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

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mr. Julian, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It is important to note that the issue is not the banner that was put in the video, it is the fact that the Speaker of the House was wearing his robes and was in his office. That is what brings us to this meeting, at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, to examine the facts and get answers. Some answers have satisfied me, but others have not at all. I hope we will obtain all the documents that are needed in order for the committee to be able to make the decisions that are required in the next few hours.

Mr. Tunstall, you're part of this process of getting information. I wanted to understand what the vetting process is for videos that are broadcast through the Ontario Liberal Party convention. Obviously, there is a whole series of things that need to be checked. Videos don't go out on their own, so what was the vetting process to ensure that the videos produced for the convention didn't contravene any rules or cause any offence?

[Simon Tunstall]

Thank you for the question. I think there are three relatively quick parts to that.

One, there's an element of trust that the people around John Fraser.... They were giving us videos, and the four leadership candidates were providing videos, and any other content was coming from good sources.

Two, there was a team of volunteers who were reviewing the videos. I believe they all came in within a day or two or three, right before the event. I was preoccupied with other components of the event.

Three, I think the main interest in reviewing the videos would have actually been more from an audiovisual technical perspective than a content perspective, because all these videos, whether they were coming from leadership candidates or supporters and friends of John Fraser, were all coming from friendly sources.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

There was a team that was checking and vetting the videos. Is that a group that would have reported to you in some way? At any point did they flag concerns about the House of Commons Speaker appearing in a video at a partisan event wearing the robes of the Speaker in the Speaker's chambers?

[Simon Tunstall]

I was not aware that there was a video from the Speaker until after it had aired. An hour or two later, somebody mentioned it to me.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Okay, so that wasn't communicated to you. Obviously it doesn't seem to have been part of the vetting process.

You've been executive director for the Ontario Liberal Party on two occasions. Is that correct?

[Simon Tunstall]

Yes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Part of your job is to ensure that party materials don't contravene parliamentary legislative rules. Queen's Park has rules in the same way that the B.C. legislature has rules, in the same way that the House of Commons has rules.

When you were Ontario Liberal Party executive director, how did you ensure that there wasn't an improper use of resources for the Ontario Liberal Party, resources that were public in nature, for example, having the Speaker of the Ontario legislature appearing at a partisan Ontario Liberal Party event?

[Simon Tunstall]

There's no short answer to questions like these.

Essentially, any political party—and I think ours is not alone—is made up of some staff and a large number of volunteers. Depending on what is taking place and the event, there's involvement from many different people. It varies from situation to situation. I don't think there's one simple answer to that question.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

In the same way, if the Ontario Liberal Party's not in power—the current governing party in Ontario is the Conservative Party—and the Speaker of the Ontario legislature appeared at an Ontario Conservative convention wearing his robes of office in the Speaker's chambers, what would be the reaction of the Ontario Liberal Party and the caucus?

[Simon Tunstall]

That's a great question.

I apologize. This is going to sound flippant, but I think that's a question for the caucus and not for me.

I apologize for how that answer comes across.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

As former executive director, you would have been in a situation where you were watching out for that. You'd want to make sure that the public resources weren't going to partisan purposes.

Is that not one of the functions that you had when you were executive director?

[Simon Tunstall]

Yes, there is an element, I think, in any political party of making sure the line is drawn in the right place between government resources and political party resources.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

We will now have a really quick—it will not be a full second round because we do have to end this meeting by 1:30.

Mr. Duncan, you have up to five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will just say that I am disappointed by the lack of information provided by the Ontario Liberal Party today and the lack of respect, frankly, especially knowing the tight time frames that our committee is under.

The Ontario Liberal Party has had four days since Thursday, when we passed the motion here at committee, at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, to have someone appear regarding the leadership announcement event by the Ontario Liberal Party.

Mr. Tunstall, you were the one offered by the party. What was frustrating this morning was that you're not new to politics. You've served as executive director of the party multiple times, and you've been involved in politics and in public life as a staff member for many years.

We got a letter from the legal counsel of the Ontario Liberal Party this morning. It goes through a bunch of reasons as to why you're not an appropriate witness, after the party offered you to come here today. The only thing they offer at the end here is, “Mr. Tunstall would beg for the Committee’s indulgence and be excused from making an appearance.” They didn't offer an alternative to say, “Okay, here's somebody we can provide who would know information”.

The legal counsel, I'm sure, and I'm sure you and others in the Ontario Liberal Party.... We're now nearly five hours into committee testimony here today. We've asked for the production of documents multiple times, and to have to go back to legal counsel at this point.... Legal counsel had no problem sending us a letter over the weekend begging for you not to appear, but you had no time to offer to get an answer about document production or provide some assurances of what happened. You say how it innocent it was, but nothing is provided.

It is extremely frustrating, and what I'll do here is ask for unanimous consent, Madam Chair, to do the same thing that we did for the production of documents from the clerk this morning during Mr. Fergus's testimony with his team. We all agreed by unanimous consent for a similar set of documents.

I will ask for unanimous consent that an order do issue to the Ontario Liberal Party for all copies of emails, memoranda, records of communications, including text messages and instant messaging application messages, or any other documents that are under the party's control concerning the Speaker’s tributes to the former interim leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, provided that those be deposited with the clerk of the committee no later than 5 p.m. today.

I will just say that there's no reason why any of that should be a surprise. They've known for four days at the party, and they should have known that this request was coming.

I will ask for unanimous consent on that, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Do we have unanimous consent?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I have a question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Do I have unanimous consent, yes or no?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I can't answer that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

There we go. There's no UC.

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

That's telling right there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I have a really serious role in front of me, and I take it seriously. I am really trying to get to the crux of the question of privilege that's come here.

I do not like this, in a sense, culture we're creating, where the House sends us work to do and we cannot get to it. We have had conversations in camera. I think there's a little bit of cuteness being displayed, because people know that my hands are tied and I can't talk about certain things. We know the conversations we've had. We know the timeline we have.

With that, Mr. Duncan, you have a minute left, if you would like it, for questions and comments to the witness. Otherwise, I'd like to move on.

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

I would like to move the motion. I asked for unanimous consent and was denied that, so I'd like to move the motion that I had translated and can provide to the clerk.

I move:

That an Order do issue to the Ontario Liberal Party for all copies of emails, memoranda, records of communications (including text messages and instant messaging application messages) or any other documents, which are under the Party's control, concerning the Speaker's tributes to the former Interim Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, provided that these be deposited with the Clerk of the Committee no later than 5 p.m. today.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I guess we'll have to suspend until we get that. I need—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

We are suspending until that is received. If it's not received by 1:30, we will be coming back at 3:30 for the report, because that is what that business is.

Actually, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.