Evidence of meeting #144 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was point.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, the member is debating what's going on in the House, not my motion here. I ask that you keep him to the point of privilege before us.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Yes. I'm getting there.
Mr. Drouin, you are beginning to repeat yourself, not only in this round but also your previous round. I remind you as well.... Let's talk about that letter quickly. That letter responds to—
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Mr. Chair, I don't think it's up to you to defend what the letter is or not.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
It is relevant. The letter, which we've all seen, is about the production of documents.
I go back to you, Mr. Drouin.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
It's on SDTC, so it's absolutely relevant to what we are doing here, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
That's not relevant to the motion, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
It is absolutely relevant to what we are doing here, the fact that we are questioning the testimony of a witness who was previously questioned by the same Mr. Perkins—maybe it's the “other Rick Perkins” from the INDU committee—but it's the same person. I have the testimony. In fact, I'm going to read it into the record because I think it's important that we are made aware of what Mr. Perkins asked. You'll see they are the same questions—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
No. That, actually, is not in order. Each committee is independent. The business that happens in one—hold on—committee can be picked up by another, but we're completely independent here. What happens in another hall has no bearing on the work of this committee if members choose to go in a certain direction.
Ms. Khalid, you have a point of order.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
I'm sorry, Chair, but I absolutely disagree with you. I think that what happens in other committees, especially when there's so much redundancy of the work that is being done in multiple committees, absolutely has bearing.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Everything is in Hansard. It is on the record. We are able to work and share information between committees. Everything gets reported to the House of Commons, and we vote on things in the House of Commons. Of course all of our committees are interconnected and have relevancy.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Ms. Khalid, that is not a point of order. On top of that, your voting record does not reflect what you just said. You voted for this committee to go in this direction.
Go ahead, Mr. Erskine-Smith.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I have a point of order. Just for clarification, Chair, I agree, as a matter of redundancy, that it doesn't make sense to refer to another committee's proceedings because we are the masters of our own committee. I completely hear what you're saying.
However, on the core question of whether it's appropriate to bring a privilege motion when a witness hasn't fully answered a question or hasn't answered a question to our satisfaction—because my argument is certainly that this is a terrible precedent, and any number of witnesses could be accused of breaching our privilege because we don't like the answer to a question—every single parliamentary transcript of a committee is relevant for that reason if we're pointing to other answers that we might deem inadequate or that the member asking the question doesn't happen to like.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
No, we're dealing with testimony that happened in this committee.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
No, Chair, it's a question of relevancy. Our argument—my argument, certainly—is that this is a terrible precedent to set. On the basis of that, every other parliamentary transcript in which I can point to an answer that I don't like or that I think is insufficient or that the member asking the question deems to be insufficient for some reason, is relevant to the core question of this being a bad precedent to set.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
If I allow it, it's just going to reinforce, according to Mr. Drouin, that Mr. Perkins has actually given the witness opportunities, twice now, to answer the questions, but he has not, perhaps making his motion even more relevant.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Or you'll hear him answer the question and say, “I don't recall,” as he did multiple times.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, this a point of debate. It's not a point of order.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mr. Erskine-Smith, you're down to to speak in three slots.
Mr. Drouin, you have the floor again, please.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
The point is that we have the same questioner who asked the same witness at another committee.... It is relevant to this committee because that same witness called him.... I'm sorry, but he mentioned the word “amnesia” multiple times when referring to that particular witness.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
You are making his point that the witness was given multiple opportunities to answer these questions but has not done so to parliamentarians and is, therefore, subject to this motion. You are making his point that the witness keeps flouting these parliamentary committees—not one but two now.
The floor is yours.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
No. They are accusations. Mr. Chair, I'm happy to have a debate with you.
Conservative
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I thought I was having a debate with the opposition.
If you want to let go of your chair and join Mr. Cooper—