Debates of March 28th, 2000

Privilege

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I should tell you that I happen to be vice-chair of the committee and have found it necessary on occasion, when our chair was tied up with other committee business, to run some of the meetings. I have been very actively involved in the writing of this report, as have most members and certainly most government members in having input.

I am surprised that you, Mr. Speaker, did not rise to your feet when the member opposite finished saying that he thought his decision even today was a good decision. I would interpret that as being a statement that he does not particularly agree with the findings that you, Mr. Speaker, brought forward before this place where you found in favour of the Chair that there was a prima facie case of violating the privilege of the committee members. Mr. Speaker, I heard you say that.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I made it very clear that I respect your ruling. I do not see a contradiction.

[The Speaker]

We are in debate now. Rather than interrupt each other on these points of order, I would prefer that we have a full run at it if we can, which is what we did on the other side.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I sat here with my blood pressure boiling up as I listened to the hon. member.

[An hon. member]

That is not uncommon.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

No, that is not uncommon. However, I must say that I waited until I had the opportunity to have the floor. I can assure the House that this member will agree with very little that I am about to put on the record. If he wants to jump up every time he disagrees with me, hopefully, Mr. Speaker, you will rule that those are not points of order.

If the member wants us to read Hansard , I would invite him to do exactly the same when Hansard is printed wherein he said that he thought his decision to hold a public press conference was a good decision, in spite of the fact that you, Mr. Speaker, have found him guilty of violating the privileges of members of the committee. I do not know how that can be interpreted in any other way than to say that he does not like, agree with or respect your decision. He thinks what he did was right.

There are a couple of basic principles here. One is that when you are trying to get out of a hole you should stop digging. The other one is the axiom that when a lawyer represents himself, he is often said to have a fool for a client. When I hear the defence that has been put forward by this member, it is incomprehensible.

Prior to this unfortunate incident, I thought the member was making good contributions to the committee. This obviously was not the first issue we have dealt with. He was dedicated and worked hard. I very seldom agreed with his position, the one which the Reform Party said, through him, that it considered anyone who arrived in this country as a refugee as an illegal. We had a long debate over the use of the term illegal. This member considers all refugees to be illegal. I certainly do not agree with that but I respect his right to hold that opinion as long as he does not mind me telling everybody that is his opinion so they can judge for themselves the attitude the Reform Party and this particular member have in relation to new Canadians, refugees and immigrants.

You, Mr. Speaker, read from the rules which state that a committee report is considered to be confidential even if it is discussed in public at committee. Whether or not the committee is in camera is totally irrelevant to the fact that this member decided to make the document public on his own volition.

I could accept it if he was willing to stand and say “Mr. Speaker, I made a mistake”. Instead, he stands and says “What I did was good. What I did was right”. It is black and white, Mr. Speaker, as you have obviously found out.

If we want to talk about denigrating the democratic process, what does it do? I will take members back to the meeting on March 2 which was held at the Promenade. It was to be an in camera session. Why? As you, Mr. Speaker, and all members would know, committees represent the 301 members of this House. The reason for that is that we are unable to sit on all the committees. While everyone might want to be on the finance committee or on the citizenship and immigration committee, not all members can be. We have to share the workloads and spread the responsibility.

As a result, the committee does its work when it writes a draft report and brings it into this place to show our colleagues, the members of parliament, those who are duly elected to represent the people of this country. We do that before we go public with it. We do not release committee reports in draft or in final form until we have completed our responsibility which is to deliver it to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House of Commons. The member knows that but he continues to try to defend the indefensible.

It says on the document “Confidential until reported to the House”. I ask the member: What word in there does he not understand? Confidential means it is confidential. It cannot be reported to the public until it has been reported to the House. It is a very difficult concept. This means that after the report is brought to this place, laid on the table and reported as a public document the member is then not only entitled to but probably obligated, as a critic, to hold a press conference and to say everything he is saying. I do not have a problem with him accusing the committee of not listening to witnesses. I do not agree with that but if I were in opposition I would probably say the same thing. I do not believe it is true, but he has every right and indeed as a member of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition he has a responsibility to do that. I respect that.

In that meeting of March 2 at the Promenade, the member spoke up and said that he did not want the meeting to continue in camera. The Chair, quite appropriately, told him that the reason the meeting was in camera was because it was dealing with a draft report and that it must stay in camera and confidential until the report was presented to the House of Commons.

This member then said that he had a tape recorder. He showed it to us and said that he was going to tape record the proceedings of the committee if we refused to pass a motion to move out of in camera. Can anyone imagine the audacity? He used the word nerve; how the committee has the nerve to ask you, Mr. Speaker, to decide on whether or not he has violated our privileges. Imagine the nerve of a member of parliament in this great democracy, called Canada, to come into a committee room and, for whatever reason, actually threaten members opposite and even members on his own side that he was going to tape record the in camera proceedings and then selectively release the information as he saw fit.

In my 20 years in public office, I have never felt so insulted by a member who would come in and say that. If he wanted to fight the good fight he should have put a motion to move out of in camera. I would not have had a problem with that. The committee could have voted on it. He did not do that. The Chair, in a conciliatory way, the same Chair who this member is now castigating and asking to be removed from the committee, said that he would agree to a suggestion by the member for Hamilton—Wentworth that the minutes of the committee would be made public once the report was completed. The member agreed not to tape record the proceedings and agreed with that suggestion. All of this was agreed to before any press conference was held.

You can imagine, Mr. Speaker, how surprised members of the committee were when we heard there was actually going to be a press conference the next day.

I will now deal with that issue. The member said that he got a copy of the draft legislation that was put out by the ministry and had apparently been circulated to provincial legislatures, ministers or stakeholders. Why would that happen? The member said that it was for approval. In reality it was for input. If the government were to change the Immigration Act or any act without getting the input of the stakeholders that are directly involved, we would be accused of the most dastardly things by the opposition members, of not listening, of not seeking other opinions and of not caring what their beloved provinces might have to say about an issue that could have a tremendous impact on the future of those provinces.

It is absurd to suggest that sending a draft-for-comment piece of legislation to other interested stakeholders is wrong. That is not wrong. That is consultation. It only makes sense to do that.

Instead of just perhaps questioning that at committee and saying “I have a concern”, what does the member do? He decides to take the document that all of us have been working so hard on, that people have had input on, that is stamped draft and is not even 50% complete, an issue that became rather embarrassingly obvious at the press conference, and he calls a press conference with it.

Let me tell the House why it was embarrassingly obvious that it was incomplete. One of the reporters apparently asked the hon. member what it was that he objected to. He said that he did not like certain words, such as the word “should” where the recommendations said “this should happen” or “that should happen”.

While he was busy getting his notes ready for his press conference the rest of us were going through the document. I put a motion at committee—and members who were there will remember this—that we should delete the word “should” and we should send a strong recommendation to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration that would not say “this should happen” but “this shall happen”.

The entire report, at the direction of the committee, was rewritten by the clerk to eliminate that somewhat soft approach of saying “this should happen” and it changed the whole nature of the report. That one change took that document from being a very thorough but somewhat soft document to becoming a firm report with clear cut directions.

The hon. member did not even have the sense to release the final report. It is incredible. He released a report that was 50% done in the oven because he got all upset that, my goodness, there was a draft piece of legislation that had been sent to the provinces. It is truly hard to understand.

I would invite anyone to research the minutes of the committee or the committee evidence or anything else concerning the committee. It is standard practice for a committee agenda to be sent out to all of our offices, saying that the committee on whatever will meet tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock in Room 308 West Block to consider the following items. Then it will say the draft report of whatever the report happens to be. Then it will have stamped on it “in camera”.

If a member objects to that, the member can say so. That member can put a motion. That member can call for a recorded vote. In no instance did this member do that at the meetings which he attended. He did complain, I give him credit for that, but he did not follow through. He accepted the recommendation and the concept, which did not need to be formalized in some kind of a motion with which the chair agreed.

The real issue here is that this member could do an awful lot for his party, the Reform Party, as I will continue to call it if members do not mind, and he could do an awful lot for his own integrity if he would simply rise in this place and say “Thank you for your ruling, sir. I appreciate the diligence and the time. I am sorry that you had to come to that conclusion, but I would respectfully ask for the House to forgive me for making the error which I made”. If he would not like to use that term, he could just stand and say “I am sorry. I made a mistake”.

It would be absolutely brilliant to hear that from that member. I highly doubt that we will. Instead he rose to argue his case. Guess what? When this motion goes to committee, this member has just given us all the prosecution we need. We will just get Hansard and say “Here is what he said”. He said it was a good idea, that it was a good thing and that he was pleased he did it. He does not care what the Speaker said. He does not care what committee members said. He does not care about the opposition. Mr. Speaker, he just does not care.

It is absolutely unforgivable, unless the member was to accept responsibility for his actions, rise and say to the members of the committee “I apologize for my mistake. I still do not like the report. I still do not think you did the right job. I still do not like the minister”—whatever. I do not care. I understand and respect all of that. But to actually stand here and try to defend something which the Speaker has ruled on, when it is so clear, when it is so black and white, I can only conclude by telling you, Mr. Speaker, as one parliamentarian to another, that I find it embarrassing.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this member is truly very talented. He can say all of these things, but he seems to ignore completely the reality of the matter. His version of what happened at committee is suspect at best. He is a very talented member of parliament, but it would be much appreciated if he would stick to fact and reality.

If I misunderstood the ruling of the Speaker, and if the Speaker did rule that something I did was wrong, then I certainly apologize for that. I understood that the Speaker had referred the matter back to the committee for the committee to decide. That was my understanding.

Again, I want to make it very clear that I respect the Speaker, and if the Speaker ruled that I had done something improper, then I apologize for that. If the Speaker said that this will go to committee, then we will deal with it at committee. I believe that is what he said.

That I will find out. I will look over Hansard later. I want to show no disrespect for the Speaker.

The memory of the member who has just spoken is very interesting. First, he referred to the March 2 meeting, and what he said about that meeting was absolutely incorrect. He said at the time of the March 2 meeting that we were discussing a draft of the committee report. We were not. At that time we were discussing notes put together by the researcher about what the witnesses had said. All we were doing was discussing that to rehash what the witnesses had said. The chair decided to go in camera to discuss that. I raised a fuss about it at the meeting and the chair agreed that it was improper and he made it a public meeting after that. That is what really happened at that meeting.

The member is very talented, but not very factual. I would prefer that he work on his memory and make it a little less selective. I think that would be beneficial.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I guess being one out of two is not bad. It would be nice to have at least a 50% success rate. I will take talent.

I can be as accurate as the member wants.

Let me respond. The member is saying that the staff of the committee and the clerk were doing something improper because they brought forward the document. They said it was a discussion of the draft report. If the member wants to hang his defence on whether we were dealing with the notes from the researcher that would lead us to draft a report or whether we were dealing with a draft report, if that is his defence, I would suggest that he not step on to the gallows. It is a bit flimsy.

Mr. Speaker, do not worry about my memory because I am going back about three weeks. The member should think about his own memory and go back about 30 minutes or so. He would find if he checked that the Speaker's ruling was not to refer the matter back to committee but to refer it to the procedure and House affairs committee, which is the hangman. It will pull the lever and kick the sandbag out as the body drops to the ground.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, all of this is talk, but the real issue is the behaviour of the chair of the committee and the committee and how it could decide to break the very rules which the committee had set for itself and which the House has set for committees. That is the issue.

Across the floor they laugh about breaking those rules. They think it really is not that important. The member brings up all of this fluff, much of it inaccurate, and seems not to understand the importance of respecting the democratic process and respecting the rules of committee, which they routinely break.

As the procedure and House affairs committee reviews this issue I hope it will look at the behaviour of this chair and of this committee, because it is important.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, really, this is almost silly. If there had been a request by the committee to review somehow the behaviour of the chair and the Speaker had come in and made some kind of ruling, I suppose maybe we would be dealing with it.

I do not know if I am hearing a plea for mercy, an act of contrition or the launching of some new defence. These guys launch new things every day, so who knows, maybe the hon. member has come up with a new way to try to defend being caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

[Jean Augustine, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague knows that I am a member of the committee. My colleague also knows that I have a recollection of what took place.

I am sitting here listening to the member in his defence talking about people who break the rules and people who have no respect for the democratic process.

I would like my colleague to comment on the day—and I speak for my privileges as a member of the committee—when he reached out and put on the table in front of him, in full view of the entire committee, a tape recorder and said that he was recording.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Lakeland, AB]

That is scary stuff.

[Jean Augustine, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Yes, it was very heavy stuff and it was very threatening, because what we were discussing at the time were very sensitive matters. The member put a tape recorder on the table and threatened us that he would be taping whatever was said.

I wonder if my colleague remembers that occasion and the sense that we had across the way as we saw that tape recorder.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in one sense I was outraged and in another sense I was highly amused. The meetings are recorded anyway. Everything we do and say in committee is recorded. It is made available in the record.

We had agreed that the transcript of the meeting held in camera would be released to the public. I said to myself “Let me understand this. The hon. member will be tape recording what is already being tape recorded”. Boy, that is pretty scary.

Scary is not the right word. The thing that was so offensive—and the member was right to bring it up—was that a member could come in and actually threaten that kind of silliness, that kind of nonsense, show that lack of respect for members of the committee, for the committee process and indeed for this place. That is just not appropriate behaviour on the part of any member of any party in this place. It is shameful and it is to be hoped that this member would realize the error of his ways and stop this kind of nonsense.

I would add that if the member had put as much energy into helping us write the report as he did in playing all of these silly games, he might have had an opportunity for some input of his own. As it was, he was no help at all.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in this debate I do not want to impute any motives to my colleague from Lakeland, who sits on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, far from it.

Nor do I intend to turn this into a heated debate, as the government and official opposition members are trying to do.

I do, however, want the Liberal members to hear what I have to say, because it is basically representative of my understanding of the meeting of March 2 in particular.

I would remind hon. members that we received a notice to appear, as is the case for all committees. I did indeed receive such a notice, in proper form, a few days before the committee sat.

I was initially rather surprised to see that session 15 was to be an in camera session. Why surprised? On the one hand, because the notice indicated that we were going to examine a draft report, whereas we had never received such a draft report.

A few days before the committee sitting, I recall very clearly receiving a document in proper form, a well-prepared document, as is usual with the research staff. To my mind, this was far from being a draft report; it was instead a summary of options and of the appearances of witnesses throughout the entire examination of the refugee status determination system.

This document summarized what the witnesses had had to say. It went so far as to provide summaries. This document contained no potential recommendations. At no time did we have the position or statements of position from the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

I recall that I spoke at that point in committee, and I would refer you to the transcript of the committee meeting on March 2. I had said clearly that the meeting should have been declared in camera, not on the basis of the report we had at our disposal, but rather on the basis of a study of a draft report.

I quote my statement of March 2:

However, I would hope that we would study the real draft report in camera, the one our researchers have prepared for us on the basis of the options we choose.

I stress the fact that basically I wanted the meeting in camera because of the draft report for two reasons. First, I felt that all the committee work we were starting and the report we would be producing several weeks later had to be done as fairly as possible, on the basis of the recommendations and evidence gathered during deliberations.

Second, it seems basic to me that the meeting should be in camera when a draft report is involved. Why? Because we had to be sure we were free from influence from interveners outside the committee, which could have affected our proposals and recommendations.

That seemed so important to me that I said on March 2, and I refer you again to the transcript of the committee's proceedings:

If we study the report in camera, I hope we take the necessary steps, as responsible parliamentarians, to ensure there are no leaks.

What I said at that time was that we could have a public meeting. We could have outside interveners come to our committee, based on the summary of options prepared by the researchers and the Library of Parliament. There was nothing confidential in that.

There was just a series of statements that we had heard in committee and that we were examining. This is why I was surprised to see, when I read the notice, that the meeting would take place in camera, because of the document that we had in hand. I questioned the committee and I expressed my astonishment.

I said “My first reaction was one of astonishment when I received the notice about this committee meeting and saw that we were going to study in camera the document that was sent to us. It was supposedly confidential, having been prepared by the library”. Again, I am quoting the transcript. I was surprised to see that we were having an in camera meeting on the basis of that document.

I was prepared for a public meeting, so that outside interveners could read the summary of options. However, I was hoping from the bottom of my heart that the review of the draft report, which was supposed to be ready after March 2, would be conducted in camera.

I readily admit that I was disappointed to learn from some assistants that this report, which I believed to be confidential and which was jointly drafted by opposition and government members, had been leaked and could be found in the pages of newspapers outside Quebec.

This is my interpretation or my version of these events. I believed and I fundamentally think that the review of the draft report should be conducted in camera.

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am not on the committee but in following this debate I am a little confused. Perhaps you could provide some clarification.

Did the Speaker rule that there was a prima facie case against the member? If that is true, this is going to go to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. On the surface the Speaker found there was enough evidence that the member leaked a document to the public prior to tabling it in the House.

This debate is redundant. It could take place at the procedure and House affairs committee when it tries to sort out what it is going to do. The member might be a little confused. He thinks it is going back to the immigration committee.

Mr. Speaker, maybe you could clarify the ruling for the member and we could get on to the orders of the day.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The Speaker was asked to rule on whether there was a prima facie case of a breach of privilege made by the member for London North Centre. The Speaker ruled that in fact there was. Then the member who brought the original complaint moved the motion that the matter go to the procedure and House affairs committee. Subsequently this debate has to do with that.

The debate upon whether or not this will go to the procedure and House affairs committee will go on. It is not up to the Chair to determine what is going to happen in this debate. The Chair has no recourse other than to keep us in this debate. Theoretically we could debate this for two or three weeks.

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Winnipeg North—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a very brief comment.

It is very sad that events like this should happen in the House of Commons and that there would be a breach of privilege. It tells us that we are less mature than we ought to be and that we could break the rules of decorum and procedure. That is very sad.

At the same time, I am heartened that the member for Lakeland is prepared to apologize. The Speaker made a final determination that there has been a breach of privilege. The member for London North Centre deemed it right to refer this matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for a more thorough study of the facts of the case.

When the motion goes to that committee and the issue is brought forward for further study, let me convey a message to that committee through you, Mr. Speaker. The member for Lakeland had a grievance about the behaviour of certain members of the committee. Let me state one principle. Even granting that those things happened and without admitting anything for the sake of argument, let me say with respect to mistakes that two wrongs do not make a right.

For future guidance, if we have a grievance against a process within a committee, let us still abide by the rules that cover all of us in the House. That is my contribution to this debate at this point. With respect to mistakes, two wrongs do not make a right.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has said that it is important to follow the rules. I believe it is indeed important to follow the rules and it seems to me that the rules indicated precisely that the absolute confidentiality of this committee needed to be guaranteed in order to ensure that its work might be carried out in keeping with the rules and respecting the evidence given in committee throughout the week, and sometimes more, sometimes two or three weeks. It had to be guaranteed that the committee would be leak-proof, therefore, in order to avoid press reports which might, regardless of their possibly good intentions, influence certain committee members.

It is important for these debates, the statements of position and the formulation of recommendations to be carried out in total objectivity. This is why I wish absolutely, and with no malice whatsoever toward the hon. member for Lakeland, for him to apologize to the House. I believe we have already seen a step in the right direction on his part.

At the present time, I believe that it is the confidentiality of the committee that requires us to refer this question to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. chair's words from committee

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member from Winnipeg said to the Bloc critic that it is important that members respect the rules of the House. I believe that to be true.

I would like to ask the member why it is that Liberal members on committees routinely leak reports? We know that is true. We have brought forward questions of privilege on this issue time and again and the Speaker has said that they really should not do that, that they are naughty and to go on with it from there.

I have a direct question for the Bloc critic. He commented on the need to respect the rules.

I want to ask him questions about the committee respecting the rules. First, I want to ask the Bloc member whether or not it is a rule of committee that a vote be passed in committee before the committee goes in camera. Second, was there a vote passed at committee to have the committee go in camera?

I have two straightforward, simple questions and I would really appreciate my colleague from the Bloc answering them.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I explained in my speech, it is my fundamental and total belief as an MP and a committee member that, when the draft report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration was being examined, the session would be in camera.

I said so, and expressed my wishes for this in my statement on March 2. I would also point out that when I finished speaking that day, the chair's reply was “That is true. Thank you”.

At that time I believed totally that we were in camera and that the in camera status would continue throughout the study of the report.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, Gasoline Pricing.

[Joe Fontana, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to perhaps a little debate here. My colleague, in a very objective way, has tried to point out what all members of the committee are feeling regardless of political party, except for the member of the Reform Party, now known as the new Canadian Alliance. Old name, new name; it is the same old stuff.

I do not think he gets the point of what the chair already ruled on. It is unfortunate that he does not appreciate what the chair said. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not a meeting was in camera. I look forward to the opportunity of putting that case to the committee.

A standing order of the House protects the integrity and the privilege of every member of the House. The point is that if there is a confidential document it cannot be reported to the public before it is reported here. That is the issue. That is what the Speaker ruled on, that you are in breach of that privilege. It is not whether or not we had a meeting in camera.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I hate to interrupt, but particularly in a debate such as this one it is important that members address each other through the Chair. This is an interesting question and comment as we are doing it kind of in the third person.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this must not turn into a two way debate between the Canadian Alliance and the Liberal Party.

The fundamental issue that must be examined is whether there has been a breach of privileges. From what I understand, the meeting was being held in camera. Was a vote held or not? No, no vote was held on that issue.

However, my interpretation is that the committee was sitting in camera. Out of respect for the members of the committee, it was fundamental that this draft report not be released, but some members of the House decided to do so.

My understanding is that the committee was working in camera regarding this issue.