Madam Speaker, I am rising to respond to a question of privilege raised on November 23, 2021 respecting an order of the House made on March 25, 2021 in the previous Parliament.
The matter the member is raising emanates from the 43rd Parliament, which was dissolved on August 15, 2021. That terminates all business of the House of that Parliament. House of Commons Procedure and Practice states, in relation to the effects of dissolution:
With dissolution, all business of the House is terminated.
It goes on:
All items on the Order Paper including government and private Members' bills die. The government's obligation to provide answers to written questions, to respond to petitions or to produce papers requested by the House also ends with dissolution.
The members opposite have relied on a 500-year-old precedent cited in the 20th edition of Erskine May’s Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament that refers to a contempt carrying over from one Parliament to another. It is worth noting that this reference no longer appears in any version of Erskine May's treatise because, I submit, the context of the 16th and 17th centuries no longer applies.
This citation refers to a time that predates representative and responsible government and was used for the purposes of imprisoning a privy councillor for crimes committed during a parliament. The sanctions provided in these times generally exceeded the duration of a parliament, which were far shorter in length than our current parliaments, and the new parliaments had to reinstate these sanctions to ensure that the individual in question could be recommitted to the Tower of London for the duration of their initial imprisonment. This context no longer applies, and it would be a travesty to impose such a precedent on a situation that bears no resemblance to the current situation.
I submit that any business that died in one Parliament which members would wish to resurrect in a subsequent Parliament would require the adoption of a substantive motion for which notice would be required, and the facts before the previous Parliament would have to be resubstantiated. We no longer live in a world where a sovereign would order the execution of a member of Parliament or of a privy councillor, who is not a parliamentarian, without due process offered by a court of law. As tempting as it might be to hunt for precedents to suit an argument, the context of the precedent is at least as important as, if not more important than the precedent itself.
Having said that, I will respond to the substance of the member's arguments. I would like to begin by making it clear that ministers are accountable to the House of Commons for duties carried out within their departments and for the actions of their political staff in their political offices.
Page 30 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice states the following regarding the fact that ministers are responsible to Parliament:
In terms of ministerial responsibility, Ministers have both individual and collective responsibilities to Parliament.
It goes on:
The principle of individual ministerial responsibility holds that Ministers are accountable not only for their own actions as department heads, but also for the actions of their subordinates; individual ministerial responsibility provides the basis for accountability throughout the system. Virtually all departmental activity is carried out in the name of a Minister who, in turn, is responsible to Parliament for those acts.
This is not a new concept. To reinforce this assertion, allow me to quote the former prime minister, who, in the 2006 publication entitled “Accountable government: a guide for ministers”, stated, “Ministers are accountable to Parliament for the exercise of their responsibilities whether they are assigned by statute or otherwise,” and “Ministers are personally responsible for the conduct and operation of their office.”
Former Conservative House leader, Jay Hill, strongly made the case on behalf of the former Conservative government on May 25, 2010. Mr. Hill stated:
In our system of government, the powers of the Crown are exercised by ministers who are, in turn, answerable to Parliament. Ministers are individually and collectively responsible to the House of Commons for the policies, programs and activities of the government. They are supported in the exercise of their responsibilities by the public servants and by members of their office staffs.
It is the responsibility of individual public servants and office staff members to provide advice and information to ministers, to carry out faithfully the directions given by ministers, and in so doing, to serve the people of Canada.
He went on:
Ours is a system of responsible government because...ministers are responsible to the House for everything that is done under their authority. We ministers are answerable to Parliament and to its committees. It is ministers who decide policy and ministers who must defend it before the House and ultimately before the people of Canada.
I could not agree more with the remarks of the former Conservative House leader. Ministerial staff have no authority to make decisions on behalf of ministers. As I have said, they report to and are accountable to ministers. Ministers are accountable to Parliament for their actions. Ministerial staff did not put their names on the ballots. They were not elected. They do not have the same rights and privileges as MPs.
The opposition will likely point to the ministerial staffers called before committee in 2010. There is a big difference here. There was clear evidence of staffers breaking the law. The Privacy Commissioner subsequently issued two reports that found that Conservative ministerial staffers had interfered with the release of records under the Access to Information Act.
It is critical to point out that there was much debate about the decision by the government to send ministers to committee, rather than staff. Ultimately, this position was accepted by the Liberals, who formed the official opposition at the time. We accepted that, and it was the right thing to do. There was a clear acceptance of the principle of ministerial responsibility.
Again, on this very important point, Mr. Hill stated:
This is no substitute for ministerial responsibility. When ministers choose to appear before committees to account for their administration, they are the best source of accountability and they must be heard. Public servants and ministerial staff support the responsibility of their ministers. They do not supplant it. They cannot supplant it.
By using its majority on committees, the opposition attempted to deflect accountability from the minister to the ministerial staff. That was and continues to be unacceptable.
I will end my remarks with some words from the former Conservative government House leader, whom I have quoted extensively today. He stated the following about staff.
They bring to us many talents and I expect many of them, when they accepted their jobs, never imagined that one of the skills required was to stand up to the interrogation of a bitterly partisan parliamentary committee.
Our government will continue to defend the constitutional principle that ministers are accountable to Parliament. There is no appropriate substitute for ministers to be accountable to Parliament for the activities of their department or for the activities of their political staff.