Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join the growing ranks of opposition members imploring our colleagues on the government side of the aisle to vote for the motion to send the question of privilege to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Before getting to the substance of the debate, though, I am going to start by explaining a bit of the background for the benefit of the people of Calgary Rocky Ridge who may be watching today but have not followed this debate on ParlVU or CPAC and may be wondering what this is all about.
Today's debate is about a question of privilege. Just as power is coupled with responsibility, responsibilities must come with the powers necessary to execute them. When members of Parliament are elected, they are charged with the responsibility to represent their constituents in the House of Commons. In order to fulfill this responsibility, we enjoy certain tools and powers by law and a convention called parliamentary privilege. When they hear the word “privilege”, Canadians might think in positive terms about the special things that people are able to enjoy or do, or in negative terms about things that only certain people get to enjoy without having earned them. When members of Parliament speak of their privileges, they are talking about the tools they need to do their jobs.
It is a fundamental principle of western democracy, especially in Westminster-style parliaments, that process matters just as much as results do. Whether it is a due process of law returning a conviction in court, or parliamentary procedure allowing passage of the law under which charges are laid, the process matters. Parliamentary privileges are an integral part of the means by which Parliament governs Canada. They are far more important than the agenda of any given government since they endure while governments come and go.
This topic received considerable discussion before our recent constituency weeks, so I am going to keep my summary brief. On budget day the member for Milton and the member for Beauce were not able to get to the House of Commons on time to vote since the parliamentary precinct buses were obstructed at the security entrance. This infringed on their right to be here to represent their constituents, so they raised a question of privilege.
The Speaker looked into the matter and found that there was a prima facie case for a breach of privilege, and then the member for Milton moved the appropriate motion to refer the matter to the procedure and House affairs committee. A debate about the exact cause of the blocked buses then ensued. My friend from Beauce recounted that the Parliamentary Protective Service told him that the Prime Minister's empty motorcade exiting Parliament Hill caused the delay. If there is any doubt regarding these remarks, it should not be difficult to track down the constable to whom the member inquired and ask him or her directly, but the House of Commons is not a court. It does not have the power to call witnesses and examine testimony; PROC does. This matter should go to PROC, where witnesses can be summoned and the constable who told the member for Beauce about the Prime Minister's motorcade can appear and face questions for the record and where the Speaker's report on his investigation can be parsed line by line until Parliament has a precise and accurate picture of the day's events.
Given that a case like this arose a few years ago, it should have been obvious that the matter should have immediately gone to PROC for a full review. Although I was not a member of Parliament when Yvon Godin raised his question of privilege about being blocked from attending the House due to security measures for a visiting dignitary, I am going to join my colleagues in mentioning that the matter was immediately referred to PROC where it immediately took precedence over the other business on the agenda at that committee at that time. That was the correct thing to do then and it is the correct thing to do now.
It follows the folkways and customs of this House, as my friend from Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston called them. It upholds the centuries-old tradition of the Standing Orders, yet strangely enough, the Liberals have argued against the motion to refer the question of privilege to PROC and the amendment to have the question take priority over other matters currently before the committee. They even accused the loyal opposition of making this into a partisan issue by discussing the member for Beauce's account of the events.
I for one do not allege malice or intent to breach the parliamentary privilege on the part of the Prime Minister. I do not accuse him of intentionally obstructing access through tactical use of his motorcade. Indeed, from my reading of the Speaker's report, this incident looks like a case of bureaucratic processes that resulted in an innocent and unwitting combination of events resulting in the breach of privilege, yet the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader in his replies displayed a degree of defensiveness that would be unwarranted in this situation were it merely an egregious example of miscommunication and procedural breakdown without the partisan element.
I agree with my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley. I think this parliamentary secretary doth protest too much, yet his protests and defensiveness is all the more reason to get the matter to PROC for a full investigation, not to impugn or condemn the Prime Minister for contemptuous partisan tactics, but to determine the actual cause of the incident and thereby potentially clear him of any suspicion by association with these events.
The government House leader and her parliamentary secretary's ability and willingness to stand up day after day and defend the government's policies and actions in the face of justified criticism are appalling. Indeed, the parliamentary secretary to the government House of leader is steadfast and stalwart at stonewalling against calls for transparency, deftly dodging and deflecting attempts to hold the government accountable. Such a talent is strangely impressive, but this is not the time for him to exercise his uniquely dubious talent and his imperviousness to shame.
Breaches of parliamentary privilege which prevent members from representing our constituents go beyond any temporary part of the struggle of the day. They go to the very root of constitutional representative government, Westminster-style parliamentary procedure, and what in the 19th century was understood as responsible government.
The incident before us today need not and should not be a partisan or policy matter for debate in the chamber. It is an important procedural matter, over which PROC has authority, and blocking its immediate referral to PROC and preventing it from taking priority over other matters at that committee turns this from a serious procedural matter into another partisan point.
The parliamentary secretary to the government House of leader expressed concern about PROC's ability to address the matter, given the tenor of debate in the House so far. We can have a discussion on how well standing committees function in this Parliament, but that topic is a distraction from the point at hand. Whether or not PROC functions as effectively as we would all like is not relevant, because it remains the only proper venue for questions of privilege.
Two opposition members missing a vote on the budget when the government has a majority might not seem like an important issue to many Canadians, but failing to address this matter properly now, when the government was not set to stand or fall on two votes, opens the door to unscrupulous tactics by future governments on critical confidence votes. I am not given to hyperbole or slippery slope arguments, but I must mention that disregarding this question of privilege in refusing to refer the matter to PROC has set a very dangerous precedent.
As other members have mentioned, the legal right of members of Parliament to attend the House of Commons goes back many centuries to a time when the king tried to arrest members to stop them from attending the House or to stop them from voting. The mace, which is present in the House when we sit and is part of our daily ceremony, is a symbol of these hard-won privileges. It was a defensive weapon to symbolize and remember how parliamentarians once needed to resist the power of the crown, its government and its agents by force. The mace is a symbol of how the common people of Canada are represented by members of Parliament, and that the government has no power over them other than through the consent of this House.
I do not believe that parties which exist today would deliberately try to physically prevent members from fulfilling their parliamentary duties, but it is foolish to trust in the goodwill of future generations. The origin and evolution of these privileges through the centuries underscore the importance of protecting them.
If the Liberals get away with not investigating a breach of privilege at this time, a future government might try to subtly, or not so subtly, block opposition MPs from attending the House to vote, and then brush aside criticism by correctly claiming that they were only following the precedent that is attempted to be set by not referring this privilege to committee.
Speaking of dangerous precedents, on the first day of debate on this question of privilege, the Liberals did something hitherto unseen in Westminster parliaments. They cut off the debate on privilege by moving to proceed to the orders of the day. As my friend from Perth—Wellington observed, “Never before in the history of this place has a matter of privilege been dealt with in such a way. Never before in this place has the government shut down and prevented all 338 members of this House from voting on a matter of the privileges of us as parliamentarians. Every other case of privilege has been dealt with one way or another through a vote, either in the affirmative or in the negative, but not in this case.”
Such disrespect for Canada's parliamentary traditions and procedures might not strike the viewers at home as especially momentous. It may look to them like a government just trying to get on with governing, like a government trying to skirt an obstacle in the name of efficiency, but such inefficiency is a necessary check and balance in a democratic form of government.
Democracies are not built for speed but for reasoned deliberation and representation. By shutting down debate on a matter of privilege that goes to the very root of representative government, the Liberals have done serious and potentially irreparable harm to Parliament.
The Liberal government did not stop at one precedent that undermined the foundation of Canada's democratic institutions. As my colleague, the member for Perth—Wellington, identified on April 7, the Liberals tried to circumvent customary practice at PROC itself. Instead of voting on a motion from the House of Commons to refer this motion of privilege to PROC, and thus to order PROC to investigate it immediately, the Liberals tried to have PROC initiate its own study for the matter without an official charge from the House.
This point may seem to be fairly obscure for Canadians not immersed in parliamentary procedure, but it is worth explaining. Standing committees may initiate their own studies with a motion, but they may also discontinue or interrupt those studies with another motion. This means that an important question of privilege could be set aside whenever the Liberal majority on PROC felt like it instead of being addressed immediately and fully, as a charge from the House of Commons would require. The Liberals tried to escape a question of privilege by taking it from mandatory to discretionary, thus allowing it to be discarded at their convenience.
I turn my attention to the topic of PROC as the proper venue for investigations of matters of privilege. I appreciate how delicately my friend from York—Simcoe made the case to Parliament to have access to all the evidence on which the Speaker based his initial finding of a prima facie breach of privilege, so I will echo his remarks. In discussing the Speaker's finding of fact, he said:
Those findings were in reports that were apparently made available to the Speaker. I have not seen those. I do not believe they have been tendered to this House, yet they were the evidentiary basis on which the Speaker's finding was made.
I agree with him that PROC is better suited, and indeed is authorized, for the role of fact-finder, rather than the Speaker, despite the entirely reasonable need for the Speaker to gather facts on which to base a prima facie finding of breach of privilege. Members of Parliament, and by extension, the constituents we represent, have a right to know how our parliamentary privileges are upheld. That right includes access to facts and testimony surrounding incidents of breach, and that access is best granted through PROC.
With respect to my colleague from Beauce's amendment to the motion before us today, I understand that PROC is currently seized with the question regarding proposed changes to the Standing Orders. However, enforcing existing Standing Orders takes precedence over discussing amendments or innovations. It is like arguing over the new rigging for a sinking ship. Repairing and ensuring immediate security and safety has to take priority over redesign.
The remarks of the member for Brossard—Saint-Lambert get to the heart of the government's resistence to this motion. On April 6, she said:
We will not allow the Conservatives to play politics with the rights and privileges of members of Parliament. This is just too important. We will also not let them try to block a study on how we modernize the rules of the House of Commons.
What a ridiculous mischaracterization of what is happening. It is as if she is suggesting, with a straight face and without a hint of irony, that the Conservatives, as well as the other opposition parties, are playing politics by asking PROC to investigate how two members of Parliament were prevented from voting on a budget bill, a confidence motion, when you, Mr. Speaker, had issued a ruling finding a prima facie case of breach of privilege, and that by denying such a referral, against all precedence, somehow the government is not playing politics. She is basically saying that it is not that important if duly elected members of Parliament cannot get to the House to vote on the budget, but ramming through changes to the Standing Orders without all-party consent, contrary to all precedents and convention, so that the government can dodge democratic accountability is important.
Canadians elected us with an expectation that we would follow the rules, not change them to suit whoever is in power at a particular moment. Canadians expect us to respect our democratic institutions. Governments in civilized countries do not get to make up the rules whenever they want to. Well-structured governments have clear rules, with clear procedures to change them. They also have built in checks and balances. Canada's governing institutions have become more and more centralized over the past 50 years, especially since the first Prime Minister Trudeau. More power has passed from the House of Commons to cabinet as the roles of individual MPs have shrunk.
We are now at the point where the only real power opposition MPs and governing party backbenchers have in the House is moral suasion through debate, an appeal to the government's conscience through the power to question, and the power of delay. Other than these very limited powers, the government can pass any law it wants between elections, and the current government wants to reduce these final, very limited powers MPs have to represent their voters.
April 6 was an especially bad day in terms of patronizing Liberal nonsense that treats Canadians and their elected representatives as children. The member for Winnipeg Centre went so far as to lecture this House and two parliamentary veterans on the need to plan their days to get to the chamber more quickly. He lectured them on his own experiences with the parliamentary bus, including his attempt to disembark away from a designated stop. When my colleagues spoke out to express their concern for his safety in attempting to do so, he referred back to his days as an elementary school teacher managing first-and second-grade children, thus implying that fellow members of Parliament were no better self-managers than six-year-old children.
Such comments are outrageously insulting to our hon. colleagues. However, the member for Winnipeg Centre's school metaphor may be useful. Does a student deserve a lecture on punctuality if he or she dutifully waits for the bus but arrives late, because the bus was blocked by the police at the only intersection the bus could cross to get the student to school? Of course not.
It is bad enough that the member insulted fellow MPs, but far more disturbing was the member for Winnipeg Centre's undermining of your authority, Mr. Speaker. He might have denied any intent in doing so, but his later statements contradict him. By brushing off the need to debate, by lecturing other members on punctuality, and by diverting attention from a breach of privilege to the need for a positive work environment, he effectively dismissed your finding of a prima facie case of breach of privilege, a finding that is always accompanied by a motion referring the matter to PROC. This is another example of Liberal arrogance, of telling Canadians that results matter more than process. Unlike the member for Brossard—Saint-Lambert, he was subtle. He did not boldly declare that the Liberals will not allow a question of privilege to interfere with their plans to reform Parliament in their own image and will trample all due process in their way. Instead, he insinuated that this topic is not worthy of Parliament's attention and that debating it was a waste of time. While I agree with him that it is a waste of time to debate a motion that custom dictates should pass, I can safely speak for my Conservative colleagues, and perhaps even for the NDP, in saying that we would end debate if the Liberals agreed to do what is always done with questions of privilege and send this matter to PROC. We are not the problem here.
To conclude, I urge my colleagues on the government benches to remember that they will be on this side of the aisle sooner or later. In fact, there are a number of members on the government side of this House who have spent time over here. There are even a few veterans who have been on both sides of this chamber, before the 42nd Parliament, who know full well just how outrageous the current situation is and that it is untenable. I will not embarrass them by calling them out. I do not want any of them to suffer or have conflict with their own colleagues and House officers for speaking out and speaking up for what is right.
I implore my Liberal colleagues who are new to this place, as I am, to seek the wisdom of their own colleagues who have experience here. I know that many of the experienced members on the backbenches know that what their House leader and her parliamentary secretary are doing is wrong. Parliamentarians of all stripes know that one should never do in government what one denounces in opposition. One should never set precedents for temporary partisan gain if it undermines parliamentary institutions and erodes the very foundations of our form of government. I encourage them to vote for this motion and its amendment and send this matter to PROC.
