Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege regarding comments made by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, as well as those made by the minister's director of communications on the minister's behalf, which have not only unjustly damaged the reputation of myself and my colleagues in the Conservative Party of Canada, but I believe are part of a coordinated plan to intimidate and harass members of the official opposition.
Specifically, the minister is menacing and using intimidation against Conservative members of Parliament sitting on the Standing Committee of Citizenship and Immigration by telling the Canadian public that we are anti-immigrant and that we failed to do our proper duty when we rejected the supplementary estimates A in committee on Tuesday, November 1.
These statements, in my opinion, constitute a prima facie case that my privileges as a parliamentarian have been breached.
I would like to provide a brief summary of the background into this issue and read the exact quotes from the minister and his officials into the record, followed by the relevant Speaker rulings and passages from the appropriate text that show this to be a breach of my privilege. If you do, indeed, Mr. Speaker, find a case exists, I will then move my motion.
First let me provide some background on the vote taken on the estimates of November 1, in the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. As you may be aware, Mr. Speaker, the supplementary estimates A, 2005-2006 for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration were tabled in the House last week and referred to the standing committee. The committee invited the minister to appear prior to our vote Tuesday and the minister did appear.
As provided by Standing Order 81 of the House and reinforced by a passage from the House of Commons Procedure and Practice by Marleau and Montpetit, page 870 states:
The Standing Orders provide for a detailed consideration of the Estimates, both Main and Supplementary, by standing committees.
Regarding what types of questions committee members are allowed to ask, on page 872, Marleau and Montpetit goes on to state:
The questioning and discussion at this meeting is generally wide-ranging, although the rule of relevance does apply.
When the committee has completed its consideration of the Estimates, each item is put to a vote separately.
The Conservative members of the committee followed this procedure but the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration did not.
For example, the members for Calgary—Nose Hill, Calgary Northeast, Fleetwood—Port Kells and myself asked very relevant questions to the estimates. I would assert that all questions were specific, such as the one regarding the Toronto waterfront revitalization project which $116 million of the money provided in the estimates is going toward.
However the minister obfuscated and treated committee members with contempt. He refused to give us clear and concise answers. Numerous times the Liberal chair of the meeting had to admonish the minister to try to answer committee members in a clear and concise manner. The minister refused to heed the chair's advise.
The Conservative members on the committee felt that the minister had treated us with contempt and decided that since the minister failed to answer our questions, we would exercise our right and responsibility as the official opposition and oppose the passage of the estimates.
Let me emphasize that point. It is not the role of the official opposition to blindly rubber stamp the estimates. In our system of responsible government, it is the role of the opposition to scrutinize the estimates and make sure the government stays responsible to the House of Commons and Canadians. It does not matter if this is a budget vote or an estimates vote in a standing committee, it is the job of the official opposition to scrutinize government spending.
If in our opinion the minister fails to be responsible to Parliament by failing in the simple task of answering questions, we have every right and responsibility to vote against the estimates.
In the end, the estimates were defeated by a 6-5 vote, with the Bloc and Conservative members exercising our rights as opposition. We even put out a press release the next day explaining our rationale and left the door open to the minister to return to committee to reconsider these estimates if he was willing to do his part by answering questions.
The official opposition did its job. It should have ended there but, unfortunately, it did not. The minister, instead of recognizing the will of the committee, spoke to the media the next day on November 2 and made comments which I now believe constitute a breach of my privileges.
Specifically, on page A8 of today's edition of the Toronto Star, the minister made the following comments:
The first chance they had to show support for an immigration plan that is comprehensive ... for settlement and integration programs and they said 'no.' They shut the door down.
The Conservative party's attitude to immigration is keep those people out and send them back.
They're either hypocrites or liars.
In effect, he has called the Conservative members on the committee anti-immigrant as we did not pass his estimates.
Additionally, Stephen Heckbert, the communications director for the minister, has begun a full assault to attack our reputation. I have obtained a copy of an email he sent out to Kim Klaiman of Sponsor Your Parents. I believe the existence of this email proves my contention that there is a coordinated plan to attack the reputations of Conservative MPs and to intimidate the official opposition.
I will table the email but I want to first read from it. It states:
For your information, yesterday, November 2, 2005, the Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration rejected our request for supplementary funding to help our increased processing of parents and grandparents in 2005.
If this decision stands, the government will not be able to process the additional parents and grandparents the minister committed to processing in April.
[The member for Vegreville—Wainwright] and his Conservative Party colleagues rejected the supplementary estimates after asking only one question about the additional funding the minister was requesting--funding that is essential in part to address the issues your group has raised in the past. Unfortunately, the Conservative members of the Standing Committee chose to reject your requests and to deny the government the funding it needed to address this issue.
You and others may want to ask the Conservative members of the committee why they rejected the funding we have requested to begin addressing the backlog.
Yours sincerely,
Stephen
This letter is a clear attempt by the minister to have public interest groups intimidate Conservative members of Parliament into restoring the funding.
Not only that, but the letter is clearly false in content. For one thing, the member for Vegreville—Wainwright was not at the committee meeting and did not vote. Second, as I have stated, we asked a variety of specific and relevant questions, which the Speaker can read for himself if he chooses to read the blues of the committee meeting. Finally, this was not a deliberate action on our part to deny funding to any particular group as the letter proposes.
We are doing our job as outlined to us by the Constitution. However, instead of accepting this verdict, the minister and his staff are engaging in a smear and pressure campaign. This is a clear campaign to intimidate Conservative MPs who were doing their job as committee members and, I would argue, results in a direct breach of our privileges.
The second edition of Maingot, on page 160, clearly states:
Members are entitled to go about their parliamentary business undisturbed. The assaulting, menacing, or insulting of any Member on the floor of the House or while he is coming or going to or from the House, or on account of his behaviour during a proceeding in Parliament, is a violation of the rights of Parliament.
I would submit that the minister's intimidation tactics are a direct menacing of myself and my colleagues because of an action or a behaviour during a proceeding of Parliament, namely voting against the estimates.
Pages 83 to 86 of Marleau and Montpetit specifically deal with this type of intimidation tactic. I would like to draw the Speaker's attention to one specific passage on page 84 which reads:
Speakers have consistently upheld the right of the House to the services of its Members free from intimidation, obstruction and interference.
Mr. Speaker, I believe I have outlined a clear and unequivocal case that my privileges as a parliamentarian have been breached. If you do agree with me, I will be prepared to move the appropriate motion.