Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon on a question of privilege with respect to the response that was sent to my office to Question No. 1129, the order paper question I had submitted on the notice paper on March 23.
This question is of great importance because it concerns my ability to undertake my work as a parliamentarian on behalf of my constituents, but also because it falls directly within my critic portfolio as the ethics, accountability, and transparency critic for the official opposition, because these are questions of legitimate government practice.
At issue is the refusal of the government to answer a straightforward order paper question, which was sent to me, very strikingly, by the member for Oak Ridges—Markham, who claimed that it was not government policy to answer any questions that had anything to do with court proceedings.
As will be shown, this answer is not credible and raises deep concerns because the specific questions that are asked, as shall be shown, are not subject to any court investigation right now and, in fact, fall within the purview of parliamentarians in the House of Commons.
The decision to refuse to answer an order paper question is about the potential interference in my ability to do my work as a parliamentarian.
The question asks:
With respect to each Senate appointment made by [the] Prime Minister...: (a) did the government verify that each individual being appointed to the Senate met their constitutional residency requirement; (b) how did the government verify that each individual met their constitutional residency requirement; and (c) what are the details verifying that each individual met their constitutional residency requirement?
These are straightforward questions that have been routinely evaded in the House. We know from precedent that we are told it is question period and not answer period, so the government can say whatever it wants in evading straightforward questions about government practice, and yet if the current government has answered anything at all, it has been saying that the decisions regarding certain Senate appointments were done within the clear constitutional practice of 150 years.
If that were the case, then it should be fairly straightforward to answer what those constitutional requirements are.
What I think is important to point out—and this is where I will refer to the court proceedings—is that we learned two things from the court proceedings.
One is that the Crown attorney in the Mike Duffy trial has said, clearly, that the issue of residency and the eligibility to sit in the Senate is not a focus of the court proceedings. He made that clear on the first day.
However, from what we have learned from the court hearings—and this is why I will refer to the court once again—the issues of who decides residency, who decides the eligibility to sit in the Senate, which is a very arcane place and it has been very difficult to get straight answers, is the role of the Prime Minister and the Privy Council.
These are issues that are germane to the House of Commons: how decisions were made, why they were made, and whether or not there have been constitutional breaches by the appointments.
This is an issue that we must deal with, because we are talking about the constitutional requirements of this nation, which are the bedrock foundation of both legislative branches of government, and if there are issues being raised about the credibility of certain senators who may not be eligible to sit in the upper chamber, it will affect the credibility of all levels of government.
If the residency rules have been clear for 150 years, which says that all senators “shall be resident in the Province” or territory that they represent, then there should be a practice that could be explained to the House of Commons through the order paper question process as to how that verification happened. We know Senator Duffy was appointed as senator for Prince Edward Island, despite the fact that he had lived in Ontario since 1971, with an Ontario driver's licence, Ontario health card, Ontario tax payments, and passports claiming Ontario as his place of residence.
In vetting that appointment, did he meet the residency requirements? How was it done? What is the standard process? Those are questions that are not to be asked in the court hearing. They are not to be asked of the Senate, because it is not within its purview. They are to be asked of the Prime Minister's Office.
I will mention one other element from the trial, and it only needs to be mentioned because it raises my concern about why this answer was not given. What we heard from the court is that it is not investigating this because it is not within its purview, but that the Prime Minister's staff have identified a number of senators who may not meet the residency requirements, and that if those names have been identified—and they have been, apparently, from what we have seen of the emails and discussions about what problem that first gives—it raises the question once again whether or not the due diligence was done.
We know, for example, Senator Wallin, who is facing charges now, was considered a resident of Toronto, yet was appointed for Saskatchewan.
Senator Stewart-Olsen was appointed to represent New Brunswick, but there have been questions that she should be considered an Ottawa senator.
We learn from the RCMP that Nigel Wright wrote that Senator “Tkachuk's sub-committee is interviewing Zimmer and Patterson...why? I think they...have qualification residency issues”.
Nigel Wright also wrote that “I am gravely concerned that Sen. Duffy would be considered a resident of Ontario under this ITB. Possibly Sen. Patterson in BC too”, but Senator Patterson was chosen to represent Nunavut. As he continued: “If this were adopted as the Senate's view about whether the constitutional qualification were met, the consequences are obvious”.
We have learned that, so we should be learning from the government what due diligence it did to protect the integrity of our system. If red flags are being identified about senators, and it goes back to the choices of the Prime Minister here in choosing them, the Prime Minister's Office needs to be able to explain what process was undertaken.
This is not the place to argue the various arguments back and forth, but I want to clarify because the government has claimed that it was not the responsibility of the Prime Minister, but the constitutional experts told us otherwise.
We have seen throughout the RCMP investigation and what we have seen from the court that it has been brought back to the issue of the Prime Minister's Office.
Ensuring the integrity of that system becomes the job of members of Parliament because we have to find out what is happening in the Upper Chamber, if the Prime Minister is choosing to ignore the constitutional requirements, if his own staff had red-flagged a number of senators for possibly being in contravention of the Constitution of this country.
Therefore, on behalf of my constituents and for the benefit of all Canadians, I have used my parliamentary right to ask about that process that the Prime Minister has undertaken. If the basis of residency is so clear, then it should be a simple and easy definition for the government to be able to tell the Canadian public how the issues of residency are determined and who is eligible.
This brings me to the government's response to my question on May 8, which I will read in its entirety and which consists of nine words: “...the government does not comment on matters before the court”.
Not only is that answer completely insufficient, but it is completely incorrect, because the issue, as I said at the beginning, of his ability to sit in the Senate has been determined by the court not to be the issue. The issue is 31 charges of fraud and breach of trust, which we do not deal with in the House because that is a matter for the courts.
Neither does the House deal with the questions in terms of certain Senate expenses that belong within the duty of the Senate, and I certainly hope they will do their job in cleaning up that place, but that is within their house. Within our House, the question goes back to what the Prime Minister knew or did not know and whether the Prime Minister has a process in place for ensuring respect for the Constitution.
What I also find disturbing is that the answer to my question was signed by the member for Oak Ridges—Markham on behalf of the Prime Minister, a man who day after day treated the House of Commons like a mockery because of his refusal to answer those straightforward questions.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to find that the wholesale avoidance by the government to straightforward written Question No. 1129 and the misleading character of the answer constitutes a prima facie breach of my privileges as a member of the House. The responsibility of this matter lies solely with the Prime Minister, and the government needs to respect the rules that we have put in place for parliamentarians to do their job.
Written questions are essential tools for Canadians. As their elected representatives, we hold government to account, and none of the information that is in my questions seems to have been answered, found as somehow outside of our duties of Parliament.
House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, lays out the intended purpose of written questions as the following at page 517:
...written questions are placed after notice on the Order Paper with the intent of seeking from the Ministry detailed, lengthy or technical information relating to “public affairs”.
It has been acknowledged somewhat universally in different sources, but in the Auditor general's November 2004 report that is entitled “Process for Responding to Parliamentary Order Paper Questions”, it says, “The right to seek information...and the right to hold [government] accountable are recognized as...fundamental [to our system] of parliamentary government”. Any attempt to interfere with the opposition's legitimate attempt to hold the government to account should be taken seriously, since this walks a very fine line of potentially contemptuous behaviour for the House.
I hearken back to the 21st edition of Erskine May Parliamentary Practice, which defines contempt as “an act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament...or any Member”, in the performance of their functions is to “be treated as contempt even though there is no precedent for the offence”. In this case, it is the word “omission” that stands out for me, and I believe this needs to be answered.
I am asking you, Mr. Speaker, to look into this because I believe that if this precedent were allowed to stand for government to interfere in the responses to order paper questions and use the issue of not speaking before matters of the court, it would be a ridiculous undermining of parliamentary tradition.
Just this past week government members stood up over the Khadr incident that was before the courts and made it clear that they were more than willing to give their opinions when something was before the court. The Conservatives are not respecting the precedents they are setting, and they are using a court issue to deny us in the House of Commons our ability and our right to do our job.