Debates of Oct. 31st, 2018

The Environment

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore for his hard work of this issue. Canadians increasingly value sustainable practices to provide economic benefits. We have recently invested $5 million to position the Borden mine as the mine of the future.

This will the first underground mine to replace all diesel mobile equipment with battery electric vehicles, bringing significant environmental benefits to the mining sector by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This project will also help create 250 jobs for communities and indigenous peoples in northern Ontario.

Public Services and Procurement

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, listen to this recommendation: “Procure a second Resolve-class auxiliary oiler replenishment ship by 2018 to address an urgent capability gap on each coast.”

Who recommended that? The Liberal-dominated Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. However, the Prime Minister is asleep at the switch and has been slow to order the Obelix from the Davie shipyard, as he did with the Asterix.

What is the Prime Minister waiting for—a phone call from Irving? The workers are ready and the navy needs the ship. What does he have against Quebec?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we recognize the expertise of the workers at the Davie shipyard. They did an excellent job delivering the Asterix. This summer we awarded the Davie shipyard a $610-million contract for three icebreakers and the conversion of a first vessel.

When the Conservatives were in power, they excluded the Davie shipyard from the national shipbuilding strategy and all the significant work that entails. Our government continues to support the shipbuilding industry across the country.

Pensions

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, steelworkers have been on Parliament Hill for three weeks this year to stick up for retirees who lost their pensions and insurance benefits when the companies they worked for went bankrupt. They have still not been able to secure a meeting with the minister. The government says it stands up for the middle class, seniors and workers. Give me a break. If that were true, first of all, it would be meeting with the workers, and second, it would vote in favour of my bill that seeks to protect them.

If the minister will not meet with the steelworkers, who are available right here, right now, will the Prime Minister meet with them instead?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House believe that when Canadians come to the end of their careers, they deserve to retire in peace and security.

In budget 2018, we committed to taking a whole-of-government, evidence-based approach to ensure a secure retirement for all Canadians. This builds on the work that we have already done. We have improved the Canada pension plan. We have increased old age security for our most vulnerable seniors. We will continue to work to support Canadians in retirement.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I have a notice of a question of privilege.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a question of privilege regarding the 850-page bill that has just been tabled in the House. This is a gargantuan bill that has been distributed to all members of the House.

I am also going to be raising an accompanying point of order on this very same legislation.

As the House well knows, this is the most massive omnibus legislation that has ever been tabled in the House of Commons. It contains 850 pages, far beyond what we saw even under the previous Harper regime, when the Liberals at the time complained of 200- or 300-page omnibus legislation and pledged to end it.

Today this 850-page bill, just delivered in the House a few hours ago, has been placed in the hands of parliamentarians without the necessary tools for us to properly consider it.

In this legislation—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

If I could have your attention, please. Order.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby has a point of privilege that I am trying to hear, and I am having a hard time. I would like everyone who is talking to talk in the lobby, or if they are here, to whisper a little more softly, please.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the bill is 850 pages long. Last night, at the finance briefing, I asked how many clauses and subclauses were in the bill. Nobody there from the finance department was even able to tell us how many clauses and subclauses exist in this massive piece of legislation. When the finance department itself is unaware of just how many clauses and subclauses are in the bill, thousands surely, we have to wonder about the intention, which the Liberal government has clearly signalled, to ram the bill through the House as quickly as possible.

My contention is that the government wants to push it through with a scant few days of debate, which means, in terms of each clause, that at best, they would be getting a few seconds of parliamentary scrutiny.

As the House is well aware, we wear many hats in the House. We represent our ridings, each one of us, as members of Parliament, and we are proud to do so. I am proud to represent New Westminster—Burnaby. We represent our party caucus often, except for the independents. We represent the policies that have been put together by our respective parties, so there is a partisan part to the job we do.

A key part of our job is to vet government legislation, to go through that government legislation to make sure that the wording is right and to make sure that the legislation would do what it purports to do. That is a key part of the job of a member of Parliament, and has been since the very foundation of our country.

Vetting the laws, making sure that the amendments brought forward are well written, making sure that the changes the government seeks would accomplish what they are supposed to, is a key part of being a member of Parliament.

Many of us have seen a myriad of cases where legislation was not properly vetted. It had to go through the court system and was then returned to the House of Commons, because that vetting process, the work of members of Parliament to actively look through legislation and ensure that the legislation adopted would be effective legislation and well worded, was not done in that way. It went to the courts, and then it came back here.

Words matter. Actions matter.

What I am submitting today is that it is impossible to do our job effectively with the incredible size, the almost clownish size, 850 pages, of the legislation that was tabled by the government just 48 hours ago.

The government's intention to not even take the time to respect parliamentary procedure and work through the committee structure to allow for appropriate debate so that we get more than a few seconds of scrutiny of each clause and subclause, to my mind, indicates a breach of privilege.

On page 60 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, it reads that contempt “does not have to actually obstruct or impede the House or a Member; it merely has to have the tendency to produce such results.”

On page 81, it also says:

Speaker Sauvé explained in a 1980 ruling: “…while our privileges are defined, contempt of the House has no limits. When new ways are found to interfere with our proceedings, so too will the House, in appropriate cases, be able to find that a contempt of the House has occurred”.

I would submit that this is a question of privilege that deserves the attention of the House.

Here is the recent history behind omnibus legislation in this place.

When Stephen Harper's government was in power and the Liberals were in opposition, they criticized, and rightly so, the undemocratic tactics of the Conservatives, who used omnibus bills on numerous occasions.

Here is what the current Minister of Public Safety had to say about the Conservatives' budget implementation act in 2012 when he was a member of the opposition.

This is what he said at the time:

On the procedural point, so-called omnibus bills obviously bundle several different measures together. Within reasonable limits, such legislation can be managed through Parliament if the bill is coherent, meaning that all the different topics are interrelated and interdependent and if the overall volume of the bill is not overwhelming. That was the case before the government came to power in 2006.

When omnibus bills were previously used to implement key provisions of federal budgets, they averaged fewer than 75 pages in length and typically amended a handful of laws directly related to budgetary policy. In other words, they were coherent and not overwhelming.

However, under this regime the practice has changed. Omnibus bills since 2006 have averaged well over 300 pages, more than four times the previous norm. This latest one introduced last week had 556 sections, filled 443 pages and touched on 30 or more disconnected topics, everything from navigable waters to grain inspection, from disability plans to hazardous materials.

It is a complete dog's breakfast, and deliberately so. It is calculated to be so humongous and so convoluted, all in a single lump, that it cannot be intelligently examined and digested by a conscientious Parliament.

That was the Minister of Public Safety speaking, and I could not agree with him more. The idea that we must intelligently examine legislation that is brought before us is something that is fundamental to our rights as parliamentarians and our responsibility as parliamentarians.

In 2015, the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party agreed with that point. Here is what was in the Liberal Party platform about omnibus legislation:

We will not resort to legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny....

Stephen Harper has also used omnibus bills to prevent Parliament from properly reviewing and debating his proposals. We will change the House of Commons Standing Orders to bring an end to this undemocratic practice.

As members know, the Standing Orders were changed slightly in June 2017. Standing Order 69.1 was supposed to be the Liberals' answer to the abuse of omnibus legislation. Unfortunately, since then, we have seen a number of new omnibus bills being tabled by the government. Bill C-63, the 2017 second budget implementation act, was divided for votes at second and third reading, because it contained many provisions that were not in the budget documents.

Then there was Bill C-74, the spring 2018 budget implementation bill. It was over 550 pages long and affected over 40 different acts. It dealt with matters as diverse as veterans' compensation, changes to the Parliament Act with respect to maternity and parental arrangements, and the establishment of the office of the chief information officer of Canada.

The second budget implementation act for 2018 is 850 pages long. It is without precedent, certainly in living memory. It has thousands of clauses to study. As I mentioned yesterday, no one is capable of telling us how many clauses and how many subclauses exist in this legislation. That indicates to all members of Parliament that there is a problem with legislation that might have been rushed.

We have an important job: to scrutinize, to examine and to review the legislation to make sure that it actually does what it purports to do. This massive bill, this clownishly sized bill, includes seven different stand-alone pieces of legislation inside the bill itself. Each one of them merits consideration. Each one of them merits review and examination. They have all been thrown together in a massive omnibus bill.

I would argue that we cannot simply qualify this bill as an omnibus bill. It is much more than that. The government tabled this monstrosity on Monday, and it expected the MPs in this House to be ready to start debating it and offering amendments only a few hours after it was tabled. It seems obvious to me that such measures are an obstruction to the performance of the parliamentary duties of all members of Parliament in this House.

Surely, Mr. Speaker, we have reached a point where you must intervene. We have reached the point where this is over the line of what is acceptable in any parliamentary democracy. We have to ask ourselves where this will end. If 850 pages and thousands of clauses are acceptable, could the government table a thousand-page bill or a two thousand-page bill, allocate a minimum amount of time for debate and then ram it through the House? If that would not be acceptable, then surely we can agree that there is a limit somewhere. I would argue that this limit has been reached with Bill C-86.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I hope that you will find a prima facie case of privilege here. If you do, I will be ready to move the appropriate motion.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I will take this under advisement.

The hon. member for Chilliwack—Hope.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, from the perspective of the official opposition, we agree with many of the points the member made, pointing out the hypocrisy of the Liberal government in regard to its changing views on omnibus legislation. I would like to ask that we reserve the right of our House leader to come back to add to this question of privilege in the very near future.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. The point of order I want to raise is for you, Mr. Speaker, to apply Standing Order 69.1 to this bill. As a reminder to you, Mr. Speaker, and to all my colleagues, Standing Order 69.1 is as follows:

(1) In the case where a government bill seeks to repeal, amend or enact more than one act, and where there is not a common element connecting the various provisions or where unrelated matters are linked, the Speaker shall have the power to divide the questions, for the purposes of voting, on the motion for second reading and reference to a committee and the motion for third reading and passage of the bill. The Speaker shall have the power to combine clauses of the bill thematically and to put the aforementioned questions on each of these groups of clauses separately, provided that there will be a single debate at each stage.

The third edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice states on page 730:

[An omnibus bill] seeks to amend, repeal or enact several Acts, and is characterized by the fact that it is made up of a number of related but separate initiatives. To render an omnibus bill intelligible for parliamentary purposes, the Speaker has previously ruled that such a bill should have “one basic principle or purpose which ties together all the proposed enactments”.

Given that definition, it is very obvious to me that Bill C-86, with its 850 pages, thousands of clauses and seven separate stand-alone pieces of legislation inside it, is an omnibus bill. However, in this specific case, because Bill C-86 is a budget implementation act, the Liberals have used the loopholes they have added to the Standing Orders in order to include all these measures unrelated to each other.

Standing Order 69.1(2) states:

The present Standing Order shall not apply if the bill has as its main purpose the implementation of a budget and contains only provisions that were announced in the budget presentation or in the documents tabled during the budget presentation.

Let me point out just a few of the elements we could not find anywhere in the budget presentation or in any of the documentation tabled with the budget. In clauses 461 to 462, better protection for workers, that is not found in the budget presentation or in the documentation.

Clauses 535 to 625, that deal with the head of compliance and enforcement, are not found in the documentation either.

As we have seen with previous bills, the administration will likely find other cases as well. This was certainly the case for Bill C-63, and as you will recall, you divided that bill for the purposes of votes.

Obviously, we cannot say for sure that this list is complete. This enormous bill was tabled only 48 hours ago, and the size of it prevents us from being able to take the time we would need to study it in depth, as we should be able to do as parliamentarians.

It is also important to note that we are not necessarily against these measures. We simply want to point out that since these measures were not mentioned in February's budget, Standing Order 69.1 should apply in this case.

Meeting of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order related to Standing Order 151. Last evening, an unlawful and illegitimate meeting of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association was held in this very building to orchestrate a coup against its chair, the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.

After the meeting had been called to order, the chair entertained a point of order about the validity of the meeting. After taking advice from a procedural clerk in attendance, she ruled that the meeting was not properly constituted and therefore adjourned. Then the majority of the association members present left the room and left Centre Block, in fact respecting the chair's ruling that the meeting had been duly adjourned.

Those members were later shocked to hear that the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre then claimed to reconvene the group and presided over an illegal and entirely out of order meeting, where a purported sham motion was passed to remove the chair and install the member for Etobicoke Centre as the new chair of the association. This was done in utter and defiant breach of the association's constitution and by-laws, in disregard of all understanding of parliamentary procedure and in total defiance of fair play and the Liberals' claim to practise positive politics.

What it was, Mr. Speaker, was a hatchet job orchestrated by the Prime Minister's office and the chief government whip, whose staffers were at the meeting taking attendance and barring Liberals from leaving. The Liberal Party, which claims to bring us sunny ways, arranged for the political show execution of the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill because she had the courage to stand up to the Prime Minister and call out his arrogant and dangerous approach to governing.

Voltaire, an author whose works the Prime Minister probably had read to him as a child, described the court martial and execution of British Admiral John Byng with this line:

“[...] dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.”

In English, the line is, “In this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.” Apparently, the same can be said about the Liberal caucus. So much for our so-called feminist Prime Minister.

As I mention, my point of order goes to Standing Order 151. That rule, which we do not often reference here, provides that:

The Clerk of the House is responsible for the safekeeping of all the papers and records of the House, and has the direction and control over all the officers and clerks employed in the offices, subject to such orders as the Clerk may, from time to time, receive from the Speaker or the House.

Within less than an hour after the illegal and illegitimate election, an election attended and manipulated by most of the cabinet, the sham election of the member of Parliament for Etobicoke Centre, the parliamentary website was updated to show that he is now the chair of the association.

Conservatives dispute the validity of this election and will be exploring all available avenues, including judicial recourse, to uphold the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill's continued service as chair of the association. I ask that you, Mr. Speaker, issue an order under Standing Order 151 to the clerks of this House to undo last night's changes in respect of the parliamentary records maintained concerning the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association.

Additionally, Mr. Speaker, I ask that you also instruct the clerks under that standing order to advise the NATO Parliamentary Assembly immediately and well in advance of the 2018 session due to be held in Halifax from September 16 to 19 that Canada's delegation will be headed by the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill and that any claim by the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre to head Canada's delegation is entirely false, without foundation and illegitimate.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, it is not commonplace that we find the activities of a parliamentary association, or even a parliamentary committee, raised here in the House, but what happened last night was so egregious that we feel we have no choice and no other recourse to address it, quite frankly, than here in the House. I want to address a few points that I believe indicate that it is within the purview of the Speaker to address this issue and the sham meeting that took place.

Section 4 of the rules of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association state clearly, under the title “Status”:

[The Parliamentary Association] shall function within the mandate of the Speakers of the Senate and the House of Commons, with the support of the Office of the Executive Secretary, and in affiliation with other NATO Parliamentary groups and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, whose headquarters is in Brussels.

Section 6 of those same rules name the Speaker of the House of Commons as the honorary chair and an honorary officer of the parliamentary association.

Section 14 (c) of the rules that were violated repeatedly last night by the Liberal members in attendance says, “...70% [of the association's annual grant] will be included in the Estimates of the Speaker of the House of Commons.”

Finally, section 19, under “Procedure”, says, “The rules of procedure to be followed in conducting Association business shall conform to Canadian parliamentary practice and rules of procedure.”

Mr. Speaker, I believe this indicates clearly that you have the ability, the office of the Speaker has the ability, to intervene when the rules have been so clearly violated on so many occasions.

I want to go through some of the instances where the rules were violated. First and foremost, under section 9, “Nominations Committees and Elections”, subsection (c) says, “The Association secretary shall distribute nomination forms to all members of the Association.” That was not done. It says, “Nominations should be received at least one week in advance of the General Meeting [which was called]. The Association secretary should prepare a nominations report based on nominations received.” That was not done.

Subsection (d) says, “Only positions for which no candidacy has been put forward can be filled by nominations from the floor at the General Meeting.” Again, this was not done. There was no nomination sought. Nominations, therefore, were unable to be taken from the floor. Therefore, even had the sham meeting been allowed to proceed, which it clearly was not, as the meeting was adjourned prior to the sham election, the rules were not followed.

Also, there is a general clause in section 12, “Amendment of the Rules”, which states, “Not less than two weeks’ notice must be given to the membership and proposed amendments shall be enclosed with the notice.” This was not done. “A two-thirds majority vote of those present at a general meeting shall be required to amend the Rules.” This was not done.

The member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill was so eminently qualified to be the chair of this association that no one else in Parliament, in either House, stood against her when she was elected in March. She was acclaimed as the chair of this association under the due process that is afforded to her. What happened last night after she properly adjourned the meeting was an absolute disgrace to this Parliament. As the association clearly falls under the auspices of the Speaker, we call upon you, Mr. Speaker, to protect the rights and privileges of all members in this House.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo the comments of the opposition whip and my colleague from Perth—Wellington about my and many members' great concern about the conduct of a parliamentary association meeting in Centre Block last evening. I only joked in jest during my member's statement today about the fact that October 30 was devil's night. Certainly that is the case when mischief is played, but this mischief actually interfered with the procedures of a parliamentary association.

I refer the government benches, including the deputy House leader, to the ruling by Speaker Milliken in March 2011 with respect to contempt of Parliament. I would like you, Mr. Speaker, to examine the conduct of the member for Etobicoke Centre with regard to his not respecting the ruling of the chair. Members of Parliament left the room. The meeting adjourned and so the ability of members of Parliament to exercise a parliamentary association function in this building was interfered with.

The same issue was raised by a Liberal member, the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, in the affair in 2011, where the conduct “confused” him in carrying out his job and holding the government to account. The conduct of the member for Etobicoke Centre defying the decision of the chair, after several minutes of a meeting being adjourned, storming onto the stage, taking the podium, and running a sham proceeding after a large number, perhaps one-third of the room, had already left in full respect of the chair's decision, is contemptuous of the constitution of that parliamentary association and of the respect that should be shown not only to the chair, the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, but also to the members of Parliament who had left the room following that ruling.

When you leave the chair and the House adjourns, I cannot suddenly pass a bill in this place, and to suggest that I could is contemptuous of Parliament. Taking the stage and hijacking a meeting that had been adjourned, putting our professional clerks and our professional civil servants in a position that they were last night, I think is a prima facie sign of contempt of Parliament by the member for Etobicoke Centre.

Within the context of the point of order by my learned friend, I would ask that it be examined as well. Certainly that member in particular, who took his place in the House in 2015 after having lost in 2011, after going to the Supreme Court of Canada to fight the election result from 2011, did that “to restore the integrity of the system”. Those are his words. The same member now disregards the constitution of a parliamentary association, disregards the decision of a duly elected chair, storms onto a stage and runs a sham meeting that certainly limited the ability of parliamentarians to participate, because several had left the room, and confused the proceedings considerably and showed contempt for his parliamentary colleagues.

I know that some people are upset by a member of Parliament standing up for views she believes in. I know that on a political score basis, that member doing so has upset people, but it does not permit a member of this place to extract political revenge by defying our procedures for, and constitutions of, parliamentary functions and parliamentary international associations. I say this because the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association is part of a network of parliamentary associations within the NATO alliance. Political grudges do not permit a member to circumvent the rules and the constitution of a parliamentary association, and they do not allow them to show contempt for other members of the chamber.

Within the context of the point of order, I would like that to be considered as well.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I too attended that meeting last night. I am going to start my 19th year in this place in two weeks and I have never seen anything like that in my 19 years here. Obviously what happens with these groups is that members are free to go in and are masters of their own destiny. The group of members that assembled was certainly ready to make a change in the leadership, which was brought to the floor of the meeting.

It was almost scary, but I have never seen this play out like that before. I saw young staffers in that room. I was going to say they were being “ginned up” but I know they were not. When one checks the video—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It seems like we are moving into debate. On a point of order what we want to do is to talk about what the process was or what procedure was broken.

I will give the hon. member for Cape Breton—Canso a chance to maybe clarify that.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the process certainly was not enhanced when members of the Conservative Party were feeding vodka to their staffers, who were singing and had to be escorted out by security. Putting the security people and the clerks in that situation was unbelievable.

It was one of the most shameful and deliberate attacks on the democratic process of those types of groups and they should apologize to the House for it.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I just want to remind the hon. members that what we are trying to figure out is what went wrong with the process. Part of the process is not to shout back and forth, I will remind the hon. members.

I know we are starting to get a little bit repetitious. Hon. members should bring something new forward if they want to speak to this point of order.

The hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly do not profess to have the procedural acumen that my colleagues have, but over the almost 13 years I have been in Parliament, I have had the privilege of serving on a number of committees for interparliamentary groups, such as the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association, the Canada-Armenia Friendship Group, and the Canada-Germany Interparliamentary Group. Some of those groups get funding from Parliament, and one of them is the NATO interparliamentary group. I have been a member of it and I received a notice that a meeting was called for last night.

I went to the meeting. A number of motions and points of order were raised. At one point, the meeting was adjourned. Upon adjournment, I left the building and went to another event. I did not know until this morning that the meeting had supposedly been reconvened However, it could not be reconvened because it did not fall within the rules of the constitution of the NATO interparliamentary group. There was no two weeks' notice given. There was no notice of nominees. There was no way that I, as a parliamentarian, could have had meaningful input into the choice.

Thus, my privileges as a member of Parliament have been breached. As a member of Parliament and as a member of the NATO interparliamentary group, it was my right to be at a meeting that was convened for the purpose of carrying on business. That did not happen last night.

I do hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will take into consideration the very good procedural points that my colleagues have raised for the sanity of this place and to continue to operate these interparliamentary groups as parliamentary groups, not government-controlled groups. It was so obvious last night that the government was controlling what this parliamentary group was doing. That is not appropriate. All of the times that I have travelled with these groups and welcomed people to this country from other jurisdictions, we have worked hard to keep the groups as non-partisan parliamentary groups that represent members of Parliament.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

We are getting into debate. The hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove wanted to speak to this as well. Be brief, please, and to the point if you do not mind.

I will ask that of everyone, because we want to get to everyone and give them a chance to speak. Again, this is not debate. This is more about sticking to what procedures have been broken and how we can add to the debate on that.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to share my perspective and why I believe this is an important point of order for you to consider.

I also attended the meeting last night. I am a member of many parliamentary associations and I am a member of parliamentary friendship groups. Some are funded and some are self-funded, but they are all under the purview and have constitutions that need to be respected. There is a parliamentary process.

Part of that process is due notice of a meeting. I was notified of the meeting of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association. I was on the list. I was given a voting card and I attended.

The meeting started appropriately and on time. There was a point of order made by my colleague to my right. That was dealt with. There was a short recess. The chair met with the clerk. They discussed it, came back and ruled against that point of order.

Then a second point of order was made with respect to the fact that there had not been proper notice to have nominations. There was consultation. Then the meeting was adjourned. The meeting had not been properly constituted.

I then went to another meeting. I was not notified of this other meeting that has been referred to. I am part of this parliamentary association and I was not notified of another subsequent meeting. Without proper notice, my rights as a member of Parliament were infringed.

What you are going to be faced with in dealing with this is very important, Mr. Speaker. There is a parliamentary process. We are a democracy. We share around the world. We are a model. We respect parliamentary process and the rule of law. That did not happen yesterday. I look forward to your important ruling.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I was so disappointed on so many levels with what went on last night at that meeting.

It became very clear, even before the meeting started, that there was a lot of confusion in the room about what the proper process would be. It was very clear that no matter what happened, because there was not a clear direction on how to handle the situation, that there would be no confidence, one way or another, in what the outcome would be, that it would not have the confidence of parliamentarians.

I have travelled on with these parliamentary associations. I have travelled with the member who is now Liberal member and who is the head of ParlAmericas. We have had some great trips, working together in a non-partisan manner. We ensure that our meetings are handled in a non-partisan manner. He goes out of his way to include me and I go out of my way to ensure he is supported properly.

We did not see any of that last night. That is why I made the point of order to recommend to the chair that she seek guidance from both the GIC and the appropriate Speakers on the appropriate movement forward, that she adjourn the meeting, bring it back so when we came back together, we would know what the process was in this unique scenario. We would then have the nominations done in the appropriate manner. We would know exactly the process as laid out and would have confidence in that process to move forward so the association, at the end of the day, would be justified by all members of Parliament as legitimate.

What went on last night was not legitimate. The only legitimate process was the one that was done last March.

When I look at this situation, I think it is unfortunate. I understand the Liberals are upset because they want to have their person in Halifax. It does not make a difference. The process is the process. It cannot be rammed down people's throats. It cannot be rammed down my throat. It has to be respected.

There is a reason why things are done in a particular manner with the appropriate notices. That goes back to the convention of Parliament for many years. There is a reason why that is done and it has to be respected. It was not respected last night. To think that the Liberals can just ram it through is improper and it de-legitimizes the association.

How can we say that this is a true parliamentary association based on what happened last night? We cannot. This is just an absolute disgrace. A lot of members need to take some sober thought on what their conduct was like, on both sides of the aisle. We all need to take a deep breath and take a step back.

You have to recognize what the process is, Mr. Speaker, and then make a legitimate ruling from that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

A number of members who would like to speak to this. We have heard quite a bit up until now. I understand there is a question of the process and what happened. If members have something new to add, I would appreciate it be brief and then we can move on.

The hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill.