That's correct.
Evidence of meeting #145 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 parliamentary.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #145 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 parliamentary.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
There have been government entities that have provided documents with redactions or that they had withheld, yes.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Does that include the Department of Industry, on the point of withholding documents?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
In relation to each department, I would rather prefer....
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Okay. Is the Department of Industry withholding or, rather, redacting documents on the basis of the Privacy Act?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
I will have to check for a specific case. It's all in my reports.
The grounds for redactions or for having withheld documents is always either the Access to Information Act or the Privacy Act or solicitor-client privilege.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
You have confirmed that the House order supersedes all of those bases. Is that correct?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
That's correct. The House order, contrary to some orders in the past, does not contemplate any redactions to be made to the documents.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
What about cabinet confidence? Has that been asserted at any point?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Yes, that has been asserted, and that's also a ground in the Access to Information Act. When I refer to the Access to Information Act, that also included cabinet confidences.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Would it be accurate to say that the Department of Industry has asserted it on the basis of the cabinet confidence that the minister has?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Again, I'm reluctant to comment on any specific department in particular, but generally, yes.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Okay, I understand. Thank you for that.
Would it be fair to say that ministers of the Crown are ultimately accountable to Parliament with regard to compliance by their department with respect to any order of the House?
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Thank you for that, Mr. Bédard, because what we have is a Minister of Industry who claims that he is interested in getting to the bottom of corruption at SDTC, yet contrary to what Minister Champagne has asserted and what you have confirmed, Mr. Bédard, he has invoked cabinet confidence to protect himself from issues of corruption at SDTC and is running interference, blocking the production of documents and obstructing a parliamentary order that is specifically designed to get to the bottom of corruption at SDTC.
The minister is doing exactly the opposite of what he asserted. It begs the question: What is he hiding?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much.
Up next is Ms. Khalid. You have the floor for five minutes, please.
October 21st, 2024 / 12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Bédard, for being here today.
I really appreciated the soliloquy by my colleague there, though none of it is true, but I do have some quotes from people that I want to run by you.
Former senior parliamentary counsel for the House of Commons Steven Chaplin stated that the June 10 order was “both 'completely unprecedented' and a likely abuse of Parliament's powers”, that “the House of Commons is simply acting as a 'mailbox' for the police force, which is not one of its duties”, and that “It is not a parliamentary or constitutional function of Parliament to help the police.”
In the same vein, former RCMP deputy commissioner Pierre-Yves Bourduas also commented that we all know that “the rule of law is predicated upon a separation between what [Parliament is] doing and what law enforcement agencies are doing, in this case, the RCMP.”
Would you agree with those statements?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Under the.... I mentioned parliamentary privilege earlier, and the reason for parliamentary privilege is to allow the House and its committees to—
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Let me rephrase that a little bit: Do you share the same sentiments that are being conveyed by these two very senior people within our institutions?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
I will answer the question the best I can.
You referred to documents that express opinions. I can offer my opinions to the committee, if it's the will of the member, respecting the issues you have raised.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
The parliamentary privilege, whether it is to send for records and papers, to compel the production of documents or to send for witnesses, exists to support the function of the House as the grand inquest of the nation and the investigative power function of the House of Commons and its committees.
Other parliamentary privilege exists to protect the House and its members from outside interference. Parliamentary privilege does not exist so that the House can assist outside powers like the judiciary or police forces to conduct their functions. As I stated, as a matter of parliamentary law, when witnesses testify before committees or when submissions or documents are produced, there is immunity protecting the witnesses, and these proceedings are not admissible before a court of law.
Traditionally, there is always a separation between various powers in Canada. I think this very committee set the gold standard about 20 years ago when, during the sponsorship scandal, there was one witness who was called upon to testify before the committee while there was also a police investigation into that person. The committee, so as to not interfere with the police investigation, decided to hold the meeting in camera for the very reason that they did not want to interfere with the police investigation, and it kept those proceedings in camera for a number of years so as not to interfere with the investigation.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you for that.
I believe it was Mr. Chaplin who also said, “I think that the House has really overstepped here, and it raises a number of constitutional issues.” I know that you spoke about this a little bit earlier, but I would like you to talk more about the constitutional implications of this unprecedented move by the opposition in Parliament?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Without suggesting that I agree with the comment or the blog that you have just referred to, I alluded earlier to certain issues that have been raised.
There have been charter issues raised by the RCMP as well as the Auditor General. I earlier, during this testimony, raised that as a matter of parliamentary law, it's doubtful that these documents could be used as evidence before courts of law.