Debates of April 21st, 1999

Kosovo

[André Bachand, Progressive Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister talks of slaughter, rape and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.

This information comes, I hope, from sources other than the media. Such actions alone would probably justify sending ground in ground troops.

Could the Prime Minister share with members of the House the information he has on these atrocities? This would not put anyone's life on the line, and might actually save lives. Could the Prime Minister share with members of the House his sources of information on the atrocities in Kosovo?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, any member of this House and any member of the public who watches even a little bit of television and reads the papers knows what we know. It is public knowledge that operations began more than 12 months ago.

I am very surprised that the hon. member claims that these things are not going on. There are very few people in the world unaware that atrocities are now taking place in Kosovo and have been for the last 12 months.

Special Joint Committee On Child Custody And Access

[Roger Gallaway, Liberal, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on December 10, 1998, the report of the Special Joint Committee on Child Custody and Access was tabled in the House.

I know that there are thousands of Canadians who have been touched by divorce and who are waiting for a response. I would like to ask the Minister of Justice when she will table the government's reply to the report.

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all members of that special joint committee for the very fine work they did on a very important issue and a very difficult issue for many Canadians, child custody and access.

I want to let the hon. member know that he and other members of the House can expect the government's response on or before May 10.

Presence In Gallery

[The Speaker]

I draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of a delegation led by the Speaker of the Parliament of Uganda, the Honourable Francis Joash Ayume.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

Privilege

[The Speaker]

Yesterday a question of privilege was raised by the hon. member for Red Deer. At that time there were two points raised. I judged that it was not a question of privilege, but I wanted to have more information on the whole situation.

The first situation we dealt with yesterday concerned a matter of courtesy to have the information there, and we dealt with that issue.

The second issue dealt with the alleged passing out of information to the media before our members of parliament received it. That was the issue we were dealing with.

I asked yesterday either the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the government House leader to give us an explanation today, and the government House leader seems prepared to give us the information now.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I undertook yesterday to investigate the complaint made by the hon. member for Red Deer and others concerning the alleged leak of the government response to a report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and I now wish to report to the House on that matter.

First, to put the matter into context, I should point out that the more common method of tabling such responses is by depositing them with the Clerk of the House, pursuant to Standing Order 32(1). As a consequence, such responses are often given little public profile and may even escape the attention of members. In this case the government believed that the issue at hand required public attention and chose to table the response along with an outline of its position on the general question raised in the House itself. The intent of the government was not to try to obscure the report from hon. members, but was quite the opposite; that is, to draw it to their immediate attention.

Unfortunately, it was evident from an article in the media over the weekend that someone with at least basic knowledge of the position arrived at by the government chose to convey such information without authority and quite probably unlawfully to at least one journalist. It does not appear from the article in question that the writer actually had a copy of the material tabled on Monday, but of course who knows? However, somebody obviously improperly relayed information which was at that stage still a cabinet confidence.

Officials in several departments were privy to this information and it is therefore quite impossible, at this stage at least, to identify the culprit. I wish to assure the House that such unauthorized release of information is not condoned by the government, least of all by myself, and that a full investigation by the proper authorities is under way on this matter.

The hon. member for Red Deer indicated that a journalist contacted him some three hours—I believe that was the number he gave—before the documents were tabled, claiming to have a copy. I regret to report that two journalists were given copies of the material sometime between 1.30 p.m. and 2 p.m.—not three hours before—on an embargoed basis. Even though the journalists in question appeared to have abided by the undertakings of the embargo, I regard this release as an error in judgment nonetheless.

I want to tell the House that it is definitely not the regular practice of the government to provide advance copies of material to be tabled in the House to the media unless comparable arrangements are made for relevant opposition spokespersons, as is done on matters such as the budget. I must assure the House that I will draw this matter to the attention of my colleagues in an effort to avoid such discourtesy in the future. I will come back to this point a little later in my remarks.

[An hon. member]

Your nose is growing.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate—

[The Speaker]

Gentlemen, we are listening to an explanation. I would very much appreciate it if hon. members would not heckle, especially at this time.

I take this to be a very serious matter and I want to hear what the government House leader has to say about it. I therefore ask hon. members to stop heckling.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am giving the information which I know to the House and the information which I believe to be the truth. For members to suggest that I am doing the opposite of telling the truth is not only disrespectful of me, but indeed of the entire House of Commons.

It has not been possible to discover any release of any material as earlier as three hours before the tabling, although, as I said earlier, sometime between 1.30 p.m. and 2.00 p.m. two copies were released. I have been able to confirm that. It may be possible to trace this. If the hon. member for Red Deer wishes to be of assistance, he could speak directly to the office of my colleague, the Minister of Foreign Affairs or, if he prefers, with department officials or even me if he has evidence that information was available three hours ahead of time.

The second issue at hand concerns the availability of material once tabled in the House of Commons. I am informed that the regular distribution system of the House of Commons was employed in the normal manner and that hon. members and their offices had access to the papers within the usual timeframes for such distribution. The specific times vary, of course, depending on the location of each member. I am informed that some offices received the material within about half an hour of tabling. One case which I verified received it only minutes after it was tabled.

However, I do not believe that sufficient courtesy was demonstrated in making information available to members in the House itself. I say this for the following reason. My information is that immediately after the tabling the kits containing the material tabled and related documents were placed in the government lobby and distributed in the foyer outside the House of Commons. These kits were available to members of the opposition on request. I was informed that a staff person from the New Democratic Party did in fact receive a kit upon request. However, they were not placed in the opposition lobby in a similar manner to their being placed in the government lobby, and I apologize for that as well.

In addition, I am told that the clerk of the standing committee sent copies of the response to all members of the standing committee by electronic mail mechanism at 3.30 p.m. Nonetheless, as I said earlier, copies were not placed in the opposition lobby for general availability. That is not the same as what was afforded to government members and I consider that to be wrong as well.

All parties in the House sometimes place material in their lobbies for partisan use by members. Nobody would expect that type of information, talking points and so on, to be shared. However, the material in question was not of a partisan nature, but was a review of government policy to which all hon. members have an equal right of access. Again, I apologize most sincerely for this error in judgment and basic courtesy.

In reviewing this matter it is clear to me that the government could serve the House better by improving and standardizing the method of responding to committee reports, when required, by Standing Order 109. I have therefore directed my officials to prepare new guidelines for departments with a view toward assuring that the needs of the House remain the principal objective of such responses.

This case certainly demonstrates that some attention has to be given to the government's internal security. In addition, it exposes some errors in judgment and courtesy which, quite frankly, embarrass me, for which I have apologized and about which I have taken steps to correct. There was however, and I say this sincerely, no attempt to deprive the House of any information to which it is entitled. Indeed it was the opposite that was intended, that is to say, to maximize the information available to the House.

I submit, however, that there was no contempt for the House either intended or committed and that this matter should be taken as a justifiable complaint. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that you would determine that it was acted upon immediately, which it was.

[The Speaker]

Does the hon. member have something new to add to what we are discussing?

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to clarify some of the points that have been raised just so that you have exactly what I said and the exact times.

My first interview was requested shortly after 12 o'clock, at about 12.04 or 12.05. The next two were after one o'clock. They said they had copies of it. They quoted from it and asked me to respond to it. That was three reporters.

Also, the hon. House leader mentioned that these were available at 4.30. My office is in the Centre Block and ours should be one of the first to be delivered, I believe. We could not get a copy until 5.30, as I mentioned yesterday.

Also, for our lobby staff person whom the hon. House leader said could have gotten one across the way, it took 55 minutes before he was able to get a copy.

We checked with the Clerk and we were told it would be at least an hour before we could have a copy. The clerk of the committee, whom we also called, confirmed that she had a great deal of difficulty getting copies so that she could distribute them to the members.

I really believe that we need an impartial investigation into all of this because there certainly is a conflict of information.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that I welcome the remarks of the government House leader in this regard.

I do not doubt the sincerity of his apology or his good intentions in this regard, but I would say that he has a big job ahead of him. I think there is a culture of contempt for parliament on the other side which he nobly struggles against but which we find rife within the ranks of his own party. I wish him well.

For the record, I want to say that we were looking for a copy and once we realized where they might be, at about 3.45, we did not receive one until 3.55. Of course the problem remained that by that time all the commenting was over and opposition members were in a position of not being able to comment in an informed way.

But I welcome the remarks of the government House leader and I wish him luck in bringing a rogue government to heel.

[The Speaker]

We do have a dispute as to the facts and to the times.

If I understand the hon. government House leader, he said in his statement that he was going to look into one or two other aspects about this particular incident as to the timing. He asked the hon. member for Red Deer if the hon. member would share with him to try to get to the bottom of all this.

Today we have an apology from the government House leader. I, too, believe it is sincere. I take it at face value.

Yes, the information should have been put in both lobbies. No, it was not. Will that be corrected? The hon. government House leader has said that he will do everything he can to see that this type of thing does not occur again.

On this whole issue of leaks, the opposition House leader says that he has intervened nine times. That is true. He has.

We have given our committee on procedure in the House this particular problem to look at. I anxiously await its report to this House and to see what it has come up with as a suggestion where we, members of the House of Commons, can better regulate these “leaks”.

I would like to believe, as some hon. members have said, that the leaks come only from one side, but I do not. I think the leaks come from all sides. It is the institution that we are dealing with here. It is the institution at this time in history is in our hands.

I hope that in future this type of thing will not occur and I take the hon. government House leader's intervention as telling us that on his word it will not, to the best of his ability.

But, to the other thing about when it was released, as to the times, was it 12.04 or was it 1.05, I think this might be open to discussion. The offer has been made by the government House leader to the member for Red Deer to collaborate, to see if they can get to the bottom of this.

As for me, I judge there is not a question of privilege. But how many times do we have to stand in this House together, to say that we want to do something about this. If we decide to do something, I await some kind of indication from the committee. If it is not forthcoming from the committee, then we will have to look perhaps at some other way of getting a way—and I use this word in the general sense—to police ourselves as members of parliament because we are not only hurting ourselves, we are hurting the institution.

At this point I find that it is not a point of privilege. I hope that it will not occur again. I hope that the committee can come up with a solution to our particular dilemma.

Government Response To Petitions

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 14 petitions.

Interparliamentary Delegations

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association has the honour to present its report to the Canadian delegation to the first part of the 1999 session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, held from January 25 to 29, 1999 in Strasbourg, France.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Oak Ridges, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to present in both official languages the report of the Canada-Taiwan Friendship Group delegation, January 1999.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to present the report?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Oak Ridges, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to table in the House in both official languages the report of the Canada-Taiwan Friendship Group delegation of January 1999. We had the opportunity to meet with government officials and business leaders to promote trade and culture.

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Oak Ridges, who was also a member of the delegation, was kind enough to supply me with his report. I simply want to point out that it is a good account of the activities in which we took part.

Committees Of The House

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 72nd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding its order of reference from the House of Commons of March 1, 1999 in relation to the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2000 in regard to vote 20 under Privy Council, Chief Electoral Officer. Mr. Speaker, the committee reports the same.

Taxpayers Bill Of Rights

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-495, an act to confirm the rights of taxpayers and establish the office for taxpayer protection.

I am pleased to rise to move first reading of this bill commonly known as the taxpayers bill of rights.

For several years now the Reform Party through its democratic party process has had a policy in its blue book calling for the introduction of a taxpayers bill of rights which would protect taxpayers from summary unfair treatment by the Department of National Revenue. We now know that department will become the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency which will be even less accountable than the current department is to this parliament.

We believe it is terribly important to enshrine in a law the rights of taxpayers to due process so that they are treated as innocent until proven guilty, rather than having the reverse onus from which they currently suffer.

This bill would also create an office for taxpayer protection which could order that taxpayers be protected from unfair harassment by members of the revenue agency.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)