National Defence Committee on Oct. 18th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for that.

Before we go to our final quick questions, because we have to wrap up at one o'clock, could I ask for an undertaking to have, Admiral, perhaps you or the other two gentlemen maybe submit in writing your take on the capability gap? That was a question that was asked. We can talk about that a bit more, but would you be agreeable to doing that for us?

[VAdm Drew Robertson]

Perhaps, yes, but I'd appreciate discussing it briefly after.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Yes, absolutely, we can do that after we adjourn.

Mr. Bezan, you have a couple of minutes.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I have a question of privilege that I want to raise, which will probably take up the rest of our time, so I want to thank the witnesses for attending.

I don't think they want to sit through a big debate on parliamentary procedure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Okay, but—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

No. I have the floor. I want to raise a question of privilege.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

All right.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I do this with a great deal of regret that I have to raise a question of privilege at committee. I want the committee to work. I want us to find consensus and to be able to work constructively. But there have been a few things that have happened recently that I want to raise as things that I feel are moved by certain individuals to intimidate us as the opposition carrying out our role here.

Page 83 of O'Brien and Bosc says that the “assaulting, threatening, obstructing or intimidating a Member or officer of the House in the discharge of their duties” would be considered contempt.

I do want to raise these points, and as you know, as Chair, you can't rule on this, but we can make a decision as a committee on whether or not we report this back to the House.

Just bear with me as I go through the process. I don't want to go back and revisit what was clearly laid out in our report tabled in September, which dealt with the breach of privilege that happened here at committee. That's outlined on page 75 and 76.

I do want to say that the one thing we didn't address after that is that those of us on the Conservative side did go and read the blues of the meeting where the report was finalized, and we can say that we found some of the comments made, by particularly you, Mr. Chair, were not at all glowing in any way, shape, or form. We found things that we felt, as opposition members, were destructive to the overall attitude and tenor that we have here and the demeanour with which we should be conducting ourselves as committee members. But since it was done in camera, we can't discuss in public what was said.

I want to go on to talk about a couple of things. First of all, if you look at the last formal meeting, which was on September 29, you'll see we had the substitute parliamentary secretary Leona Alleslev, who is a parliamentary secretary. I raised the point during that meeting that it is against what the mandate letter to the government House leader says.

This is actually a letter from the Prime Minister, and I realize this hasn't been reflected in the Standing Orders yet, but there is a letter from the Prime Minister to the government House leader that says:

Strengthening Parliamentary committees so that they can better scrutinize legislation. This includes: ensuring that Parliamentary committees are properly resourced to bring in expert witnesses and are sufficiently staffed to continue to provide reliable, non-partisan research; strengthening the role of Parliamentary committee chairs, including elections by secret ballot; and changing the rules so that ministers and parliamentary secretaries no longer have a vote on committees.

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

How is that a question of privilege?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

You do have to get to a point, James. You have to actually cite a rule, a committee rule, that's been violated, and you just admitted there isn't one. So—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I believe that I've been intimidated here, and that is a breach of privilege. Let me lay the situation out on the floor. And as you know, we did conduct committee business in camera at the end of the meeting, and again, this particular parliamentary secretary, in the mandate letter to Minister Foote says that—and of course she represents the minister. It says in their mandate letters that we will work with the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, to launch an open and transparent competition to replace the CF-18 fighter aircraft—

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

You need to cite the rule that was broken, James.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

According to page 1050, in chapter 20, when we start doing questions of privilege, we are to “clearly describe the situation”, “summarize the facts”, “provide the names of the people involved”—I'm providing the names of the people and the action they took, which I felt was intimidation—and state why there is a “breach of privilege”. I am doing that. I respectfully asked that my colleagues allow me to put this on the table so that I can clearly show that there is intimidation going on here.

I'll just say that the parliamentary secretary is very closely tied to this committee, and that the mandate letter from the Prime Minister says they should not be participating in committees. When we have a committee that deals with things like national shipbuilding and the replacement of our CF-18s, which are clearly in that minister's mandate letter, it does raise an issue.

There is one final thing that I wish to raise. I realize that as Chair you have the right to speak on behalf of the committee to the media; however, when you tweet—and this was just brought to my attention, though it goes back to September 20—to Lee Berthiaume that you “could have taken JB”—meaning me—“2 task on his other claims 'tyranny' Really? His words don't support that". This, to me, demonstrates that you're trying to intimidate me. You did it publicly, and it's on the record, so that's something we all can see.

All of you who know me realize I'm no shrinking violet. I'm very tough to intimidate. I do believe, though, that this is an attempt to quash the opinions of the opposition members of this committee, and it's being done systematically. I'm not sure where the “sunny ways” are that was talked about a year ago after the election, but I can tell you it's pretty cloudy days over here.

I would move the motion that there is a prima facie case of privilege in trying to intimidate members of the opposition, and that we report this back to the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Is there any discussion?

[An hon. member]

It's not discussion. You can't go....

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'll suspend for two minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

The clerk just concurred with my options. Based on what you described, and what we were all here for when the previous...First of all, the parliamentary secretary was here. There is no rule that says she can't be here. She can't be a parliamentary secretary on her particular committee. She's a parliamentary secretary for a different department from the one this committee is considering. There's no rule saying this can't be the case. I don't think that's intimidating, I don't.

With regard to my tweet, I also don't think that's intimidating, James.

You have some options, but I'm not willing to move forward with your claim.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

In that case, I challenge the ruling of the chair.

I'd like a recorded vote, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

He's challenged it. The question is whether the chair's decision should be sustained.

We're going to vote to sustain my decision to not call this a breach of privilege.

There's no debate here, so all in favour of—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I want it recorded, please.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Philippe Grenier-Michaud]

I will have to call a recorded vote.

[Ruling of the chair sustained: yeas 5; nays 3]

[An hon. member]

I move to adjourn, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

The meeting is adjourned.