Debates of Nov. 29th, 2010

Bill C-35—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

It has been brought to my attention that a clerical error has been found in the report to the House on Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

During its consideration of the bill, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration adopted a subamendment to an amendment to clause 2. Regrettably, that subamendment was omitted from the report to the House and the reprint of the bill.

The report to the House should have indicated that Bill C-35, in clause 2, be amended by replacing lines 16 to 20 on page 2 with the following:

(5) The Minister may, by regulation, designate a body whose members in good standing may represent or advise a person for consideration—or offer to do so—in connection with the proceeding or application under this Act.

(5.1) For greater certainty, subsection (5) authorizes the Minister to revoke, by regulation, a designation made under that subsection.

Therefore, I am directing that a corrigendum to the report be prepared to insert the correct words to clause 2. In addition, I am ordering a reprint of the bill.

Seventh Report of the Standing Committee on Finance—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I am now prepared to rule on the question of privilege raised on November 23, 2010 by the hon. member for Outremont concerning the premature disclosure on November 18, 2010, of the confidential draft report on the prebudget consultations of the Standing Committee on Finance by an employee of the hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar.

I would like to thank the hon. member for Outremont for having raised this matter, as well as the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and the hon. members for Hochelaga, Mississauga South, Kings—Hants, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel and Acadie—Bathurst for their interventions.

As the House well knows, normally the Chair does not get involved in matters that arise out of committee proceedings. In this case, however, the House is in receipt in the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Finance, which was tabled on Tuesday, November 23, 2010. That report contains the following motion that was adopted unanimously by the committee:

That the Committee report to the House of Commons the potential breach of privilege resulting from the release of the confidential draft report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance in respect of its pre-budget consultations for 2010, entitled “Canada's Continuing Economic Recovery: What People, Businesses and Communities Need”, prior to its presentation to the House.

The report also names persons to whom the confidential draft report was sent and identifies who sent it to them. Significantly, the House has since learned that two additional persons have received the confidential draft report.

At the same time, it is important to note that prior to the tabling of this report, on Monday, November 22, 2010, the hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar came to the House to explain that the individual identified as being responsible for the premature release of the committee's draft report was a former member of her staff, that she had dismissed him upon learning of his actions and that she was “sincerely sorry for the leak of the report”. See the Debates, on page 6268. The Chair wishes to state at the outset that the actions she has taken are entirely to her credit. Indeed, this has been acknowledged by colleagues from all parties.

In his intervention, the hon. member for Outremont noted that the premature disclosure of this clearly marked confidential report to a number of lobbyists, in exposing the positions of the parties, may have had the effect of impeding members in their ability to discharge their responsibilities freely. Readily acknowledging that the committee accepted the apology of the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, the member underscored the fact that “...this is not an individual issue, but an institutional issue that directly affects our ability to do our work as parliamentarians unimpeded”.

Thus, the committee, having done all that it could do, unanimously agreed to place the matter before the House for its consideration.

The amount of time that had elapsed, reportedly four days, before the lobbyists were approached to return or destroy the copies in their possession was a particular concern to other members who intervened. This is of particular concern to the Chair, especially in light of the speed and ease of dissemination of electronic information.

For his part, the parliamentary secretary contended that it had become the usual practice of the House in recent years to consider a matter of privilege closed upon receipt of an apology by the offending member and that therefore there was no prima facie case of privilege in this instance given the member's immediate and proactive actions.

In deciding on matters of this kind, the Chair is of course guided by our rules and practices. In this regard, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, at page 1073, unequivocally states the following.

Committee reports must be presented to the House before they can be released to the public. Even when a report is concurred in at a public meeting, the report itself is considered confidential until it has actually been presented to the House. In addition, any disclosure of the contents of a report prior to presentation, either by Members or non-Members, may be judged to be a breach of privilege.

It is with good reason that draft committee reports are treated as confidential. To do otherwise might well prejudice the ability of committee members to engage in candid deliberations free from outside interference. Violation of this principle of confidentiality can thus be seen as direct interference with the ability of members to discharge their duties.

While it is true that an apology has on occasion been deemed sufficient to resolve a possible breach of privilege, each instance must be assessed on its own merits. Today, we are faced with a situation where a committee has taken the rare step of reporting to the House the matter of a premature disclosure, unanimously believing that it may warrant further consideration.

This matter is thus not merely of direct personal concern to the member from whose office the leak came or even of concern to the finance committee which reported the leak. As I see it, this is a situation that is of importance to the whole House and all hon. members. It has an institutional dimension that cannot be ignored given the circumstances. The Chair must therefore determine whether it appears that the ability of members to carry out their parliamentary duties has been impeded.

Having considered carefully the arguments presented, I have reached the conclusion that, in this instance, members of the Standing Committee on Finance, individually and collectively, appear to have been impeded in their work. Accordingly, I have no alternative but to find that a prima facie breach of privilege has occurred.

Before I call on the member for Outremont to move the appropriate motion, I wish to again stress the institutional nature of this matter and to commend the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar for her poise, sincerity and proactivity in being the first member to inform the House of this vexing situation.

I now recognize the hon. member for Outremont and invite him to move his motion.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by my friend and colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver East, the following motion:

That the matters referred to in the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Finance, tabled in this House on November 23, 2010, be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, as usual, when such delicate questions are being asked in the House, we all rely on your experience and expertise, and once again, we are humbled by the quality of your analysis here today. In fact, you have defended this institution.

I would like to give a very recent, concrete example that demonstrates just how much our ability to do our job has been impeded. Ever since the work on the prebudget consultation was made public—in fact, it was publicized; that is the very definition of the term—to some lobbyists, we have begun receiving invitations, as individual members of the Standing Committee on Finance, to attend meetings with certain groups that want to know why their requests were not included in our recommendations. Therefore, we are no longer dealing with something theoretical, but rather a very concrete issue.

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the fact that you explained that, initially, we were informed that three Conservative lobbyists had received the information. The following day, Tuesday, the Chief Government Whip revealed that there was a fourth, and the day after that, we received a message stating that there was a fifth.

It goes without saying that, under the circumstances, when we ask that this matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, we, the opposition parties, intend to study exactly what happened.

Is that how they usually operate? Is that how the government does things, or was this the action of a single staffer? According to the government's initial version, the young staffer was dismissed immediately. That is all well and good, but the government has done this kind of thing before.

In the old Star Trek episodes, we would always say, “Watch out for the guy in the red shirt. He is not going to make it to the end of the episode”. The Conservatives are experts at finding somebody in the red shirt to eliminate, to bear the blame, but when the documents came in that morning at 8:31, when those documents were sent to the members of the Standing Committee on Finance, how is it possible that this lone junior staffer working in the office decided that there was a specific list of Conservative-connected lobbyists who would be given individual direct access to this information? The only way we will get a full answer to that question is by taking this matter before a committee.

There is also a technical aspect to this. For example in the first run-through, we were told that a check had been done and that they were only able to identify on the computer of that employee three lobbyists to whom it had been sent. The next day we found out that there was a fourth and then a fifth. The information technology branch here on the Hill will have no difficulty whatsoever going into their systems, because even if it has been erased in the office, even if it has been erased on the employee's BlackBerry, the IT group here on the Hill will be able to go deeper into the matter and find out for the members of the House what the actual situation is. We will not rely on what we are being told by the government because what we were told on Monday was different from what we found out on Tuesday, which was again contradicted on Wednesday.

Members of the House have every right to be skeptical about the information that is being provided, because it simply has not been borne out.

This is a question of privilege. The information leak could have repercussions outside Parliament—I mentioned lobbyists who have started contacting us directly because they are well aware of what we have suggested, what we have not disclosed and what we have disclosed—and within Parliament. It has become very difficult for members of the Standing Committee on Finance to work together because none of us know whether the necessary level of confidentiality will be observed.

This can have repercussions for the Commissioner of Lobbying and the Ethics Commissioner. There have been a number of cases in the past. We all remember the member who, as natural resources minister, had to fire one of her staffers. What information got out in that case? Many other examples have come up in the House concerning government behaviour that stands in stark opposition to what the Conservatives have been promising since the beginning. It is always worth going back to square one and reminding ourselves that, when they took power, the Conservatives promised to do things differently.

You probably recall, as I do, Mr. Speaker, that this was a so-called matter of accountability. I think that accountability is a more appropriate word than responsibility in the circumstances. In any case, the government said that from the day they took office we would have a government that is more open and more honest with people. Matters of conduct and ethics would be front and centre. What have we seen happening instead since they took office? We have seen the kind of access to information and privacy stories that make your hair stand on end. For example, the rights of this House have been systematically trampled. In fact, Mr. Speaker, you had to rule on the issue of the alleged torture of Afghan detainees. Regarding privacy, there is no shortage of examples. We will recall the personal medical information that the Conservatives disclosed concerning someone who, God forbid, had the gall to question the government about how he was treated by Veterans Affairs.

So, we have seen what kind of medicine the Conservatives use in such circumstances. Everyone is an enemy. Such conduct on the part of a government and its leader has not been seen since the Nixon era. There are enemies lists. Anyone who questions becomes a bad person, whether it is the RCMP public complaints commissioner or the woman who was in charge of nuclear safety in Canada. As soon as someone tells the Conservatives something they do not want to hear, they get the axe.

That is why the story about the junior employee in the office that morning is so hard to believe. The finance committee's report was received at 8:31 a.m. and, by 8:37 a.m., communication with each and every recipient was over. Would they want us to believe that he sat at his desk and made a list where everyone in their respective fields received a note that they returned, saying “We love you; that was great.” They were receiving precisely the information they wanted. That was no coincidence. It was not the doing of a junior person working all alone.

When there is a lack of respect for institutions, it starts to catch on. The actions of the Prime Minister's Office are glaring and this behaviour is being transmitted throughout the machinery of government. I remind members that the deputy ministers, who were specifically declared to be responsible in the Conservatives' very first piece of legislation, the Accountability Act, are starting to balk. I mentioned earlier about expecting something bad to happen to the guy in the red shirt. In the end, people realize that if they say no, the deputy minister ends up under a lot of pressure because he remembers that he is the one named in the Accountability Act. It will now be the deputy ministers. This was the case with Louis Ranger, a man of incredible integrity who worked in the Department of Transport. He had 35 years of experience within the government but he refused to do exactly what he was told regarding infrastructure spending.

He knew that not only was that improper, but also that, in order to generate good press, the Conservatives had decided from the beginning that ministerial responsibility would no longer be the norm; deputy ministers would assume responsibility.

It goes without saying that within the machinery of government, these actions did not go over well. There are no more coincidences. When someone sends a confidential prebudget document, we have every right to question who made that request and why. Was it simply to please these lobbyists?

We can verify whether one of the recipients had discussions with the member in Parliament in question during meetings of the Standing Committee on Finance. Was the request to be recommended by the government? Is that how it will work?

Mr. Speaker, you had every reason to remind us that, unlike the American system, in which there is a watertight separation between the executive and the legislative, in the House, the first row on the majority side consists of members of Parliament from the government itself, and they make up the cabinet. So, it is already not very watertight.

Imagine what it would be like if we, the elected members and lawmakers, could no longer work together. Remember that ministers are not members of parliamentary committees. Members of cabinet do not join us there. We are in a prebudget exercise; we have heard from hundreds of groups and individuals from all over Canada; and we are preparing our submission. It has often been said, but it is worthwhile remembering, that we are working with a minority government, which is our third minority government in a row. All sides must work together to ensure smooth operations.

Let us examine what is happening. On the one hand, as elected members, we are trying to see how we can work together in future, and, on the other hand, some members or their employees believe that the best thing to do is to divulge confidential prebudget information. It is up to the elected members to make recommendations to the Minister of Finance.

How are we supposed to carry out our work now? If the purpose of the exercise is to make a series of recommendations without interference from the executive, how can we, as members of the legislative branch, continue to do that?

If this way of doing things has been communicated directly from the highest level, that is from the office of the Prime Minister—who interferes everywhere, is a control freak and likes to stick his nose into everything—how are we supposed to believe that we are working on a level playing field?

Together with our colleagues, we work on making recommendations that are in the public interest. How can we not come to the conclusion, as we are doing, that the Conservative government always works in its own interests and ignores the best interests of the public? This way of doing things has become the Conservative hallmark.

For our part, as you so rightly acknowledged today in this place, Mr. Speaker, we believe that this is a question of privilege. We wish to know the ins and outs of this story, and we look forward to this matter going before the parliamentary committee.

As elected members and as members of the legislative branch of government, it is important for us to continue to work openly with our colleagues with a view to making recommendations to the executive branch of government.

It has often been mistakenly said that in Canada there is a separation of powers like in the United States. Unlike the United States, where there is an absolute separation of power, members of cabinet do not sit in the House of Representatives or the Senate. In Canada, the front benches on the majority side, on the government side, are those who sit in cabinet. They are the executive branch of government.

However, when we listen to hundreds of groups coming in from across Canada making representations we need to do it freely and with only one consideration in mind: what the best way is to look at the public interest with the information we are being given; and the precepts, the proposals and the positions of our respective political parties. When that is interfered with, it is interfering with something precious in our democracy.

Due to the leak of this information, which was supposed to remain confidential as we worked on this together, we put ourselves in a position where it will be extremely difficult for that parliamentary committee to do as it has always done in the past, which is to produce a report.

That report has a special and fairly solemn character to it, which is provided for specifically in the standing orders of this House. It is not just any report. This is an official démarche of this Parliament where we receive hundreds of observations and recommendations from individuals, groups and businesses from across the country and we are supposed to weigh the various asks that are being made.

These are tough economic times and we know the government will try to use all sorts of reasons to reduce programs that can help people. Many of us have different perspectives on that. We would like to have the ability to work on them but one can imagine the pressure on members of other parties when, in the real world, lobbyists are aware of one party's proposal that winds up being a unanimous proposal. If it is a Bloc proposal, one could imagine the type of name-calling that already exists on the government side. It will be a “separatist proposal”. If it is coming from the NDP, it will be qualified as a “socialist proposal”, and so on.

We can just imagine how this type of leak interferes with our capacity to do our jobs in the public interest. That is why your decision, Mr. Speaker, is so important today.

I mentioned the Afghan detainee documents, the Rahim Jaffer affair and the government's bullying tactics around the Canadian Wheat Board. We were promised there would be no interference with the unelected Senate in the work of this House but last week an important bill on climate change, a bill that is not only important for today but for future generations as well, which was adopted by the duly elected members of this House of Commons, was defeated by the Conservative Party bagmen and hacks who it stuffed the Senate with. This was unprecedented. We have not seen that in 75 years.

We were told that we would have a new rule on fixed election dates. That is another knee-slapper because the minute it was in the Prime Minister's interest to call the election, notwithstanding the fixed date, the Prime Minister went ahead and did whatever he wanted.

That is to say nothing about the West Block renovations and, of course, there has been some talk of a cashmere coat. Personally, I have always been of the view that it must be a coat made out of asbestos. It cost so much because several hundred dollars would have to be included for the liability insurance to wear it around.

The access to information regime is broken. The public appointments commission was one of the main promises made by the Conservatives but it has never been set up. So we are seeing the same thing. We are seeing disturbing examples. By pure chance, out of the 22,000 lawyers in the province of Quebec, it happens to be the main organizer of the Minister of Natural Resources who gets named to an important tribunal. However, I dare anyone to say that it is not because he is the best one of the 22,000 lawyers in the province of Quebec. Of course he is the best one and that is why he got the job.

The public appointments committee was supposed to get rid of stuff like that. Instead, we are seeing a record number of purely partisan appointments. Lobbyists go directly into cabinet and we have seen that since the Conservatives came in.

We have seen all sorts of behaviour on the part of the Conservative government coming from and headed by the Prime Minister's Office, which is why this type of behaviour needs to be cut off the minute it appears.

We agreed with your decision today, Mr. Speaker, that this was a question that affects our privileges as members of the House, but especially our ability to do our jobs in the public interest. I insisted on it when we had the occasion to discuss it the first time out, which was that it was an institutional and not an individual question.

People understood relatively quickly that they were dealing with something serious. It was interesting because as we have morphed from the three lobbyists, to the four, the five and who knows how many it will be at the end and how many people in those offices shared in that information, but the first batch of three provided us with what can only be called the three monkeys defence: one had not heard about it; the other one s would not see anything that was written there; and the other one promised not to speak about it.

However, at the bottom of it all, we are dealing with an institutional issue. We will be able to bring in every one of those lobbyists to find out whether they had communication with anyone in that member's office and find out whether the request came from them and that it was simply being rolled back to them. We will be able to go through all this information and that will be an abject lesson for everyone on how to behave on this matters in the years to come.

For all those reasons, we make the motion that this be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs so that all members of that committee can sit down and ask the appropriate questions, get to the bottom of this and ensure that at no time in the future will our ability to do our work that we have been elected to do in the public interest will be interfered with by anyone.

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

Mr. Speaker, on a point of clarification. Will the government have a chance to adequately respond to the remarks made by the hon. member for Outremont following questions and comments?

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

This is a debate on this motion, so the members can participate in the debate to their heart's content. I am sure the hon. member is aware that can happen on a procedural motion of this kind.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the procedural niceties that will occur following this. I was mainly enquiring whether the opportunity would be given now or whether this is only for questions and comments and how long that questions and comments portion of this debate may last.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

We have a 10-minute question and comment period following the hon. member's speech, which was a 20 minute limited speech, and then there will be another speech by another hon. member on my list. I am sure the parliamentary secretary can guess who it is. So we are looking forward to his comments in due course.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Kings—Hants.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, does the member for Outremont share my concern as a member of the committee about the length of time it took the government to respond to this leak, to actually make contact with the lobbyists who had received the document?

We understand that the hon. member whose staff leaked the document became aware of the leak on Thursday and that the whip of the Conservative government was notified later that day. I spoke with the hon. member and, to her credit, she phoned committee members, which was helpful. My advice to her when I spoke to her on Friday was to contact the individuals who had received the report and ask them to ensure that it was not transmitted to anyone else and, in fact, that it be destroyed, and to ensure they understand the gravity of it.

It is my understanding that the Conservative whip, the most senior role from a disciplinary perspective, was aware of this and that his advice was just to leave it with the committee. He took no action whatsoever to deal with this.

Does the hon. member for Outremont share my concern that it was highly inappropriate for the government whip to not take more serious action and potentially prevent a wholesale distribution of this document within the lobbyist community?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we agree wholeheartedly, and that is the reason I put so much emphasis on the fact that on Monday we had three, by Tuesday we knew there were at least four, and by Wednesday we knew there were at least five. That is why we are going to have to use the IT people.

It is true that, now that we are dealing in an electronic world, at the click of the mouse it can be sent almost anywhere. However, the photocopier was almost as fast. Let us not kid ourselves. If we were dealing with a hard copy, I do not think it would have been that much different. However, there are certain things we can look at.

When something such as that is going around for 100 hours, we have to know who knew. One of the things that disturbs me as a member of the finance committee is that I am starting to get calls from lobbyists who had “asks”, to use the consecrated term, who were not in the report from us and who are now asking for specific meetings with me to find out why they are not in the report.

That is interfering with my ability to do my job, and that went on for 100 hours before anyone on the government side had the wherewithal to say, “That is what is wrong. Make sure that they do not send it around and are not using it.” That is why that also has to be analyzed for the future.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the disturbing aspects of this is the cumulative effect that I have noticed since I have been here as a member, and in particular since the Conservatives have come into government, of their attitude towards undermining the role of the committees.

We saw the situation where the former House leader of the Conservatives actually wrote a manual in regard to how to undermine the work of a committee.

Then we saw the situation with the current House leader, before he was the House leader, in this bombastic approach in front of committee of defending staff members who fairly clearly, by their own admission, had been undermining the Privacy Act and the availability of information, again to members and to the committee.

So my question to the member for Outremont is whether we are seeing an ongoing pattern and the sense that the government has of just sending the member in, he or she will apologize and everything will be okay and we will continue on, and that has now permeated into the staff of the Conservative Party and its members.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the simple answer is that it is repeat behaviour. It is a pattern of behaviour. That is what we have to stop.

I look at the example of the Minister of Natural Resources, who had a staffer whose repeat behaviour was to interfere in the transmission of the information that was duly requested under the Access to Information Act.

We have that sort of repeat behaviour and the only time there is a sanction is when it becomes public; only when it is repeat behaviour, caught and made public, do they actually do anything about it.

There is a basic rule with these things, that these are the parts that are coming out and we are actually catching, but there is a lot more beneath the surface.

It is that signal that this is a correct pattern of behaviour, to deny access and interfere but provide privileged access to the people who are close to the government. That is the behaviour we have to put a stop to.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his lengthy and robust statement.

I do think the member should look back, and I do have a question for him in particular. I think he is a member of the law society of Quebec. I believe that is the case. I know there are a lot of members of Parliament in this place who are or have been lawyers in law societies from coast to coast.

All of those professions that are considered to be very important because they deal with money and people's rights and privileges have one rule: that even though they are self-reporting or they take care of their own business and are self-insured, they require that a lawyer in good standing with the law society of whatever bar it is, wherever the rule of law is present, and especially here in Canada, must report as soon as they become aware of those situations, which may be uncomfortable for them, and in particular, situations where their staff misbehave. In this particular case, that is the situation.

Of course, the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar immediately took steps, fired the person and reported it, as is required by law societies across this country, as is required by law societies across the world that understand and respect the rule of law.

That is what has been done here. What has been done here is beyond what is required by that particular member, and I think the members of this place should stand up and applaud that particular member for taking proper steps, for taking immediate steps, and for being the first person in this particular case to become aware and to report that.

I think that takes a lot of guts and a lot of courage. Instead of standing up and talking about that person in a derogatory manner, members should stand up and actually applaud that member for what she did.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, here is what it means to take steps.

If a former colleague of the House of Commons is lobbying one of us and he or she is an illegal lobbyist and not registered, then the MP does not meet with that person. If our staff has privileged access to confidential information, we make sure that we read them the rules and explain to them why they have access to it in our office. We do not use them as scapegoats to be executed when our office gets in trouble and it reflects badly on us.

We are going to be able to sit down and look at a series of examples that constitute a pattern of behaviour in the Conservative government, including the ones I have just mentioned.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is admirable that the staff person took responsibility and resigned. The reality is that the employers, meaning MPs, are responsible for the actions of their staff. Whenever an MP's staff member gets into trouble, it is very convenient to simply fire that employee.

Is the member aware of any precedents that we could look at that could tell us how to proceed with this particular situation?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what we especially have to find out in this particular case is whether the rules were ever given. When the person transmitted the information that was not allowed to be transmitted to the Conservative lobbyist, was it the result of a request or was that individual acting on his own?

One of my colleagues was careful to point out that all of us received the same information at 8:31. Somehow there was a complete list with specific information ready and transmitted by 8:37. That is something worthy of our attention.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I find it unfortunate that the debate has taken this kind of turn. We have heard from many of our constituents and we have certainly read in the media that most Canadians are quite concerned about what they consider to be hyper-partisanship in this place. One needs to look no further than the comments made by the member for Outremont to understand why Canadians are quite concerned about that.

Once the ruling was made that there is a prima facie case and this matter should be referred to the procedure and House affairs committee for further examination, all we needed to do collectively as members of this place is support that motion and allow the procedure and House affairs committee to do its work and to conduct a complete examination. Instead, we have a diatribe by the member for Outremont, and I suspect we are going to hear others later this day, rather than merely referring this matter as should be done succinctly and immediately to the procedure and House affairs committee to allow it to do a full examination.

I find that completely unfortunate and inappropriate, but that just speaks to the fact that many members in this place do not want to allow committees to merely do their work but try to make political and partisan statements, or in other words, to use the vernacular, “piling on”. That is what we saw from the member for Outremont.

I will take this opportunity to make one statement to correct some misinformation reported by my friend from Outremont, who suggested that perhaps there were more emails sent out and asked why the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar did not go to the IT services of Parliament to get it to examine whether only five emails were sent out.

I can confirm that this has been done. The member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar did confirm with IT services in the House that only five emails had been sent. I have that documentation in my hand. Following the conclusion of my presentation I would ask for unanimous consent to table that so we hopefully do not hear the same sort of dubious suggestions from other members that perhaps there is a larger conspiracy at work here. There were five emails sent, and only five.

As I said, since there was a prima facie case to a breach of privilege, and in light of the additional information we have heard since this matter was first raised in the House, our government will be supporting this motion. I would ask all members, if they feel likewise, to support it, support it briefly and succinctly, and allow this to be sent to the procedure and House affairs committee as quickly as possible.

I would ask for unanimous consent to table the documents confirming the fact that IT services has examined the computer in question and only five emails were sent.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Does the parliamentary secretary have unanimous consent to table that document?

[An hon. member]

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

On the same point of order, the hon. member for Outremont.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is precisely what the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs is being convened to look at. We will be able to interview people from IT. We will be able to find out. It is certainly not something he is going to give stealth here in the House.

That is why our privileges have been breached, because of behaviour like that, and we are not going to stand for it. The procedure and House affairs committee is going to study this matter.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

I take from that there is not unanimous consent.

Questions and comments, the hon. member from Mississauga South.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member has made a statement with regard to what he has been able to do in a very short period of time, but the representations were made that even the fourth document that was leaked turned out to have been sent one minute before the first three that we received but they were not found on the hard drive.

Did the member ask IT, or be advised by IT, whether the contents of the computer that was used and the account that I think was the surname of the hon. member and zero @parl.gc.ca was in fact altered, erased or otherwise changed so that it would not be visible to anyone actually looking at the computer when the matter first arose?

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

Mr. Speaker, since I asked for unanimous consent to table a document confirming everything I said in my first intervention but was denied, I would suggest that we just go along with the suggestion made by my colleague from Outremont. Let us let the procedure and House affairs committee deal with this. I am sure it will find and verify exactly what I said.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to provide some input on the ruling of the Speaker and the motion of the hon. member for Outremont to refer this matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

I think that all hon. colleagues understand that this is a very serious issue, to the extent that the member for Outremont has indicated that he has been contacted by the so-called lobbyist with regard to why certain things may or may not have been in the report. I found the same thing. I can assure the House that all possibilities are still on the table with regard to the report of the committee.

As members know, the committee consulted broadly across the country. There were some 455 submissions and about 155 witnesses. All of those participants in the prebudget consultation have an important role to play in terms of making their so-called asks and justifying them before the committee. Obviously we are going to get probably $100 of asks for every $1 that would otherwise be available. That has usually been the case. Certainly it was my experience when I was on the finance committee a number of years ago.

The issue here is not to speculate; it is to find fact. That is the purpose of the referral to the procedure and House affairs committee.

I do not want to speculate but I am personally concerned that the finance committee report will never be issued, because this matter has taken up so much time. The deadline for issuing the report is December 3. It is going to be very difficult for the committee to do an objective job, to be able to present a cogent and thoughtful report for parliamentarians and for all Canadians to see where we have been in terms of leading up to this consultation, the kinds of input we received and the recommendations of the committee as a whole, and possibly some supplementary reports giving the recommendations of individuals or of other parties individually.

It is a very important responsibility and we will be judged by it. The quality of that report will be a significant indicator of the quality of the work of the finance committee and its members. The members take that very seriously. That is why this encroachment and violation of the committee's rights have been taken so seriously.

As a consequence of looking at this matter, when we look at the facts and the details, we would ask ourselves that if there were three leaks, and that is what was represented, anybody who is involved in something like this and understands how serious it is would ask if that was the extent of it. We would want that determined because we need to know what the dimensions of the problem are.

We then heard that there was a fourth and then a fifth. All of this happened at a time when people came forward to indicate that they were contacted finally after some four days. The question arises as to why those people were not contacted as the first course of action by any responsible party. That question has not been answered and the procedure and House affairs committee may be able to pursue it.

The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has indicated that they took all possible steps. First of all, there was an apology in the House, and then there was, as I understand it, notification of the clerk of the committee.

I would challenge that that is all possible steps when a situation occurs. I was advised that the first step taken was that the matter was brought to the attention of the chief government whip. I do not know what the rules of the game are, but I understand that was the first step. I can only speculate that that step was taken to make sure that the party's position was well understood on how these matters are handled.

The understanding is, and it was confirmed to me by a member of the Conservative caucus on committee, that the whip's position was that it should be left up to the committee to deal with. That did not happen. The committee did not get it until later. The apology did not come until after the in camera meeting in which the committee first had an opportunity to consider this. We have to ask ourselves, the member found out on the Thursday, I think as people were going home, so there was no real opportunity, but we have an understanding that at the first opportunity matters should be brought before the House. The rule was considered important enough that steps could have been taken to have that done, either directly or indirectly, by the member.

There was also an opportunity all day on Monday, but it did not happen until after the finance committee meeting, where this matter was under full discussion with the members who were just finding out the details. I raise that simply as a matter of fact.

Then there is the issue of mitigating the damage. I would have thought that reasonable recommendation or protocol would have said that there should be a mitigation step taken. How can we make sure this does not happen further? How do we stop that machine that is processing things? It did not happen until the Monday when the in camera meeting was held. From Thursday to Monday there was no communication. I am wondering why the chief government whip did not think it was important for the lobbyists to be advised that they got the report by mistake, that there had been a mistake and they should not circulate it, that they should destroy all these things and confirm that they had done it. It is not a big deal and it did not happen for some period of time.

I am going to disagree with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons that all possible steps were taken. In fact, they were not, and whatever steps were taken, were not taken expeditiously in the public interest and in the interest of Parliament. We should consider that.

I raise this because I do not think members should have to go to anybody to determine what is the appropriate course of action when there is an incident which may have breached the privileges of Parliament or been a matter of contempt of Parliament. There should not be a guessing game as to what are the steps. Members of the procedure and House affairs committee will have an opportunity to consider what happened, how it happened, why it happened and how we can make sure it never happens again. I would encourage them to do that.

There has been a suggestion that there may be a pattern. I wanted to look at this as objectively as I could. Then I heard there was a fourth. That fourth one came out and we were notified at the public meeting of the finance minister last Tuesday when he was before committee, and it was communicated to us that someone had voluntarily come forward and said they got this, et cetera.

We have to wonder whether there are any more. The parliamentary secretary said he contacted the information technology group to examine the hard drive or whatever and found that there is only five.

One of the things I found out was that the person who leaked the report, Mr. Russell Ullyatt, his common law spouse's name is Ashley Brambles. Ashley Brambles is a registered lobbyist and in fact represents and works for the Canadian Medical Association, which appeared before the finance committee on the prebudget consultations. The question about whether it was just five emails is one thing, but I do not know how far five emails flipped and how the pyramid started to grow.

Now we know there is a linked party, a close party who is a lobbyist and has an interest in this. We would have to find out whether or not yet another registered lobbyist had in fact found this out. It is not going to be good enough just to look at the computer. We have to look at some of the other facts and that would be one example.

There is another one which I found kind of interesting. Mr. Ullyatt is the owner of two companies. One of the companies is called Bestmail.ca. Bestmail.ca says the following under “About Us”:

Dedicating ourselves solely to political mailing and fundraising gives Bestmail.ca unique insight into the best practices within the political mail sphere. Having sent over 5 million pieces of mail in the last two years allows us to work with your organization....

In terms of number of employees, it says “n/a”, not applicable or not available.

Mr. Ullyatt has another company called RU Thinking. RU Thinking is the company that owns Bestmail.ca and is involved in similar matters.

I will be receiving a copy of a picture of a printing press which was in the corridor outside the office of the member in question. It is not a computer printer; I will find out what it was, but it appears to be a commercial printer. I also found out that the amount in the last business year of the materials and supplies expenses for the member's office seemed to be extraordinarily high relative to those of other hon. members. I will not go through the details, but it would raise some questions about what else was happening in the office. What was Mr. Russell Ullyatt doing in that office? What business was he transacting in that office? What people was he dealing with in that office? What was his job in that office?

We do not have the tools to do this, but the procedure and House affairs committee may. If Mr. Ullyatt was in fact conducting commercial businesses out of that office using commercial printers and House of Commons materials and supplies for these millions of pieces of communications going out, either electronically or otherwise, through a couple of companies, this lends some potential credibility to the idea that maybe there is much more to this than we know. Is this part of the culture? Is this part of the routine? Is this part of challenging the facts, switching the channel and blaming somebody else?

The member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale even demanded that I apologize for bringing to the attention of the House that there was a fourth email. He is on the finance committee. He was at the meeting when it was received and he knows it was at a public meeting with the finance minister with regard to the budget. It was a public meeting. He stood and said I should apologize because I leaked something that happened at an in camera meeting. That is not true. The subject matter of a leak occurred during an in camera meeting, but this particular information was elsewhere. He raised it. I got on my feet and said the member had his facts wrong, that I got the information, as did all other hon. members, on the day following.

Then the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons gets up twice and refers to that and says that the member refuses to apologize, even though I explained why it was not applicable to apologize for something that did not happen. Therefore, the government is continuing to try to switch the channel to try to put the blame elsewhere.

I have this feeling that there is much more going on here. I have this feeling that when a member has to go the government whip to get instructions on how to handle it and the government whip does not say the most important thing and mitigate the downside, fix it because it is a serious problem. I do not think he said that. I have a feeling the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will be able to determine those facts.

Public interest is the most important issue. We talk about the institutional importance, and the word “dysfunction” has been used often about this place. However, it started with a 200-page manual on how to disrupt committees in the House, which was made by the former House leader of the Conservative Party. It was applied time and time again, whether it be the in and out hearings by the Conservative Party, which had charges against it for laundering money during an election campaign, or on the whole issue of the violation of Access to Information Act by a staffer. The current House leader came to the House and said that government staffers were not responsible, that it was the minister who was responsible. I do not see them saying today that the minister or member is responsible for the actions of his or her people.

Now we have the government saying two things, depending on the circumstances. If it is going to be the victim, it certainly is going to say no, that this is the way it is going to be. I hope the procedure and House affairs committee will consider that we do need a protocol. We need to deal with things on an expedited basis. We really have to consider whether the Parliament of Canada and the public interest has to wait until the committee actually reports when there is an apparent breach of confidentiality or a contempt of Parliament. That is not in the best interests of Parliament or the public. We have to consider if we have a situation and a configuration at committee, where it is not possible for a consensus at a committee to issue a report, that a serious item that happened in committee may never come out. This is wrong.

I certainly support the motion of the member for Outremont to send this to procedure and House affairs. I do know it has an obligation to deal with it first before other business, but we have to convey to committee members, should this vote carry, that we have to find out what we can learn from this experience. We do not want this to be repeated. We want it to get out to absolutely everybody who has all kinds of interesting things going on that it is time to clean up their act. It is time for this place to clean up its act because we are in a profession that is not held in high esteem. This matter is not helping. I believe the appropriate step is to get it to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs so we can start down the road toward getting the House back into a position of being a profession held in high esteem.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the member for Mississauga South. I obviously support the motion to send this issue to procedure and House affairs. I thank the member for Outremont for raising this in the first place as a point of privilege. He made a very important distinction that although the member apologized to the House, as the Speaker said today in his ruling, while an apology on occasion was sufficient, each case and situation had to be look at on its merits.

The Speaker very much agreed with the member for Outremont that this was also a question of the institution of the finance committee, which is at the core of our work in the House of Commons.

I heard the member for Mississauga South express his concern at the beginning of his comments that one of the problems was this report may never see the light of day because it may miss the deadline. That is a very serious concern. It does not detract from us needing to do the proper investigation, but it underscores the problem we face, that the credibility of the finance committee has been undermined and its ability to have a report come forward and to be part of the public record is now seriously in question.

Could the member comment on that because it will make it very difficult for the finance committee?