Debates of June 13th, 2017

Opposition Motion—Appointments Committee

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is very easy to tell from the member's comments that he is new to this place.

It is hard to know where to start with that.

This whole problem really started when the last House leader tried to ram through changes unilaterally to the Standing Orders, and that is just not how we do things here. We are not talking about individual policy decisions. We are talking about the way we make decisions in the House.

If we took a bit of the passion out of this discussion and looked at the motion as it is, I do not see why that would not be acceptable. I hope the member takes the time to really consider this and does not just read off talking points.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let us get the scenario right. The appointment process served quite well for many years, because there was an understanding between parties that any officer of Parliament having to work for Parliament had to have the acceptance of all parties in the place to make it work.

The Liberals just recently, with the Commissioner of Official Languages, tried to put somebody in who, by her own admission, was of such a partisan nature that she would be in a conflict of interest and unable to perform her job; so partisan, in fact, that she could not apply for a Senate position, by her own admission.

We seek to change that by having something that would work better. The Liberals then say they have a problem with it. We say that we have heard the Liberals. The Conservatives make a suggestion to fix the problem. We now fix the problem, and what do Liberals do? They come up with another problem.

One steps back from this and says, “Hold on”. If all those words, “sunny ways” and “hope and hard work” and all that good stuff is to mean anything, then the Liberals actually have to walk the talk a little bit and meet us halfway.

I just heard my Liberal colleague ask how we protect the majority government from the ravages of the minority in this place. Is that how the Liberals approach human rights as well? How do we protect the majority from those minority people looking for their rights. The way this works is with a natural tension between the government and opposition. When it works well, we work together. That is the process we are suggesting. Officers of Parliament must be independent.

How important are these officers of Parliament in the roles and functions they perform, not just for Parliament but for Canadians to have any faith whatsoever in the role that government takes in all of our lives?

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for all his hard work on this file and all the work he does here in Parliament. He is a real example to all of us.

Independent officers of Parliament are an essential democratic tool now. Really, I do not think we would find a single Parliament in the world that does not have one of these officers in place, and in fact, a good number of them. They reassure the public. We have all our partisan squabbling like what we are hearing here today and every day, but when the public looks at these reports, when they hear them reported on the news, they say, “There is somebody I can have confidence in”. Sometimes the rulings favour the government and sometimes they do not, and that is what an independent adjudicator is supposed to do.

Politics is something people do not have a lot of faith in these days, and the more we can do to buttress our Parliament, the better.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, Persons with Disabilities; the hon. member for Sherbrooke, Canada Revenue Agency; the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona, The Environment.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will have the pleasure of sharing my time with one of my colleagues, a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, the hon. member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup. I have used up half of my time just by naming his constituency.

Following the last intervention by our colleague from the government side, I think it is important to take stock of why we are here today.

Our NDP colleagues decided to seize this opportunity to use the whole day to debate a topic that is close to their hearts, which is appointments to officer of Parliament positions.

I read the motion carefully, and I can say that it is very well drafted and very well documented. It brings together many fairly interesting points. I particularly note the openness of the NDP, which amended the motion to meet some of the expectations we had regarding the parliamentary appointment process. The same cannot be said of the party in government.

I think it would be important to remember why we are here. I, too, am a new member, since I came to the House in October 2015. I have noticed something with this government. I do not want to say “contempt” because I cannot believe that the government as a whole scorns the work of the House, but it certainly seems to view Parliament as some kind of mandatory formality. The government does not seem to enjoy having to answer to parliamentarians. It does not seem to enjoy being questioned by opposition members. The government does not seem to enjoy it when we call into question the absolute truth it would seem to possess. The Liberals do not seem to enjoy being reminded of the promises they made to voters in 2015 in order to get elected and to form government or of the fact that the majority of these promises have been broken.

I can certainly say that we can feel the Prime Minister's discomfort each time he has to come to the House and answer members' questions. “Answer questions” is perhaps not the best phrase, because the Prime Minister's question periods have not provided us with a lot of answers up to now. Instead, we have had the same answer several times, using the same lines we heard repeatedly in 2015. The Prime Minister seems to have forgotten that he has been in government for 18 months, that things have moved on since then, but that the promises made by the Liberals have not been kept.

This is a radical change from what the government set out to do. In fact, the government has not done a lot in the House up to now. Few bills have been passed, and it is having difficulty getting its own amendments through. Why? Because there is a malaise, because the government does not respect the opposition or the work done by other parliamentarians, whose role is to hold the government accountable and responsible for its actions on behalf of all Canadians. That is the role of parliamentarians, of the official opposition, of the NDP, and of the independent members. That is why we are here.

It is quite astonishing that an opposition party is forced to explain to the government how to implement a non-partisan appointment process. I can understand that, for the third opposition party, having a committee where everyone has a vote is an interesting experience. However, if we want to succeed in having independent officers, it is something that must be seriously studied, because it really can change things and prevent a fiasco like this, where the government has embarrassed a candidate for a very important position.

In fact, the Liberal party has literally jeopardized the future of a very qualified person by throwing her to the lions but being unable to adequately defend her. I am, of course, referring to the nomination of Ms. Meilleur, who certainly has a degree of professionalism and undeniable skills in the area of language rights.

She did an extraordinary job when she was working for the Ontario government. However, she was also very actively involved with the Liberal government, provincially and federally, and she contributed to its election fund. Obviously, in our opinion, Ms. Meilleur’s appointment was a reward for all that work. That does not appear to have been obvious to the Liberals or to the Prime Minister’s Office, which approved the appointment. However, to opposition parliamentarians and several groups advocating for the rights of Canada’s linguistic minorities, this appointment was unacceptable.

In short, this government does not like Parliament. It does not want to be accountable to the opposition. It thinks it did not have to consult the opposition and only had to inform us of the decision to appoint Ms. Meilleur to this position. I do not know why it thought that it would simply go through, but it takes ignorance of how the House works to think that the members of the official opposition and the second opposition party would let something that big go through.

However, it is not surprising when we know what the Liberals think of the House. Right after the election, they introduced Motion No. 6 to completely change the way the House passes bills. That is when we saw something rather unusual in the House. I do not have to remind everyone about the time the Prime Minister crossed the House to strong-arm our whip into taking his seat. We had never seen anything like it. That is how it began.

Then there was a series of time allocation motions. This government, which talked about openness and transparency, said that it would not use these last-century methods to silence opposition members in order to get its bills passed. It should have then started co-operating with the opposition to avoid having to use time allocation. However, it quickly decided that it was not worth the effort to take the time to speak with the opposition, and it imposed time allocation. In a simple letter sent to the media even before discussing it with the opposition members, they said that they were going to try to unilaterally change the rules under which the House works. The Liberal government has shown unbelievable contempt for how the House operates.

Sunny ways, representing an open and transparent government, have turned into a dark cloud of closure and non-transparency. The famous openness that we expected never came, as we have seen with the appointment process.

I heard a Liberal member say that they did not want to give veto power to anyone in the House, and certainly not to a third party, when it comes to appointments because that would infringe upon the right of the majority. However, we are talking about officers of Parliament. It is precisely the role of the government to be well prepared and to ensure that the nominations it submits for consent by the other parties meet their criteria. It is the government’s role to find the best possible candidates who will have the unanimous support of the House, because we rely on these officers of Parliament to maintain the trust of the citizens who watch us. Indeed, the public sometimes thinks that we are given to fits of partisanship, but they are perfectly justified in their thinking, because that is the only means we have to reason with this government.

We are going to seriously consider the NDP proposal because it is the only logical proposal aimed at forcing this government to respect the other members of Parliament when it comes to making non-partisan appointments for officers of Parliament.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I thank the hon. member. He had 15 seconds remaining.

The hon. member for Sherbrooke.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his constructive input in this debate.

I am wondering if he thinks that when we appoint officers of Parliament, we have to distinguish between these appointments and all other appointments. Throughout the debate, we heard the government talk about the new appointment process that really applies to all appointments. This can include appointments to the Social Security Tribunal of Canada, the boards of directors of airports or ports, or the Parole Board of Canada. There is therefore a very wide range of Governor in Council appointments, which cover a vast array of different positions. In my opinion, although they should be subject to different examination, officers of Parliament will go through the same process.

I think it is absolutely necessary to take the partisan background of a candidate into consideration. Would we appoint Stéphane Dion or Jean Chrétien to the position of Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner? I think it goes without saying that although they may be the most qualified of all candidates, the fact that they are still close to and very indebted to the Liberal Party would present a problem for a position such as the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

Does the member think we should use a different lens in the case of officers of Parliament? Does he believe that non-partisanship should be a non-negotiable condition of an appointment?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if you will allow me, I will take the 15 seconds remaining to me at the end of my question period. It is my pleasure to answer you on that.

On my colleague’s question, I think he is partially correct. Since the beginning of the Liberal government’s open and transparent appointment processes, the most transparent thing we have seen is the dues and contributions paid to the Liberal Party of Canada. The first real test of this government in an appointment that should have been non-partisan was the appointment of a an official languages commissioner. That was the first real test, and this government failed it. It succeeded in hurting the career of someone who might have served elsewhere in government.

It has literally played with someone's career to defend the indefensible, namely that the Liberals decide and consulting the opposition is not necessary. I agree entirely with my colleague that officers of Parliament must be treated completely differently, because they absolutely must be approved by both opposition parties every time, and not just by a letter, as was done in the case of Ms. Meilleur.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague whether he knows the difference between being informed and being consulted.

In the case of Ms. Meilleur’s appointment, the government boasts, as it has done again today, of having consulted the opposition parties. In fact, that is completely false, assuming that they know the difference between the words “inform” and “consult”. In any event, I know the difference. I think that the 338 parliamentarians here share my opinion. There is a difference between informing someone and consulting them. I think that in Ms. Meilleur’s appointment process, in particular, they tried to tell us that they consulted us, and that is completely false.

Can my colleague tell us what he sees as the difference between “informing” and “consulting”?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable has 45 seconds to answer the question.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will take the 45 seconds remaining to me and the 15 seconds I did not have time to use.

The answer to my colleague’s question is simple. There is a very big difference between “informing” and “consulting”, and that is respect. This government did not show respect for the official opposition and the second opposition party when it wanted to cut short a consultation process. They simply called the critics to inform them of a choice, and they consider that to be a consultation. That is absurd.

The government has missed the boat, and since I am reaching the end of my 15 seconds, I will conclude my answer there.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Meilleur. She appeared before the committee as part of the process, and gave a very good presentation. I want to make it clear, especially to the Liberal members who keep saying that we have no regard for her qualifications, that no one questioned Ms. Meilleur's competence. On the contrary, we acknowledged her qualifications throughout the process. When she appeared before the official languages committee, members from all parties recognized from the outset that Ms. Meilleur was qualified for the position. That was never the problem.

The problem was in the process. It lasted five weeks and was a complete mess. It was still going on today at the Standing Committee on Official Languages. My colleague from Drummond, I believe, moved a motion. The minister told this House categorically that the Standing Committee on Official Languages is independent. When someone says that I am independent, that means I can do whatever I want. Committee members from the governing party obviously did not feel independent enough today, despite what the minister said clearly and unequivocally, because they voted against the amendment moved by one of my committee colleagues to strengthen the motion.

Members from each party represent minority language community associations from across Canada at the committee. Our job is to represent them at the committee and move forward on issues that affect them. That is what we are striving for. Unfortunately, again today, the Liberal Party voted down an amendment to a motion, and we could not vote on the motion itself since the vote has been postponed until next week.

The associations representing the country's francophones and anglophones in minority situations have made requests to the opposition parties, by way of letters and calls. In fact, they sent a request to the PMO to meet with the Prime Minister. Their request having remained unanswered thus far, they asked the committee for assistance in order to gain the moral support needed for their request to meet with the Prime Minister to be granted.

Honestly, the motion is very simple when you think about it. It simply states that the committee is calling on the Prime Minister to meet with the associations asking to meet with him, to speak not of Ms. Meilleur, but of the process going forward. We have to look at how we can make the process of appointing a Commissioner of Official Languages or any officer of Parliament totally non-partisan.

The case of Ms. Meilleur perfectly illustrates the point we are making. Despite her absolutely stellar career, Ms. Meilleur ended up being the government's fall guy, which is unfortunate for her. I have no doubt that she probably would have been a very good Commissioner of Official Languages. Unfortunately for her, the government's supposedly open and transparent process meant that she ended up in a horrible mess, which is really unfortunate for her. Honestly, it is ending her public career on a terrible note.

Let's go back to last fall when, at the end of her career in provincial politics, Ms. Meilleur decided to continue to serve the public. No one saw a problem with it. It is very common to see politicians, former mayors or former provincial or federal members of parliament to serve their communities in all kinds of ways.

Ms. Meilleur expressed her wish to be appointed to the Senate. The PMO told her that the Prime Minister did not want to make any more partisan appointments to the Senate. To summarize, Ms. Meilleur wants to become a senator to continue to serve Canadians; she is told she is too partisan; she meets Mr. Butts and Ms. Telford in the PMO; she goes out for coffee and makes a few phone calls; and then she turns up on the list of candidates for the position of official languages commissioner.

Good for her, but how is it that the PMO thought that she was too partisan for a Senate appointment, but not for the position of official languages commissioner? From the outset, that did not pass the smell test. That is unfortunate, but that is how it happened.

When Ms. Meilleur appeared before the Standing Committee on Official Languages, the leader of the second opposition party asked her if she was still a member of the Liberal Party. She hesitated for a second, and then said that she thought her card had expired and that she was no longer a member as of December or January. It was then early May, even mid-May. After verification, because Ms. Meilleur had no other choice than to provide that information, it turned out that she was a member until April 7. She was as close to the party as anyone could be.

That made it clear how close to the party this person was, a person the government definitely wanted to place somewhere, although this was a position had to be absolutely apolitical. The rights of the country's language communities must be defended by someone completely impartial. In this process, unfortunately, Ms. Meilleur really bit the dust, because the government completely botched the job. The way the process unfolded is unspeakable.

Let me digress a little. The minister had the final word on Ms. Meilleur's appointment. She also had the nerve to say, here in this House, that Ms. Meilleur did not talk about her nomination when she met with Mr. Butts and Ms. Telford, among others. That was the day when I genuinely believed that the minister was taking the 338 members of the House for idiots by telling them that a candidate with close ties to the Liberal party had not spoken about her nomination during a meeting with people from the Prime Minister's Office. It is completely incredible to make such a statement. It makes no sense at all.

I would also like to recognize the work of my colleague, the member for Drummond, because it is important. He has done outstanding work on the Standing Committee on Official Languages for a number of years. He is very familiar with all the processes, and with the Official Languages Act. He regularly introduces motions intended to improve the quality of our work, as we do for him, so that we can have the best processes possible.

I would like to go back to the motion that was debated at the Standing Committee on Official Languages this morning. The minister says that the committee is independent, but, unfortunately, the committee members who fought tooth and nail for the appointment and the supposedly open and transparent process for five weeks have not been up to the task, and they were not up to the task again this morning. We are going to debate the issue again next Tuesday and I hope that they will vote for the motion.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his understanding of the issue. A while back, the Prime Minister gave all ministers a mandate letter. In it was something to the effect that they should never have a conflict or perceived conflict of interest. Now the Liberals have taken this position. They inform people but they do not consult with them.

In the House, we try to, and need to, gain as much credibility with and accountability to the citizens of Canada as possible. Now we have what has happened here. The mandate letter is just words. If members remember the cash for access, it did not mean anything about the perception or the actual transfer of dollars and having to pay to get information.

The Liberals have broken the trust of the opposition parties because of their acts of entitlement to hand-pick their nominees for officers of Parliament. What does this do to the status of Parliament and to the reputation that the government leaves to the Canadian people?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to answer in English. I am on the official languages committee and I speak English a bit. Therefore, I will try to do my best to answer my colleague's question.

In this process across Canada and in the official languages committee, people asked that Parliament do a better job. They also asked that the Liberals to do a better job on this file. The problem is that has put a big black cloud over Parliament. We are in 2017. We should be going forward, not backward. In 2015, the Prime Minister said, “We're in 2015”. We are in 2017 now. It is time to move forward and do things the right way.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

We have been talking about Ms. Meilleur's case for some time now. She was selected for the commissioner's position. I think it was my colleague, the member for Sherbrooke, who talked about the importance of appointments for officers of Parliament. There is an old saying that the example comes from the top. I wonder where we will be headed if the Liberals do not support this motion. A good number of departments also have opportunities for possible appointments. Take the Minister of Transport, for example. He can appoint people to the boards of directors of port or airport authorities. If no clear message comes from the top, the message that partisanship in making appointments must stop, I feel that we are unlikely to heed it.

I would like to hear my colleague's comments on the matter.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my thanks to my colleague for his question.

Of course, whether in a Parliament or in a political party, leaders clearly set the example for all their troops. The same principle applies in business. In this case, the Prime Minister has set a very bad example. What is even more troubling at the moment is our time in Canadian history. The Commissioner of Official Languages is appointed for a period of seven years. As I said in committee, we would have been in a position where the committee lacked confidence in a commissioner whom we knew to have close ties to the government. The repercussions on our work and on the way we stand up for the people we represent would have been incredible.

It was mentioned that the position of Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and various key government positions would be vacant in the coming years. I hope that we will not end up with bad appointments, because I remain hopeful that the Liberals have learned something from what just happened and about the process that should be in place. It is all well and good to say that the process is open and transparent when a website is built and people can apply online. Anyone can do that. We need to go much further. The same goes for officers of Parliament and for port and airport administrators. There needs to be some distance between them.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly happy to stand in this House in support of the NDP motion put forward by the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley on the appointment of parliamentary officers.

The Liberals campaigned on, and continue to promise, an open and transparent government. As the Prime Minister has said, and has stated on the Liberal website, “Liberals will shed new light on the government and ensure that it is focused on the people it is meant to serve: Canadians.”

Canadians put their hope for social democracy in the current Prime Minister. It was he who called on Canadians to step up and pitch in, to get involved in the public life of this country, and to know that a positive, optimistic, hopeful vision of public life is not a naive dream; it can be a powerful force for change.

What he appears to have left out is the truth we have seen come into play in the events of the last few weeks with his unilateral appointment of Madeleine Meilleur as the Commissioner of Official Languages: that a powerful, optimistic, and hopeful vision of public life is possible only if one has demonstrated too much partisanship to be appointed as a senator and has made sufficient donations to the Liberal Party of Canada.

Thus far, the Prime Minister has exposed the singular cynicism of his election night speech with his action, or more accurately his inaction, on key portfolio promises. He has backtracked on his promise to protect the environment. He has yet to restore protections for our navigable waters in response to destructive legislation by the previous Conservative government that gutted the important environmental laws that protected water. The Prime Minister has refused to recognize the devastating effects of colonialism and continues to underfund first nation education. He pays ineffectual lip service to implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He continues to challenge veterans in court. He has executed a blatant about-face on the promise of electoral reform. Most recently, he has spearheaded a half-hearted attempt to address the child care crisis in this country by allotting funds for additional child care spaces at half the rate he has allowed for increased military spending. That is in an effort to appease Mr. Trump.

In light of the fiasco that occurred when the current Prime Minister attempted to sidestep the process and appoint Madeleine Meilleur as the next Commissioner of Official Languages on May 15, the motion the New Democrats are putting forward today is timely and relevant.

In the case of the appointment of the Commissioner of Official Languages, the Prime Minister was obligated to consult other leaders on the appointment. Instead, he sent a letter informing them of his decision. We have seen this type of autocratic dictatorial behaviour on the part of our Prime Minister before. When he backtracked on his promise that 2015 would be the last first-past-the-post election in Canada, it was not as a result of extensive consultation or implementing the will of the majority of Canadians consulted. Rather, it was the result of his dislike of the recommendations of the all-party committee for a system of proportional representation, as opposed to the Prime Minister's preferred system of ranked ballots. In effect, the Prime Minister felt free to override the will of the people for his own personal advantage and decided to take his ball and go home rather than engage in fair democratic play.

Of course, there was the cowardly manner in which the Prime Minister delivered his backtracking on electoral reform. He had rookie ministers deliver his message rather than step up to take the heat for his own decision.

The Commissioner of Official Languages is one of eight officers of Parliament. It is a non-partisan role mandated by the 1988 Official Languages Act. Madeleine Meilleur's nomination received criticism from New Democrats and Conservatives because of her ties to Ontario and federal Liberals. Neither New Democrats nor Conservatives were consulted on Meilleur's nomination.

On June 7, Ms. Meilleur withdrew her nomination for the Commissioner of Official Languages position, as it had become “the object of controversy.” We know that Ms. Meilleur had initially sought a Senate seat, but she said Monday she bowed out after she realized it would be impossible, given the government's new non-partisan, merit-based application process for the upper House. If Ms. Meilleur was too partisan for the Senate, she was most certainly too partisan to be appointed Commissioner of Official Languages.

My colleague from Windsor West, with whom I am going to split my time, may have some remarks in that regard.

The lack of consultation among parties for new commissioners raises questions about whether commissioners will be non-partisan and able to do their jobs. Having a committee on which no party has a majority to pre-approve nominations significantly increases the likelihood of non-partisan appointments.

I would like to highlight the historical importance of having people who are objective and non-partisan appointed to parliamentary office. Their work is to serve and inform Parliament, not government. Parliament is the representative and democratic House of governance. It remains while governments ebb and flow according to political trends. The deliberations of parliamentary appointees must be immune from the partisan leanings of governments.

Our motion calls for a parliamentary committee comprising members of all political parties to consider such appointments to ensure that the successful candidate is objective and non-partisan. I can give a concrete example from my tenure as an NDP government member of the provincial parliament in Ontario in 1994.

Our government was intent on ensuring that the Environmental Bill of Rights was implemented and respected across the province, and it set about appointing the province's first environmental commissioner. The selection committee comprised members from all parties, and deliberations on the appointment were lengthy. We were tasked with assigning the role to the right person, someone who would be objective. There were many names put forward, including an ex-NDP member of the provincial legislature. He did not get the appointment, much to the consternation of some New Democrats at the time.

The successful appointee, Eva Ligeti, turned out to be a strong voice for the environment. She was non-partisan and impartial. Her tenure as environmental commissioner survived the NDP government in Ontario and continued into the days of the Harris revolution, a period marked by draconian and austere measures that included a tax on the poor, on health care, on education, and on the environment. In her 1999 annual report to the Legislative Assembly, Ms. Ligeti warned of a public health crisis that would result from unacceptable levels of air pollution, a prediction we have come to realize was entirely founded, with the increased number of smog-alert days we now experience in Ontario.

Because Ms. Ligeti was objective, strong, and impartial in her role as environmental commissioner, she was able to stand up to the government of the day to defend the people of Ontario and the Environmental Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, because of her disfavour in speaking truth to power, Ms. Ligeti's tenure as environmental commissioner was not renewed after her initial appointment ended in 1999, and Mike Harris unilaterally terminated her from the post. Opposition members argued that the termination of the commissioner should have been a vote of the provincial legislature, but their objections were ignored.

The similarities between Mike Harris and our current Prime Minister in making unilateral and partisan decisions regarding the appointment of parliamentary officers should be quite evident. The Prime Minister might want to consider revising his party's messaging around sunny ways and “real change” to “It's my way or the highway.”

Parliamentary officers serve Parliament, the representative body of the Canadian people, and not governments, which can come and go. It is therefore imperative that officers be chosen by an impartial body from a pool of diverse and qualified candidates and that the selection committee comprise members who understand the role of a parliamentary officer.

The United Kingdom has a commission for public appointments, named by the Queen and independent from government and the civil service. The commissioner oversees the appointments and makes sure a set of criteria, which include fairness, impartiality, openness, transparency, and merit, is scrupulously followed. It seems to me that if this Prime Minister is so intent on revising the way we do business in this House to be more democratic and representative of Canadians, he should be doing more than just cherry-picking the elements that serve him politically, such as attending question period every Wednesday to answer every question. He should put some real, substantive thought into the consideration of changes, such as empowering the Speaker of the House to require the Prime Minister to actually answer the questions, as they do in the U.K.

Once again, New Democrats are offering the Prime Minister and his government the opportunity to do this right. We encourage him to support this motion today and to back our campaign and the Liberals' promises of effective change that will outlive their political tenure and serve Canadians well. It is what we were elected to do, and I, for one, will settle for nothing less.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to deal with the situation we have in front of us and the severity of it as it relates to other positions appointed by Parliament.

The way it shakes out, at the end of the day, is the old patronage game, which casts a shadow across what has been taking place here in Ottawa, and not only here in Ottawa. Its tentacles go through the Liberal Party. One only has to look at the provincial Liberal Party in Ontario. A recent study showed that 33% of failed by-election candidates found employment with the Liberals soon after.

People who choose to put their names up for public service or an electoral position take a gamble for the things they may want to do and the issues they want to raise in representing people. There may be issues that are very challenging to get out there, issues that may not be as popular or that may go against corporate interests. What we have seen in this chamber is the return of the highest degree of arrogance with respect to the appointment process. That is what we had with the official languages situation.

I remember when I first came here in the good old days of the early 2000s, we had former MPs being appointed as ambassadors. Alfonso Gagliano was one of them. He was sent to Denmark to avoid the sponsorship scandal. These appointments can be very dangerous when it comes to democracy and can undermine the work of the House. When we read through the positions we are talking about here, they are crucial elements of our democracy. For example, I would not dismiss the importance of the ambassador to Denmark position.

The reality is that our official languages go to the heart of this nation. It is one of the things that makes us very strong, and it is especially pertinent to North America. Having the dual languages is critical not only for our social and cultural well-being but because it is a competitive advantage for Canada in the world.

Coming from a diverse, multilingual community, English is often a second language, but it is a dominant language. Given that we have so many people from different parts of the world and ethnic origins, it is a competitive advantage. The recent scandal with the situation of the Commissioner of Official Languages is a major setback, not for keeping things the way they used to be but for where we need to go.

My community has had a francophone culture for over 300 years. It is celebrating its tricentennial during my tenure as a member of Parliament. A lot of new Canadians who come in use the French language as a bridge to get to the English language. We have so many people from different countries who use French as a first, second, and sometimes a third language. When we talk to people who come from different parts of the world, especially from Europe, it is not uncommon for them to have three or four languages.

The positions we are talking about are critical for deciphering how we provide services and tools for our economy. I have talked many times about the border at Windsor-Detroit. The fact is, we have 10,000 trucks and 30,000 vehicles going through my region per day. What does that have to do with official languages? Well, we have high-paying jobs that we still strive to keep in the manufacturing and trucking industry, which go all the way from Quebec, in manufacturing for auto and aerospace, down to Mexico, and we need those services done well at the border.

Those rights protect not only the individual who wants to go and provide bilingual services at that point, but the interpretation is important for business because it allows the vehicles to move more smoothly and more economically. They are not stalled by a language barrier, which then costs us money. The delays affect everybody, and that certainly is not good for anybody, whether they are francophone, anglophone, or whatever it may be.

When we think about this position, it is not just a social and cultural issue, this is an economic issue by all means. We need to keep that seriousness in line. I am proud of our party for fighting so hard. When I got here, Yvon Godin from Acadie—Bathurst was here, and if members think I am loud, this is nothing compared with Yvon Godin. He had a built-in megaphone. He really brought to root the strength of having that francophone language as part of our foundation, and where we could built from.

This issue is not just an emotional one or a cultural one. It is an economic one, and people need to understand that. There are other officers who are affected if we do not deal with this properly, and we have seen the debacle that has taken place. We have the Chief Electoral Officer, the Auditor General, the Ethics Commissioner, Commissioner of Lobbying, the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, the Clerk of the House, the parliamentary librarian, the parliamentary budget officer, the Information Commissioner, and the Privacy Commissioner.

Those positions should be filled without the past contributions and political baggage that is out there. We do have Canadians that fit those moulds. Unfortunately in this situation, it really showed the weakness, the know-it-all attitude that comes from the top of the Liberal Party and how it filters down here.

People can go to open media or read anything they want, and they will see that the House of Commons discourse is dominated by a few on the Liberal side because they do not let the others participate, or maybe those members do not want to participate. I do not know which it is. The mere fact is that the Liberals have stuck with the front row and the Prime Minister on this as opposed to working with everybody else in this chamber.

Those few in the cabal around the Prime Minister seem to have all the answers all the time in their instructions, versus working with the process that has been in place. That is notification and rules of engagement. We have a rules-based system that would have the Liberals go to the Conservatives and the New Democrats, in terms of consultation, using Parliament, and actually creating a working environment.

I do not just blame the Liberal backbenchers for this. We have a Prime Minister, quite frankly, who does not have the work experience in this place to know how to do the things that are necessary to build the foundation for working together, which he professes about day in and day out. He does not know that, because he did not do that work here.

I sat right here while the Prime Minister was here as the Liberal leader at that time and as a backbencher before. Did he do committee work? Did he do the work in the House of Commons? Did he work bi-partisan? For heaven's sake, the Prime Minister got selected number one in the lottery overall, he tabled a motion in the House of Commons, and he did not get it passed. It was on volunteerism. How could he create a motion on volunteerism in Canada, table it in this House of Commons, and not get it passed? That is unbelievable. It should be a Canadian moment.

This was a dream come true. As a member in this Parliament, he got number one in the lottery. If people at home do not understand this, if a member is selected, then he has won the lottery, and all he could come up with was a motion on volunteerism.

I will conclude with this. I do not blame all the Liberals. I think it is a lack of work experience. It is important, because these positions are important for our daily lives and our economics, not just our social and cultural exchanges.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. The end of his speech reminds us of the Prime Minister’s experience in the House; it is somewhat limited.

What does my colleague think about the news reports that the individual who was approached to be the new Commissioner of Official Languages was too partisan to be a senator but not to be the Commissioner of Official Languages? What signal does that send to those interested in an officer of Parliament position, be it the position of Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Commissioner of Lobbying, Privacy Commissioner, Information Commissioner, parliamentary budget officer or Chief Electoral Officer?

When the Prime Minister’s Office tells candidates that since they are too partisan to be a senator, they will find them an officer of Parliament position, what message does that send?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his work on the banking industry. We have seen a number of things being highlighted in the past two weeks in Parliament, culminating in some good work for all Canadians related to this. It also relates to this indirectly, which I will get to, but I want to thank him for that work because protecting the wallets of Canadians is very important, as well as privacy and integrity.

The member's message was with regard to the Senate and the House. When we hook up the black light, all we see are red fingerprints all over the place. That is the real problem. There is an issue with the layer that is unearthed eventually. It is unfortunate, because there is always a sub-story and a sub-plot to the plot that goes on and on. Then we find out later, when we shake the sheets, that there are more things that are even worse. It is sad because good people get caught up in that. It is unfortunate, but the reality is that it is a twisted plot that the Liberals have for appointments and it has to end because there are simply too many important positions that need to be filled.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his passionate speech. I believe that this is the way he is and that this is fine.

We have discussed at length the detrimental impact of the Liberal’s attempted Commissioner of Official Languages appointment. I remember during the previous parliament that we railed just as hard against Conservative appointments that basically made senators out of failed House of Commons candidates.

The NDP’s proposal is certainly a strong one, but I have noticed that, since the beginning of this Parliament, offers to work in a coalition come most of the time from the NDP. I would like to draw attention to a point that has unfortunately been left behind by the Liberals.

Would electoral reform not have forced this reconciliation that we sometimes manage to come up with through goodwill, but in the case of reform, would have been imposed by the democratic framework?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned a statistic about the Ontario Liberals and how 33% of failed candidates got appointment positions. There is further work that shows that in 2011, 25% of failed federal Conservative candidates wound up with some type of government job. These standards seem to be close, but we have to give them credit for being at the lower threshold of what is taking place. We will see what comes out of the most recent one.

Specifically with regard to the work done on electoral reform, it is sad that this hard work was done and the Prime Minister simply does not understand, because he did not do a lot of work as a parliamentarian. I am not trying to attack the Prime Minister. I am just going by the facts. It is all in the public record in terms of which committees members went to, how they contributed, what they said, how often they spoke in the House of Commons, where they sat in committees, what they voted on. Those things are all on the public record. Unfortunately, working with people requires hard work from diverse groups that want to arrive at a common place, and we just cannot force that on people. We need to work together to steer the boat in the same direction.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to an order made earlier today, all questions necessary to dispose of the opposition motion are deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Wednesday, June 14, 2017, at the expiry of the time provided for oral questions.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from May 19 consideration of the motion that Bill S-226, An Act to provide for the taking of restrictive measures in respect of foreign nationals responsible for gross violations of internationally recognized human rights and to make related amendments to the Special Economic Measures Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in strong support of Bill S-226, which is entitled “Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act”. The bill would enable targeted sanctions against foreign nationals involved in human rights abuses. It would amend two existing Canadian laws, the Special Economic Measures Act, and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. In doing so, it would allow the government to declare individual human rights abusers inadmissible to the country and would freeze their assets in Canada.

Before I address the substance of the bill, I want to say a few words about where it comes from. Most of us in the House are by now familiar with the sad if not tragic story of Sergei Magnitsky, the man honoured by name in the bill. Mr. Magnitsky was a lawyer in Moscow acting on behalf of Bill Browder, an American businessman managing an investment fund there. Mr. Magnitsky uncovered a $230-million corruption scheme involving officials in Russia's interior ministry. He was arrested, jailed, and held without trial for almost a full year. He was denied medical attention as well. He was tortured and eventually killed. He died in November 2009 at the age of 37, after being beaten by prison guards. He was posthumously tried and convicted of the very fraud he had uncovered. That is Russian justice.

Since then, Bill Browder has been fighting for justice and action from the international community. My colleagues and I have had the privilege of meeting with Mr. Browder on several occasions throughout our work on the bill. The progress we have seen so far, with legislation passed in the United States and the United Kingdom, is due in no small measure to the tireless work of Mr. Browder and his colleagues. Indeed, Mr. Browder has devoted his life to this cause: justice for his former lawyer, Mr. Magnitsky. We in the House owe them a debt of gratitude for championing this cause and for presenting us now with an opportunity to establish Canada as another leader in holding human rights abusers accountable.

Of course, Mr. Browder and the others fighting for justice for Mr. Magnitsky are not alone, just as Mr. Magnitsky's case was, sadly, not unique. Testimony from activists and academics before both the House and Senate foreign affairs committees has reinforced the prevalence of such abuses around the globe and the culture of impunity that too often accompanies them, especially at the international level.

That is why it is so important that the bill be global in scope. Though it is inspired by the memory of Sergei Magnitsky and the fight for justice by those who knew him, its effects will reach far beyond Russia.

As Garry Kasparov told the House foreign affairs committee last year, “Money is always looking for safe harbour”. Bill S-226 would deny safe harbour in Canada to those who deny and destroy the rights of their own citizens, wherever such acts were committed. It would also put wind in the sails of those fighting that corruption and that injustice in their own countries.

The NDP has consistently called for targeted sanctions against those responsible for human rights violations and for greater coordination of Canada's regime with the European Union and the United States. However, what is remarkable today is the degree of agreement across all parties and both chambers. I note that the bill echoes recommendations of both the House and Senate foreign affairs committees, as well as motions passed by both chambers in 2015. Not only that, every recognized party in the House committed to the adoption of this type of targeted sanctions legislation in the last federal election. Therefore, I hope this long overdue bill will now be passed swiftly.

As I said earlier, the bill would amend two laws, the Special Economic Measures Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, to allow for targeted sanctions against individuals.

How would that work? It would apply to those responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, and other gross human rights violations, as well as those who would use their public office to expropriate public wealth, including through corrupt contracting, bribery, and the extraction of natural resources.

It is therefore broader in scope than the Freezing Assets of Foreign Corrupt Officials Act, which applies primarily to the misappropriation of public property and is triggered at the request of a foreign government.

The bill would allow for sanctions to be imposed on individuals in cases that did not meet the high and government-focused threshold currently required by the existing Special Economic Measures Act. Every sanctions regime currently authorized under that act uses the “grave breach provision” , as it is called, which refers to violations of international peace and security that are “likely to result in a serious international crisis.” In other words, the threshold is very high before action can occur. The murder of an opposition leader or the misappropriation of natural resource wealth may not spark that international crisis, but it ought to bring consequences from the international community. The bill would allow Canada, finally, to do just that.

Bill S-226 would also tighten the linkage between the Special Economic Measures Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. As it stands, listing under the former does not automatically lead to a declaration of inadmissibility under the latter, the immigration legislation.

As the report of House foreign affairs committee correctly noted, the complexity and layering of Canada's sanctions regime, which includes several distinct legislative authorities, can offer flexibility but can also breed, frankly, confusion and overlap. This disconnect between imposing economic sanctions under one act while declaring inadmissibility under another has to be fixed. This bill would fix it.

As Professor Meredith Lilly noted in testimony before the committee, “there's no convincing rationale that the Canadian government would want to impose economic sanctions against an individual yet still allow that person to come to Canada”. The foreign affairs committee appears to have endorsed that conclusion in its recommendations to us.

It is also important to note that Bill S-226 would require the appropriate parliamentary committees to conduct annual reviews of the individuals and entities targeted for freezing of assets and travel bans. This is an appropriate and useful role for Parliament to play. It strikes me as particularly important in light of another recommendation in our foreign affairs committee's most recent report. That report noted a concern, based on the experience of other jurisdictions, that existing mechanisms for ministerial review of sanctions decisions may be insufficient with respect to their procedural fairness and their transparency.

In light of that, the committee recommended the enactment of an independent administrative review mechanism for individuals and entities that felt that they had been wrongly targeted.

In the context of that broader recommendation, the bill's provisions for parliamentary committees to regularly review the government's sanctions targets is important and timely.

I am proud of the spirit of collaboration that has guided the bill through both chambers and their committees. The bill responds to a call for justice by those who know first-hand the corrosive effects of corruption and violence on a political system. Indeed, one of its proponents, Boris Nemstov, a democratic leader in Russia who spoke in support of this legislation in Ottawa in 2012, was later assassinated.

The bill would make Canada a leader in holding those responsible and complicit in such crimes and human rights violations accountable, through targeted economic sanctions and travel bans. Passing the bill would send a powerful signal to those fighting for justice for Sergei Magnitsky that Canada would not be a safe haven for those responsible and complicit in such crimes to enjoy the fruits of their crimes.