Debates of Oct. 19th, 2006

Canada Health Infoway Inc.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2) I am pleased to table, in both official languages, the Annual Report 2005-06 and the Corporate Business Plan 2006-07 for Canada Health Infoway Inc.

Canada's Clean Air Act

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Minister of the Environment]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-30, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the Energy Efficiency Act and the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act (Canada's Clean Air Act).

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

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I gave notice of this question of privilege with regard to the bill that has just been tabled in the House, Canada's clean air act. In the documents I provided you this morning was a copy of the draft bill which was circulated by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups on Friday, October 13 at a press conference in the Charles Lynch Theatre where they were giving their commentary on the various provisions of the bill.

This morning, the government held a lock-up for the media from 9:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., as evidence of the necessity for maintaining confidentiality and secrecy of a government bill until it is duly tabled in the House, which was just done. Under the rules of Parliament, government bills are secret until they are tabled in the House for the first reading so the public does not know before Parliament knows. In the case where there is a contravention of that, it is, I believe, a prima facie matter of a breach of my and all hon. members' parliamentary privilege that there was a leak of a bill prior to it being tabled in the House.

If any cabinet minister, official or other person who had access to the bill releases such bill, it still remains the responsibility of the government House leader or his authorized designate to ensure the secrecy provisions are protected until the bill is tabled. This is obviously done so that no other party has a substantial advantage or in fact disadvantage.

Mr. Speaker, in the document that was presented at the October 13 press conference, which I provided to you, you will note that on the top of the page where we would normally see the word “secret”, the word has been whited out or blacked out so that it is unreadable. However, you will also note that on page 10 of the document the word “secret“ was inadvertently missed and not blacked out.

Mr. Speaker, on the basis of the information that I have provided to you, I believe there is substantive evidence that a secret document has been circulated in the public domain prior to it being tabled in Parliament, which would appear to constitute a breach of parliamentary privilege.

If the Speaker should find a prima facie case of a breach of privilege, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I assure my hon. colleague that any leaks that might have occurred from this government or, I am sure, any other government must be taken seriously.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to the hon. member that we would like to examine whatever documents he has tabled with you. I would ask that we reserve judgment to comment further until we have had a chance to examine the documents provided by the hon. member.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for his intervention and the hon. member for Mississauga South for raising this matter.

I have the document in hand that was delivered by the hon. member for Mississauga South. I will leave it at the table so the hon. parliamentary secretary has an opportunity to review it. I look forward to hearing his comments on this matter in due course.

Health

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the duty to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Health. The committee recommends that the government continue funding the first nations and Inuit tobacco control strategy at the fiscal level of 2005-06.

Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth, sixth and seventh reports on the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Age of Consent

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition from over 100 members of my constituency of Etobicoke North who are concerned that 14 and 15 year olds are the most vulnerable to sexual exploitation and ask Parliament to take all measures necessary to immediately raise the age of consent from 14 to 16 years of age.

Canada Pension Plan

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition today signed by residents in my riding who state that it is unfair in the situation where, prior to receiving any benefits from the reallocation of Canada pension plan benefits from the divorce, these benefits do not revert back to the surviving divorced spouse. Therefore, the petitioners request that Parliament study and remedy the situation.

Violence on Television

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud today to present a petition by constituents from every corner of my riding of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord and from Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean who are against violence on television.

This petition has 5,390 signatures on it and its purpose is to alert the public, broadcast companies, the CRTC and the government to violence. I commend the members of AFEAS in my riding of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord for their effort, particularly Thérèse Maltais, who was in charge of the project. I also want to acknowledge the involvement of Estelle Bolduc from AFEAS Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 64 could be made an order for return, this return would be tabled immediately.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 64 be made an order for return?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Question No. 64

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

With regard to the ongoing projects that have been approved and are being funded under the Canada Strategic Infrastructure Fund (CSIF), the Municipal-Rural Infrastructure Fund (MRIF) and the Border Infrastructure Fund (BIF): (a) are any projects experiencing cost overruns as a result of unpredicted increases in the cost of building materials, labour, fuel and, if so, which ones and what is the value of these cost overruns; and (b) has the government developed any strategy for providing financial assistance to the recipients of CSIF, MRIF and BIF grants who are facing cost overruns caused by unprojected increases in the cost of fuel, labour or building materials?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all further questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The Chair has notice of a couple of questions of privilege. I will hear now from the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh.

Report of the Subcommittee on the Review of the Anti-terrorism Act

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I delivered to the Table last evening a letter requesting the opportunity to raise this question of privilege during this period of the House sitting today.

The allegation I am bringing forward is that the chair of the Subcommittee on the Review of the Anti-terrorism Act, a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, released to the media, specifically to the National Post and reporter Andrew Mayeda, the substantial contents of the interim report of that subcommittee.

That interim report has been dealt with and reported out of the subcommittee. Mr. Speaker, I am trying to be very careful because I do not want to breach the confidentiality that the chair of this committee did. I believe it is simply appropriate for me to say that it has been reported out of the subcommittee and has been dealt with at the full committee. It is awaiting delivery to the House, which is expected shortly.

But in the interim, the chair took it upon himself to release to the media basically the contents of it, the principal recommendations in particular, as already mentioned.

Mr. Speaker, if you wish, you can look at yesterday's Quorum at page 10, where that article is reproduced. It was also on the front page of the National Post yesterday morning.

It is quite clear from the history of Parliament, this House of Commons, for quite some time that the breach of confidentiality is a breach of my privilege and that of every member of the House. It is a breach because it allows certain members of the House to have information in advance of the balance. That is the reason for the rule.

I want to draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, the comments in Marleau and Montpetit at page 884. At the very bottom of the full text in the last full paragraph, it is stated:

Committee reports must be presented to the House before they can be released to the public. The majority of committee reports are discussed and adopted at in camera meetings.

That is what occurred on this occasion.

Marleau and Montpetit go on to say:

Even when a report is adopted in public session, the report itself is considered confidential until it has actually been presented in the House. In addition, where a committee report has been considered and approved during in camera committee meetings, any disclosure--

I highlight “any disclosure”.

--of the contents of a report prior to presentation, either by Members or non-Members, may be judged a breach of privilege.

Marleau and Montpetit go on to emphasize the seriousness of this conduct on page 885 and state:

It is not in order for Members to allude to committee proceedings or evidence in the House until the committee has presented its report to the House. This restriction applies both to references made by Members in debate and during Oral Question Period.

We cannot even talk about the interim reports at that stage.

Based on that information, it is quite clear that there has been a breach of confidentiality and the privilege of the House.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I would refer you to a ruling by Speaker Parent in the 2000-04 Parliament. The facts of the situation were similar to what you heard earlier today in another matter of privilege. It was raised, successfully, by the member for Provencher, who is now our justice minister. That was a situation where, again, the government of the day had given information to the media. The media released that information prior to the bill--this was a bill rather than a report--coming into the House. Speaker Parent found at that time that this was a clear breach of members' privilege and it was dealt with by referring it.

I want to make one additional point with regard to the conduct. Again, I am trying to be very careful not to breach the confidentiality as the chair of the subcommittee did. The report, which I have in my hand right now, is 25 pages long. At the top of every one of those pages is the word “confidential”. Every single page has it.

There is no ability on the part of that member, the chair, to claim any lack of knowledge of the importance and the significance of maintaining the confidentiality and following the rules of the House.

Let me cover one last point. Then I will conclude. One can ask if we are just being technical here, if this is a technicality. It is not. If we are going to function properly in the House, if we are going to be able to do our jobs as MPs, we have to be treated equitably. Every member has the right to have access to the information that is in that report.

I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I was approached repeatedly by media about this interim report. I spoke to the member of the Bloc who sits on the committee. He also was approached. We knew we were not to release it in spite of the pressure put on us, because we respect, and rightfully so, the right of every member in the House to have that information at the same time. That time is when it is tabled in the House.

Mr. Speaker, if you rule in my favour that our privilege has been breached, I am in a position to present the motion as to how it should be referred and dealt with.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to my hon. colleague. He refers to an article that appeared yesterday in the National Post.

I take my responsibilities as the chair of that committee very seriously. I was referring specifically to something that potentially could be part of the report, that had been discussed by many members of the committee in public in the past, so at this point any breach of privilege was inadvertent. As I said, I do take that responsibility seriously. However, I want to apologize first of all to the member, and also to the committee and to the House if there in fact has been any breach of privilege.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am standing in support of the representations made by my colleague in the House of Commons, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh. I serve as a vice-chair of the subcommittee and was quite shocked when I read the National Post and saw the article, which actually really talks about what might be in the interim report. I was quite surprised because I know the member for Leeds—Grenville is a responsible member of the House.

Like my colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh, I had many calls from the national media, calls from the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. I went to the clerk of the committee, who reports to the chair, and asked the clerk, “When does this report become public and when am I able to speak to this report?” I was told that because the report of the subcommittee went to the main committee, until the main committee tabled the report in the House the report was confidential.

I must say I had people from the national media trying to tell me what might or might not be in the report and I know it was very tempting to get into the fray. I had to say to them that I would not act against the rules of the House. The rules of the House, as my colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh has pointed out, are quite clear and are set out in the House of Commons Procedure and Practice on pages 884 and 885. There are many precedents.

I do feel that my privileges also have been breached. If we are going to work together in this minority Parliament to advance the interests of all Canadians, this sort of thing, this kind of breach of confidentiality, must not be tolerated. I would ask the Speaker to support the interventions of my colleague and the co-vice-chair of the Subcommittee on the Review of the Anti-terrorism Act.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleagues, all of whom have made comments on this issue.

In considering your ruling, Mr. Speaker, it is very important to try to consider the spirit and the motivation behind the issue with which we are dealing. I can assure you that my hon. colleague, my friend from Leeds—Grenville, in his statement, was quite accurate when he said that any information that might have been inadvertently given and later reported in a national publication was done not in the spirit of leaking deliberately to the media information that might be considered confidential, but was done quite innocently and in an “inadvertent” manner.

My colleague from Leeds—Grenville has also stood before the House and apologized to his colleagues on the committee, to the House and to you, Mr. Speaker, because there was no malice intended. There was no intention to deliberately leak information prior to the subcommittee reporting back to the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I think you will recognize that each of us in the House from time to time makes mistakes. I think it is important, however, to recognize whether or not the mistakes made were serious enough by the intent behind them to cause some consequences and discipline from you. I would suggest that in this case there was absolutely no intention of malice. There was no intention to deliberately leak information. This was an inadvertent mistake. My colleague has apologized and I would ask that you take that into consideration when considering this question of privilege.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I thank all hon. members who have made contributions to this matter. I will take it under advisement.

I must say that it appears to me that the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh is correct in saying there has been a breach of the privileges of the House in terms of a leaking of information that was in a confidential report which has not been tabled. He cited ample precedents to support that point of view. I agree with him in that contention.

What I am going to do is review the comments of the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville in the circumstances, and of course the comments of the hon. the parliamentary secretary, but I will note that the parliamentary secretary seems to think I have disciplinary powers in this regard. I like to think of myself as a strict disciplinarian, but unfortunately in this case the best I can do is allow a motion to refer the matter to committee for further study. If the committee recommends discipline, I may be the one who has to administer it, but only after the House adopts the committee report, so the member for Leeds—Grenville need not quail at the prospect of what I may say in my ruling on this matter in the next few days.

I will take a look at the statements that were made and see if they are sufficient to require a referral to a committee for what I believe has been a breach of privilege. It is simply a matter of whether the statements that were made are sufficient to make it unnecessary for committee to do a study. I am quite prepared to look at that from the point of view of the Chair and get back to the House in due course. If I agree that a motion can be moved to refer it to committee, the House will then make its own decision whether to refer the matter, but as I say, I will review the statements first. I will come back to the House in due course on this one.

The hon. member for Mississauga South also has a question of privilege.

Freedom of Speech

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a matter of personal privilege.

Marleau and Montpetit at page 83 under “FREEDOM FROM OBSTRUCTION, INTERFERENCE, INTIMIDATION AND MOLESTATION” states:

Members are entitled to go about their parliamentary business undisturbed. The assaulting, menacing, or insulting--

This is my emphasis, Mr. Speaker, where it says:

--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. Any form of intimidation...of a person for or on account of his behaviour during a proceeding in Parliament could amount to contempt.

Mr. Speaker, I also refer you to Standing Order 18 which states:

No Member shall speak disrespectfully of the Sovereign...nor use offensive words against either House, or against any Member thereof.

On October 16 the member for Nepean—Carleton rose and addressed the House with regard to myself. He stated:

Let us review the facts. During my October 4 address before the House of Commons, I pointed out that the Liberal Party was soft on crime. The member for Mississauga South, who is also soft on crime, rose on a point of order to interrupt my remarks.

Here is the important line. He said:

It was the 14th time that he had risen on a point of order in this Parliament.

Let me repeat that. He said:

It was the 14th time that he had risen on a point of order in this Parliament.

The member, further referring to me, said:

He has a long history of abusing points of order. He has intervened to make 10 false points of order in the House of Commons. Those are 10 points of order that have been summarily dismissed or ruled out of order by your Chair. This occasion was no different at all.

I have much more, but I will leave it at that.

The record will show, and I have checked with the Acting Speaker, the Table and with the Hansard index documents, that in fact, in the current Parliament I have only risen in the House twice, not 14 times.

The first time, on May 8, on the matter of attributing animal-like characteristics to an hon. member was sustained by the Chair.

The second issue was on October 4, which was in fact the incident where the member threatened me. The Chair ruled that the Chair thought it was a point of debate. So, one was in fact not sustained as a point of order. However, there were only two, not 14, and not 10 false points of order ruled by you in the Chair.

According to the member's own statement in Hansard, those are the facts. In fact, they are not the facts. With the facts manufactured by this member, he has either inadvertently put false information on the record and misled the House or it is not inadvertent.

If the member specifically says there were precisely 14, not a lot, but 14, and precisely 10, not a bunch of them, this member knows exactly what he was saying on the record. However, the record of Hansard for the 39th Parliament to the date he made that comment indicates there were only two.

The member concluded, based on the false information that he gave to this House and misled the House on, that I, the hon. member for Mississauga South, have a long history of abusing points of order.

I cited Marleau and Montpetit and the regulations for an important reason. I have been a member of Parliament since 1993. I have never ever, Mr. Speaker, been accused or found to be abusive of this House in any way. I value my reputation as a member of Parliament. I value and respect this House, the Speaker and all hon. members.

I accepted the member's statement of October 16 because I had the presumption of honesty of all hon. members and I was not going to question it. However, when the story appeared in the Ottawa Sun yesterday where there were further statements which were insulting to me, I felt it was worth my while to inspect the record.

I could also suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that if the Chair were to look at the 38th Parliament, the Chair would find that I rose on 18 occasions on points of order and only three of the 18 were found to be points of debate. There is no evidence of my being abusive of the House in terms of points of order as contended by the member who specifically cited 10 incidents in this Parliament.

I believe that I have been insulted. I believe that I have been demeaned by the member for Nepean—Carleton. I believe that he has mischaracterized my work. He has defamed my reputation. Either inadvertently or not inadvertently he has misled the House.

According to the rules of Parliament, the Standing Orders, and our practices and procedures, as I mentioned with regard to Marleau and Montpetit, I believe that there has been a serious breach of my privileges as a member of Parliament. If the Speaker should find a prima facie case of breach of my privileges, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion.