Debates of Dec. 9th, 1998

Export Of Water

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we recently learned that a coalition is calling on the federal government to introduce a bill prohibiting the export of water from Canada.

Since water management comes under provincial jurisdiction, will the minister promise to obtain the approval of the provinces before passing any legislation with respect to the export of this resource?

[Christine Stewart, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of the export of fresh water is a joint responsibility, a responsibility of the federal government and the provinces. That is why the federal government has been in discussions and negotiations with the provinces and the territories, to discuss what is the best way for Canada in all of its jurisdictions to protect its fresh water.

Fisheries

[Rick Laliberte, NDP, Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker,

A major industry surrounding our freshwater lakes and rivers is the inland freshwater fisheries. The inland fisheries have been a dignified and honourable way of life. There has been a growing dichotomy between the northern freshwater fishers and the marketing board arrangements.

Will the minister of fisheries confirm and clarify his statement that if any new arrangements are to be considered, they must clearly show benefits and have the support of the fishers and the provincial governments?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is well aware the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans has done a study and has made recommendations relative to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board and his statement stands true. He is interested in doing things that are in the interests of fishermen and communities.

Foreign Affairs

[Sarmite Bulte, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

On Monday, December 7, 1998, this House passed Bill S-21, the corruption of foreign officials act. Will the parliamentary secretary please explain the international importance of Canada's speedy adoption of this bill?

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to thank my colleague for her ongoing contribution to the subject of foreign affairs.

In 1997 the Prime Minister made a commitment that the OECD convention on the corruption and bribery of foreign officials would be ratified in this House. Thanks to the co-operation of members of all parties, this bill has been passed into law. Canada is one of five OECD countries necessary to make this convention law.

Aboriginal Affairs

[Mike Scott, Reform, Skeena, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we will try again with the minister.

The minister will know that the B.C. Liberal Party and the Fishery Survival Coalition have launched a constitutional challenge to the Nisga'a agreement in court. The minister tells us that she is not prepared to talk about this matter because it is before the courts.

I would like to know from the minister, will she commit here and now to putting the ratification process on hold until the courts have ruled on this very crucial issue?

[Jane Stewart, Liberal, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, those who are before the courts challenging the Nisga'a agreement on constitutional issues say that it changes the Constitution. The view of this government and of eminent constitutional experts is that this is not about changing the Constitution at all, but it is about bringing the Constitution to light, to reconciling aboriginal issues in Canada, in British Columbia, for the first time in 100 years.

Presence In Gallery

[The Speaker]

I draw the attention of members to the presence in the gallery of the Right Hon. Joe Clark, former Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[The Speaker]

I have no more idea than you when our Christmas holidays will begin, but I would like to take a moment and wish you all a Merry Christmas.

I think this is going to be a bumper day for questions of privilege. I will deal with some unfinished business from yesterday.

Privilege

[The Speaker]

Yesterday, the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot raised a question of privilege and named two members.

According to him they had made some statements about a report, I believe quoting directives from the report. The hon. member for Niagara Falls was directly mentioned. I said that I would withhold judgment until we could get some information.

Is the hon. member of parliament aware of what was said yesterday?

[Gary Pillitteri, Liberal, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, no I was not aware of what was said yesterday, but if it is concerning an article which was in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday I could make a comment.

Reading part of the article, I made the remark that I cannot tie the hands of business. As a representative of the consumers I cannot tie the hands of the banks. This does not clearly state that I leaked any parts of the report of the finance committee. There is no way that I leaked any report.

The article also says that there will be a minority report coming from the Conservatives and the NDP.

I did speak to the reporter, but I did not divulge any parts of the report.

[The Speaker]

We have heard now from one member.

The other hon. member is here, the hon. member for Kings—Hants. Are you aware, sir, of what was said yesterday in the House of Commons?

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I am. I was accused of leaking the report of the finance committee and of leaking the dissenting report of the Progressive Conservative Party.

I unreservedly and categorically deny these allegations. I did not divulge this report. I did not divulge the dissenting report. The member has attacked my integrity. He has placed a cloud over my reputation and I ask him to withdraw his accusation and to apologize for his statement.

This is not a dispute over facts. My integrity has been impugned by the hon. member and I ask the hon. member to withdraw his untrue accusation forthwith.

[The Speaker]

Once again we have in the House an hon. member raising on a question of privilege that there was a leak of an official document from a committee.

The hon. member named two other members of the House of Commons. This was the integral part of his question of privilege.

The hon. member for Niagara Falls has stood in this House and categorically denied that he has leaked the document. The hon. member for Kings—Hants has stood in this House and stated categorically that he did not leak the document.

We are hon. members, as I said yesterday, and we must take the word of hon. members when they are questioned in this nature.

We have pushed it a little bit further into a point of debate. I am in a quandary in the sense that I do not want to prolong this debate. There was an accusation and now there have been two withdrawals.

The hon. member who made the original accusation is here. If he has something very succinct that he wants to say, I will give him the floor, but I do not want to continue this as a debate.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to point out that there are two ways to leak a document or reveal its content: to do so oneself or to substantiate information contained in the report to be tabled in the House of Commons Thursday afternoon. One can substantiate, comment on or deny what is in the document.

There are also two ways to divulge matters that should remain confidential, including dissenting opinions of opposition parties. Leak it oneself, or comment on the majority report from the standpoint of one's party's dissenting opinion.

Concerning the two colleagues, whom I respect by the way, I merely quoted from an article that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen in which they commented on the committee's report, which should not have been divulged in whole or in part. That is all I did.

As for whether I will withdraw what I said about the Progressive Conservative member, the answer is no, Mr. Speaker, because the matter has not been resolved. The article is there, the words of my two colleagues are there, and I still respectfully submit to your—

[The Speaker]

We have a member bringing up information and two members denying it. It was raised as a question of privilege. I ruled. There is no question of privilege and this matter is finished.

I still have three questions of privilege to deal with and I am going to take them in the order that I received them.

I have a question of privilege from the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester.

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege today with regard to a completely different event than my previous question of privilege the other day.

As hon. members will know, a breach of privilege occurs if someone interferes or tries to influence a member of parliament during the course of his duties.

On December 7, the member for Kenora—Rainy River did exactly that when in the House he said that if his intention was to intimate me, and I quote from Hansard , “I can assure you that he would not be here today”.

That is me he is talking about. I do not know if that means he is going to break my legs or what he means to do, but his sense is that I am not going to be here today.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

There have been two questions of privilege on matters similar to this. I thought that the whole thing was settled yesterday.

Yesterday we had on a question of privilege an incident that took place outside the House. We had an explanation of what transpired there.

We had another question of privilege raised just before that and the hon. member, as far as the information I have, has categorically apologized in the House of Commons and I feel that this matter has been dealt with. I rule that it is not a question of privilege.

I want to hear a point of privilege from the hon. member for Louis—Hébert.

[Hélène Alarie, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the newspapers for December 9, 1998, more specifically page B7 of La Presse , contain a CP article disclosing the gist of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food's report on the potential farm revenue crisis before the report, with the opposition's dissenting opinions, has been tabled in the House.

This is all the more serious because the journalist managed to obtain a complete copy of the report before it was tabled in the House, which is an affront to the House and to democracy.

On page 229 of chapter 12 of Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada , there appears the following:

Any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his parliamentary duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly to produce such results may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent for the offence.

Leaking a committee report or the contents of in camera discussions among committee members before the opposition parties' dissenting opinions have been finalized and the entire report tabled in the House of Commons is an affront to the House and a serious breach of democracy. What has become of members' sense of honour and their undertaking to respect confidentiality?

This is the seventh leak to the newspapers in two weeks. Are these arranged, or in any event, deliberate, since they always serve the same interests, those of the Liberal majority? In addition to being an affront to the House, they are a breach of democracy, since the opposition's dissenting views are omitted.

Mr. Speaker, on December 3, you said that you did not have the power to curtail breaches of parliamentary ethics immediately when no member of parliament could be identified.

You have also acknowledged that this same statement was a case of contempt of Parliament. I am therefore asking you respectfully, Mr. Speaker, whether the rule concerning the confidentiality of House of Commons committee reports until tabling still holds, and whether this rule must be respected in the name of parliamentarism and democracy.

If so, I am asking you to consider the actions of the members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food as contempt of Parliament. Also, if this is so, I am prepared to introduce a motion to allow the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to investigate.

In the light of your present knowledge, if you consider there has been contempt of Parliament—

[The Speaker]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. I have listened to what she said with great attention.

I believe the hon. member said this is the seventh time the issue of a leak from a committee has been brought up. The hon. member has not named anyone responsible for this leak. I asked that the House committee on procedure look urgently at this matter. It does not matter how many times we bring it up in the House in terms of the authority of what I can do as Speaker. I hope the committee will look at this matter and bring forth some suggestions as to what can be done in this circumstance. I await word from the committee.

I have another question of privilege. Although I have not yet heard it, I believe it deals with another leak of some kind. I would rather let this sit until we hear from the procedure committee in terms of giving some direction. Bearing direction from there we will see what avenues remain open to us as parliament.

I will deal with the other question of privilege because I have no right to presuppose what the hon. member will say. If it touches on what I said I would ask him to be very brief in it.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be as brief as possible but I want to address this from the point of view of the Reform Party. I will tell you where we are going with this issue because it will be relevant to what happens in the committee on procedure and House affairs.

It is a little more than embarrassing to the House for those people who are watching at home to hear “he called me this”, “that's a terrible name” and “I am offended”. This is place getting more like an elementary school than a House of Commons. I think it is quite embarrassing.

[The Speaker]

I would like the hon. member to please deal with his question of privilege.