Debates of May 13th, 2003

Public Safety Act, 2002

[The Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

[An hon. member]

On division.

[The Speaker]

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed from May 7, consideration of the motion that Bill C-408, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (oath or solemn affirmation), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Parliament of Canada Act

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the second reading stage of Bill C-408.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[The Speaker]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the motion is referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

The House resumed from May 9 consideration of the motion that Bill C-249, An Act to amend the Competition Act, be read the third time and passed.

Competition Act

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-249 under private members' business.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[The Speaker]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

[The Speaker]

I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, government orders will be extended by 60 minutes.

The Chair has notice of a question of privilege from the hon. member for Vancouver East.

Privilege

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege concerning Parliament and members being kept in the dark about legislation that is about to be tabled when information is widely available in the media and the justice minister is running off to Washington, D.C. to talk to the U.S. Attorney General, Mr. Ashcroft about the marijuana bill.

Information about a bill is meant to be secret until it is released as a bill in the House. In this case everyone else seems to know about the bill, everyone but the House. I believe it is contemptuous of this place. It is an occurrence that has become all too common, that information is made widely available before anything has been tabled in the House.

Indeed, the justice minister could have tabled the bill, he could have made a ministerial statement and then he could have gone to the U.S. if its approval was so important to the Canadian government.

I believe every MP has a privilege to see legislation tabled in Parliament before the minister decides to blow smoke to his friends in Washington. I would ask the Speaker to review whether privilege has been breached in this case.

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

Mr. Speaker, the question of privilege, at least as alleged, I do not believe is one.

We have to remember the sequence of events and then perhaps a reference to Marleau and Montpetit would assist the House.

First, we are talking about the discussions that ministers have from time to time with counterparts in other jurisdictions. Next week a number of us, including myself, will go to the United Kingdom with the Deputy Speaker to consult with colleagues over there about how we will amend House orders. The consultation process will happen prior to us putting our report to the House.

Similarly, the Minister of Justice is in Washington. Whether he will bring up the subject of this bill or some other bill up is for him to determine. However if he does that prior to introducing the bill to the House as part of a consultation, it is surely similar to the consultation that other people around here have from time to time about legislation.

The other thing we should bring into consideration is the process by which bills are introduced in the House of Commons. I verified this reference from Marleau and Montpetit just a little while ago. I did not actually think it would come back to us, but I think I have pretty well memorized the gist of it and it works this way. Actually I have to deal with it on a daily basis, which should not be too hard to remember.

The minister produces a document to cabinet. Marleau and Montpetit will confirm this almost word for word. Following that process, a bill is produced by the Department of Justice. Then the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, that is myself, will verify whether that bill reflects the cabinet decision that has been passed. Once that process happens, so Marleau and Montpetit informs us and it is actually what happens all the time, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons then seeks delegated authority from cabinet affirming that such is the case. Only then is the minister in question, regarding any legislation, authorized to then present legislation in the House of Commons. That is the sequence of the process. The fact that a minister consults prior to introducing legislation is not exactly an unfathomable proposition.

Perhaps the hon. member wonders why the minister did not consult us. As a matter of fact that is exactly what he did. The member for Langley—Abbotsford, together with the member for Burlington, I believe that is the name of her riding, jointly held an exercise which led in the very productive report from the House committee on the non-medical use of drugs. A parallel committee in the Senate, which went quite a bit further in its recommendations, produced a report as well. Therefore the other place produced a report and this House produced a report as part of that consultation.

As I understand, the minister is in Washington for discussions with his counterpart. Whether he raises this issue or another issue is hardly a question of privilege before the House. That is a ridiculous proposition. This is no more logical than someone stating two weeks from today, when the Deputy Speaker and I and a number of others return from the U.K., that we offended the privilege of this House because we consulted the British house about the modernization of House rules prior to our report being tabled in this House. It is the identical thing and it is hardly a question of privilege.

[The Speaker]

I think I will dispose of the point now. I know the hon. member for Vancouver East is an assiduous reader of the newspapers. That is apparent from the question of privilege she has raised this afternoon. I must say I sometimes read them myself, but I have to take stories about the contents of government bills, or even private members' bills, that are to be introduced in the House with a grain of salt. I always regard them as quite fictional until the bill has been introduced and I can compare what is written in the story with what actually is in the bill. This is particularly true of bills that are on contentious matters.

We read stories in the newspapers about the contents of the budget for months in advance that bore some or little resemblance to what was in the budget, depending I guess on the sources of information that the reporter had, or his or her ability to dream these things up. In most cases we do not know from where this information comes. We can only regard it as what I could call fiction until such time as the bill has been introduced and we have solid evidence as to what the contents of the bill are.

In this case, we have stories that have appeared saying that these various things are in a bill that is to be introduced in the House, and we will not know until it has been introduced. I am afraid it is difficult for the Chair to find there has been a breach of the privileges of members if people write these stories.

Unless there is some considerable evidence that the minister has made available copies of the bill to somebody else, and I do not think we have that evidence at the moment, I certainly did not hear that suggested by the hon. member, and the bill has been handed out in the form in which it will be introduced in the House later, it is hard for the Chair to find any breach of the privileges of the House. Accordingly, I decline to do so in this instance.

Of course the hon. member I am sure will monitor the situation closely and watch to see if copies are being bandied about in advance, which I admit might be a breach of the privileges if that sort of thing were going on. We do not have evidence of that at the moment, so there is not a question of privilege here.

I have a point of order by the hon. member for Acadie--Bathurst.

Points of Order

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday during oral question period, I asked a question of the Prime Minister regarding the crab crisis in Quebec and in the Acadian Peninsula of New Brunswick.

This question referred to sums of money which could have been allocated to fish plant workers. The government said that New Brunswick had to pay, because there was a program in place and the federal government had provided $90 million to New Brunswick and $600 million to Quebec.

The question was addressed to the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans hurried to reply to it. He said the problem had been resolved. But he misled the House because the problem has not been resolved; no agreement has been reached.

[The Speaker]

I am afraid the hon. member has actually raised a subject of debate. There often are disagreements about the questions and answers in the House. But the hon. member knows very well that he cannot rise on a point of order to continue a debate that began during oral question period.

He will probably wish to express himself on the subject tomorrow during oral question period, with a supplementary question for the minister. I invite him to proceed in that way.

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a tradition in the House that when we misquote, misspeak or otherwise provide information as inaccurate, we get up in the House at the first opportunity to set the record straight. I think you would agree with that, Mr. Speaker.

I go back to last Friday's question period. When putting a question to the Minister of Finance, I used the figure of 14,000 job losses in the month of April. I simply want to set the record straight that it was 19,000 job losses, not 14,000. I know you are good at arithmetic, Mr. Speaker. That is 5,000 more jobs lost than what I otherwise stated. I thought I should bring that to the attention of the House.

[The Speaker]

I am sure all hon. members thank the hon. member for New Brunswick Southwest for his correction.

Business of the House

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the extension of government orders because of the recorded divisions just taken, I believe you would find consent to have government orders end at 5:30 in order to proceed to private members' hour.

[The Speaker]

Therefore, just to make it clear, there would be no extra hour today. We will not pick it up after private members' business. Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[John Herron, Progressive Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my point of order will be simpler. The Minister of National Defence quoted from a specific document when I was asking my question earlier today. I am asking the minister to make that document available and to table it in the Chamber.

[The Speaker]

Obviously we will have to wait until the minister is here to see if he agrees and tables the document. I am sure the hon. member's point of order will be noted and no doubt we will hear from the minister in due course.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-36, an act to establish the Library and Archives of Canada, to amend the Copyright Act and to amend certain Acts in consequence, be read the second time and referred to a committee.