speaker. In fact, I believe at 10 a.m., the West Island Black Community Association was holding a press conference in Quebec supporting you and acknowledging that you made a mistake.

I don't know about you, but I think every single one of us in this room has made a mistake in their lives. It's what we do with it. We apologize. We learn from it, and we move on.

I want to personally convey to you that you have people supporting you who have written to all of us to say that you are new and that we all make mistakes. It's time to acknowledge you made a mistake. You've apologized for that mistake. We're going to put remedies in place.

I want to thank you and let you know there is support out there for the role model you are being for young Black Canadians. I want to thank you for that.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Madam Chair, through you, I'd like to thank Mrs. Romanado. I was not aware of that letter. I'm very grateful for that.

I hope all Canadians can understand that if you do make an error, you can show some contrition, have a real soul-searching view and put in place processes to make sure it doesn't happen again. You can still make big mistakes, and you can still have an opportunity to move on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

We're now going to our third round, which will be a six-minute round.

The first person to have the floor will be Mr. Scheer, followed by...

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

I'm wondering, in reference to Mrs. Romanado's comments.... She referenced some emails we received last night, including the members of PROC in their personal parliamentary emails. I'm looking for unanimous consent to table those two letters that were provided to us by email last night. Also, I would include in that a copy of the metadata from both of those. When you open the Microsoft Word document, you can actually see who the original authors of those two were.

Along with each, I'd like to table not only the letters but also the names of the authors of each letter. One letter, dated yesterday, came from Liberal-appointed Senator Andrew Cardozo. With the second letter, I'd like to table not only the letter but also the metadata that shows the author of that original letter, who is former Liberal member of Parliament Frank Baylis.

I'd ask for unanimous consent that those full documents be tabled with the committee, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I don't think there are any concerns. I will be going through documents at the end.

To remedy this, are we fine with that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

We welcome them to the digital binder.

With that, we will be going into a six-minute round with Mr. Scheer, followed by Mr. Duguid, Madame DeBellefeuille and Monsieur Julian.

Mr. Scheer, go ahead for six minutes.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Madam Chair, I have a point of order, before you start my timer.

Is it possible for me to share my time with Mr. Calkins?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

You can pass the floor as you please, as long as you stay within your six minutes.