Debates of June 7th, 2021

Government's Alleged Non-compliance with an Order of the House

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, House Leader of the Official Opposition]

Madam Speaker, this is a question of privilege.

Following my one-hour notice under Standing Order 48 concerning the report that you gave the House earlier today, the government has not complied with the order of the House adopted last Wednesday, June 2. This is a disappointing and troubling state of affairs that undermines our Parliament: one of the world's oldest continuously functioning democratic bodies.

As Speaker Milliken so clearly said in 2010, you are at a serious impasse. As your esteemed predecessor said in a widely commended ruling on April 27, 2010, at page 2042 of the debates, “Before us are issues that question the very foundations upon which our parliamentary system is built. In a system of responsible government, the fundamental right of the House of Commons to hold the government to account for its actions is an indisputable privilege and in fact an obligation.”

The current obligation comes from the opposition motion adopted on Wednesday afternoon. It is recorded at pages 1023 and 1024 of the Journals, and the main items of the motion that relate to this question of privilege state, and I quote:

That an order of the House do issue for the unredacted version of all documents produced by the Public Health Agency of Canada in response to the March 31, 2021, and May 10, 2021, orders of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, respecting the transfer of Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in March 2019, and the subsequent revocation of security clearances for, and termination of the employment of, Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and Dr. Keding Cheng, provided that:

(a) these documents shall be deposited with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, in both official languages, within 48 hours of the adoption of this order;

(b) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall promptly thereafter notify the Speaker, who shall forthwith inform the House, whether he is satisfied the documents—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands on a point of order about the question of privilege.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know it is quite unorthodox to have a point of order during a question of privilege, but the interpreter said the speech is too fast to be properly interpreted. I am listening very closely.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I would ask the hon. member to slow down. We had a point of order about this earlier. If the document provided to the interpreters is not bilingual, they need a little more time to do their work.

I would therefore ask the members to speak at a reasonable speed to ensure the best possible interpretation so that everyone can participate, hear and understand.

The hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, you are absolutely right.

I thank my hard-working colleague from Kingston and the Islands, and I must say how impressed I am by his outstanding participation these past few months.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation for the interpreters, who work under such difficult conditions. Earlier, my colleague from Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup pointed out that interpreters have an extremely tricky job to do under very challenging conditions. We acknowledge that, and I appreciate their contribution and their support for the work we do in Parliament.

I will go back to my text. I have a few sentences to present today. I will get back to the quotation regarding the order that had been adopted by the House a few days ago.

I will continue.

(b) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall promptly thereafter notify the Speaker, who shall forthwith inform the House, whether he is satisfied the documents were produced as ordered;

Madam Speaker, you informed the House, as set out in paragraph (b), that the documents had not been produced as ordered.

I want the House to understand the full context surrounding the documents required, so allow me to explain how this order works.

When the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations was created on December 10, 2019, in response to the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition, the Journals stated, on page 28, “that the committee be granted all of the powers of a standing committee, as provided in the Standing Orders”.

More specifically, Standing Order 108(1)(a) grants standing committees the authority to “send for persons, papers and records”.

This authority was renewed when the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations was re-established through paragraph (q) of the special order adopted on September 23, 2020, as indicated on page 4 of the Journals.

On March 22 of this year, Iain Stewart, president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, testified before the special committee. Despite relentless questioning by the hon. members for Wellington—Halton Hills, Montarville, St. John's East, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and New Brunswick Southwest, Mr. Stewart refused to provide concrete or substantive answers pertaining to the House's latest order, and his answers were variations of a statement about his being unable to provide details.

In response, the special committee adopted the following order during the meeting:

That the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada provide a written response to all questions raised during the course of tonight’s meeting in relation to the two scientists whose employment at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory was terminated and that the response be submitted to the clerk of the committee, no later than 2:00 PM (EDT) on Friday, March 26, 2021.

Mr. Stewart's letter in response was unsatisfactory. Specifically, he said that the Privacy Act prevented him from disclosing the information the parliamentary committee wanted.

The special committee then consulted with the law clerk and parliamentary counsel regarding its powers and the implications of the Privacy Act. Based on that advice, on March 31 the special committee adopted the following motion, which was the subject of an order of the House last week:

That the committee send for all information and documents in the possession of the Public Health Agency of Canada or any subsidiary organizations relating to the transfer of Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in March of 2019 and the subsequent revocation of security clearances for, and termination of the employment of, Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng, provided that:

(a) these documents shall be deposited with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, in an unredacted form, within 10 days of the adoption of this order;

(b) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel discuss with the committee, in an in camera meeting, information contained therein, which in his opinion, might reasonably be expected to compromise national security or reveal details of an ongoing criminal investigation, other than the existence of an investigation, so that the committee may determine which information is placed before a committee in public;

(c) should the Public Health Agency of Canada not provide documents in their unredacted form within 20 days, the President of the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Acting Scientific Director General of the National Microbiology Laboratory be scheduled to appear for three hours before the committee, within 27 days of this motion passing, to explain why the documents were not provided.

On April 20, the law clerk received about 267 pages from the Public Health Agency of Canada, with various redactions that had not been authorized by the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations. Furthermore, 279 additional pages had been completely redacted. At its April 26 meeting, the special committee adopted the following motion in response to the documents PHAC provided, stating that it was not satisfied with the agency's response:

— That pursuant to the motion adopted by this committee on Wednesday, March 31, 2021: “ [...] (c) should the Public Health Agency of Canada not provide documents in their unredacted form within 20 days, the President of the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Acting Scientific Director General of the National Microbiology Laboratory be scheduled to appear for three hours before the committee, within 27 days of this motion passing, to explain why the documents were not provided”, the committee does thus invite the President of the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Acting Scientific Director General of the National Microbiology Laboratory to appear at their earliest convenience.

On May 10, Mr. Stewart appeared before the special committee once again. He continued to refuse to provide the information requested and, because of PHAC's ongoing refusal to co-operate, the special committee adopted this motion, originally moved by the Liberal member for Cumberland—Colchester, which was also in the June 2 order of the House, and I quote:

That the unredacted documents from the Public Health Agency of Canada be provided to the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel within 10 days to review and ascertain the fairness of them, and should the documents not be provided, that the committee report the following to the House: Your committee recommends that an Order of the House do issue for all information and documents, in the care, custody or control of the Public Health Agency of Canada and subsidiary organizations, respecting the transfer of Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in March 2019 and the subsequent revocation of security clearances for, and termination of the employment of, Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng, provided that: (a) these documents be deposited, in both official languages, with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel no later than two weeks following the House’s concurrence in this recommendation; (b) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel discuss with the committee, in an in camera meeting, information contained therein, which in his opinion, might reasonably be expected to compromise national security or reveal details of an ongoing criminal investigation, other than the existence of an investigation, so that the committee may determine which information is placed before the committee in public.

The second order of the committee was not satisfactorily complied with as we can conclude from the fact that the recommendation included in this motion was later presented to the House in the third report of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations on May 26.

We now have a third order, and this time it is an order of the House of Commons of Canada, which the Public Health Agency of Canada did not comply with.

In baseball we say, “Three strikes and you're out.” This is not a game. It is about the fundamental and ancient powers of the House of Commons to act as the grand inquest of the nation. This is being openly defied, dismissed and mocked by the Liberal government. It is, in a word, treating the House with contempt.

Page 137 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, explains:

By virtue of the preamble and section 18 of the Constitution Act, 1867, Parliament has the ability to institute its own inquiries, to require the attendance of witnesses and to order the production of documents, rights which are fundamental to its proper functioning. These rights are as old as Parliament itself.

Indeed, as one mark of how old the power is, Erskine May treated it as a settled matter in the first edition of his eponymous treatise on parliamentary procedure, published in 1847, at page 309. It states, “Parliament, in the exercise of its various functions, is invested with the power of ordering all documents to be laid before it, which are necessary for its information.”

With regard to the scope of that power, Bosc and Gagnon quoted favourably from page 190 of Joseph Maingot's second edition of Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, which reads as follows:

The only limitations, which could only be self-imposed, would be that any inquiry should relate to a subject within the legislative competence of Parliament, particularly where witnesses and documents are required and the penal jurisdiction of Parliament is contemplated. This dovetails with the right of each House of Parliament to summon and compel the attendance of all persons within the limits of their jurisdictions.

Bosc and Gagnon go even further with regard to the scope of the House's power to request documents on pages 984 and 985, where it reads:

The Standing Orders do not delimit the power to order the production of papers and records. The result is a broad, absolute power that on the surface appears to be without restriction. There is no limit on the types of papers likely to be requested; the only prerequisite is that the papers exist in hard copy or electronic format, and that they are located in Canada [or elsewhere]. They can be papers originating from or in the possession of governments, or papers the authors or owners of which are from the private sector or civil society (individuals, associations, organizations, et cetera).

In practice, standing committees may encounter situations where the authors of or officials responsible for papers refuse to provide them or are willing to provide them only after certain portions have been removed. Public servants and Ministers may sometimes invoke their obligations under certain legislation to justify their position. Companies may be reluctant to release papers which could jeopardize their industrial security or infringe upon their legal obligations, particularly with regard to the protection of personal information. Others have cited solicitor-client privilege in refusing to allow access to legal papers or notices.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but there is something I must do right away.

I know it is not usual to interrupt the member during a question of privilege, but today's circumstance is somewhat unique because we are running out of time.

My intervention will be brief, but it will give the hon. member time to catch his breath.

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 Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Justice; the hon. member for Vancouver East, Housing; the hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove, Tourism Industry.

We will now go back to the question of privilege.

The hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I remind my colleagues that I was sharing a quote from Bosc and Gagnon.

I will continue with my quote:

These types of situations have absolutely no bearing on the power of committees to order the production of papers and records. No statute or practice diminishes the fullness of that power rooted in House privileges unless there is an explicit legal provision to that effect, or unless the House adopts a specific resolution limiting the power. The House has never set a limit on its power to order the production of papers and records.

This also came up in the first report of the former Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, which was tabled on May 29, 1991, and of which the House took note on June 18, 1991.

The power to send for persons, papers and records has been delegated by the House of Commons to its committees in the Standing Orders. It is well established that Parliament has the right to order any and all documents to be laid before it which it believes are necessary for its information.... The power to call for persons, papers and records is absolute, but it is seldom exercised without consideration of the public interest.

I will get back to this last point in a moment.

In a May 2019 report on the power to send for papers, the United Kingdom House of Commons Procedure Committee concluded at paragraph 16, “The power of the House of Commons to require the production of papers is in theory absolute. It is binding on Ministers, and its exercise has consistently been complied with by the Government.”

Over the past few decades, the House has experienced several instances of the withholding of documents requested by the House or its committees.

After the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act were passed, the first major conflict between parliamentary privilege and the government's view of those laws occurred in 1990, when a committee requested reports about two murderers who had escaped from prison.

The matter is summarized in footnote 182 at page 987 of Bosc and Gagnon, which we cited earlier, and I quote:

During the Thirty-Fourth Parliament, following the refusal of the Solicitor General to provide two [unredacted] reports to the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General on the grounds of privacy, the Committee reported the matter to the House. Subsequently, a question of privilege was raised by Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River) concerning the Minister's refusal to provide the reports sought by the Committee. No ruling was delivered as to whether the matter constituted a prima facie breach of privilege, but the issue was referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.... The Committee presented a report which concluded that the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General had been within its rights to insist on the production of the two reports and recommended that the House order the Solicitor General to comply with the order for production. The House subsequently adopted a motion to that effect, with the proviso that the reports be presented at an in camera meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General....

In 2004, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food was unable to obtain the financial statements of private businesses, despite giving many guarantees that sensitive information would be protected. The matter is explained in footnote 180 at page 986 of Bosc and Gagnon:

In its attempt to obtain the financial statements of Canada's five major meat packers in the course of its study on beef pricing, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food adopted a motion stating that the financial statements would not be copied for the Committee members, but would be provided to the Office of the Law Clerk and the analyst assigned to the committee by the Library of Parliament. The analyst would review the information and prepare a report to the Committee drafted in such a fashion as to protect specific sensitive business information that could disclose the identity of any person or corporation. The motion also provided for a mechanism for the retention and eventual destruction of the records.... After presenting two reports in the House on the matter..., the Committee reiterated its requests to the meat packers concerned in the new session of Parliament following the dissolution of Parliament which had occurred in the meantime. It then obtained the records requested....

At this point, I should provide a brief explanation of those two reports.

The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food presented its third report on May 6, 2004, which stated that three companies were in contempt and ordered them to provide certain documents to the clerk of the committee within four days. The House unanimously concurred in the report immediately after it was tabled, finding the companies in contempt.

The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food then presented its fourth report on May 13, 2004, noting that one of the three companies had responded. As for the other two, the committee reported that they were still in contempt, gave them another week to respond and set out the penalties that would be imposed if they did not. The House sat for only one day before Parliament was dissolved, so the report was never concurred in.

Then came the well-known ruling from your longest-serving predecessor, Mr. Milliken, on the documents related to the conflict in Afghanistan. Bosc and Gagnon described the situation at page 139:

In November 2009, the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan reported to the House that its privileges had been breached by the Government's failure to produce documents requested by the Committee relating to the detention of Afghan soldiers by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

I will briefly note that a question of privilege was raised but was rejected by Speaker Milliken on November 30, 2019, at page 7386 of the Debates.

During a Liberal opposition day, the House adopted a motion, which our prime minister voted in favour of, in accordance with the conditions established at page 1195 of the Journals on December 10, 2009:

That, given the undisputed privileges of Parliament under Canada's constitution, including the absolute power to require the government to produce uncensored documents when requested, and given the reality that the government has violated the rights of Parliament by invoking the Canada Evidence Act to censor documents before producing them, the House urgently requires access to the following documents in their original and uncensored form:

Seven categories of documents pertaining to the Afghan detainee situation were listed.

...accordingly the House hereby orders that these documents be produced in their original and uncensored form forthwith.

Let us now go back to page 139 of Bosc and Gagnon for the explanation:

...the Government refused [to provide the requested documents], citing national security concerns. Questions of privilege were raised based on the House's absolute right to order documents. The Minister of Justice insisted that as the government had a duty to protect information that could jeopardize national security, that right was not without limits. On April 27, 2010, Speaker Milliken ruled that it was within the powers of the House to ask for the documents specified in the House Order, and that it did not transgress the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of Government. Thus, the Speaker concluded that the Government's failure to comply with the House Order constituted a prima facie breach of privilege. However, he gave the parties two weeks to develop a mechanism that would accommodate the Government's concerns over national security and the House's right to receive the documents.

Footnote 348 at page 139 explains how Speaker Milliken's ruling was implemented:

Following an agreement in principle of all parties and the resulting memorandum of understanding, signed only by the Government, the Official Opposition and the Bloc Québécois, an ad hoc committee composed of one Member and one alternate from each of the three parties signatory to the agreement examined the approximately 40,000 pages of unredacted text related to Afghan detainees, after being sworn to secrecy.... To facilitate the identification of relevant documents, a three-person panel, known as the Panel of Arbiters, was struck, comprised of former Supreme Court Justices Frank Iacobucci and Claire L'Heureux-Dubé, and former B.C. Supreme Court judge Donald Brenner, to assist the Members of the ad hoc committee in their work.... On March 26, 2011, the Fortieth Parliament was dissolved. On June 22, 2011, John Baird, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, tabled approximately 4,000 pages of documents relating to the detention of combatants by the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan....

Meanwhile, in 2011, another prima facie case of privilege was found with respect to efforts by the Standing Committee on Finance to obtain documents. Allow me to summarize for the House the events surrounding that, as well as the outcome.

First, on October 6, 2010, the finance committee requested certain financial information from the government, but no response was forthcoming. As a consequence, on November 17, 2010, the finance committee adopted a motion ordering the production of various government documents concerning economic projections and costing estimates. On November 24 and December 1, 2010, the government responded to the finance committee, advising that certain documents being sought constituted cabinet confidence.

On February 3, 2011, the finance committee adopted a motion to report the foregoing events to the House. That report, the finance committee's 10th report, was presented on February 7, 2011, following which Scott Brison rose on a question of privilege.

Meanwhile, the government tabled in the House some documents pertaining to the Standing Committee on Finance's request. In any event, on February 17, 2011, the House considered and then, on February 28, 2011, adopted an opposition motion moved by the Hon. Ralph Goodale and seconded by the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations.

This is the text of the motion:

That, given the undisputed privileges of Parliament under Canada's constitution, including the absolute power to require the government to produce uncensored documents when requested, the government's continuing refusal to comply with reasonable requests for documents, particularly related to the cost of the government's tax cut for the largest corporations and the cost of the government's justice and public safety agenda, represents a violation of the rights of Parliament, and this House hereby orders the government to provide every document requested by the Standing Committee on Finance on November 17, 2010, by March 7, 2011.

Then, on March 9, 2011, Speaker Milliken ruled on Mr. Brison's question of privilege, finding a prima facie breach of privilege, and Mr. Brison moved a motion to refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs then presented its 27th report on March 21, 2011. On March 25, 2011, the House studied and adopted an opposition motion moved by Michael Ignatieff. Among other things, the motion stated:

That the House agree with the finding of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that the government is in contempt of Parliament....

Most of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs' report had to do with the government's invocation of cabinet confidentiality, which is not the main issue here. Even so, two excerpts from the report are important to the matter at hand:

The first, on page 5 of the report, reads as follows:

He [Robert R. Walsh, House of Commons law clerk and parliamentary counsel] further indicated that the Speaker had concluded in his ruling that Parliament has the right to receive all the information that it requires, but the government may decide to refuse to provide this information. In that event, the government must convince Parliament that its decision is well-founded.

Further on, on page 9, it states:

Mr. Ned Franks, professor emeritus in the Department of Political Studies at Queen's University...affirmed that he sided with Speaker Milliken and declared that, in his view, the government was not entitled to limit Parliament's power to receive information.

As the House accepted the findings of the report on March 25, 2011, it is clear that it also accepted the analysis that preceded it.

Even more recently are developments in the United Kingdom's Parliament, some of which our colleagues may not be fully familiar with. In the 2017 general election, the incumbent Conservative government did not secure a majority in the House of Commons. Although it was able to muster a working majority through a confidence and supply arrangement with one of the Northern Ireland parties, it was the U.K.'s first true minority government in some four decades.

The Labour Party devoted 10 of its opposition days in the first session of Parliament following that election to ordering the production of documents. Half of these motions were defeated by the House, and of the remaining five, four were responded to in a satisfactory manner by the government. It is the fifth motion that earns our attention. It prompted the U.K. House of Commons Procedure Committee to study the matter and issue its ninth report, entitled “The House's power to call for papers: procedure and practice”, in May 2019, which I quoted earlier.

On November 13, 2018, the U.K. House of Commons adopted the following motion, proposed by Sir Keir Starmer, now the leader of the opposition, recorded on pages 1 and 2 of Votes and Proceedings:

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that she will be graciously pleased to give directions that the following papers be laid before Parliament: any legal advice in full, including that provided by the Attorney General, on the proposed withdrawal agreement on the terms of the UK’s departure from the European Union including the Northern Ireland backstop and framework for a future relationship between the UK and the European Union.

Subsequent events can be summarized by the following extracts from paragraphs 41 to 43 of the U.K. Procedure Committee's 2019 report:

41. Ministers advanced arguments against the motion from the Despatch Box, but did not seek to divide the House. The motion therefore passed unopposed. In points of order raised immediately after the House’s decision, Members sought to clarify the obligations on the Government arising from it: no Ministerial statement was made in response.

42. An agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU was endorsed by heads of state and government at the European Council meeting of 25 November 2018.... On 3 December the Attorney General presented to Parliament a Command Paper which purported to describe the “overall legal effect” of the agreement of 25 November 2018. On the same day he made a statement to the House...neither the Command Paper nor the statement made reference to the resolution of 13 November, and the Command Paper did not purport to be a return to the resolution of the House.

43. Following the presentation of the Government’s Command Paper to the House, Keir Starmer, together with representatives of four other political parties, wrote to the Speaker alleging that the Government had not complied with the terms of the resolution of 13 November.... The Attorney General also wrote to the Speaker with his observations on the matter: he argued that the Government was in considerable difficulty in knowing how to comply with the resolution.

Speaker Bercow ruled, on December 3, 2018, in column 625 of the official report:

The letter that I received from the Members mentioned at the start of this statement asks me to give precedence to a motion relating to privilege in relation to the failure of Ministers to comply with the terms of the resolution of the House of 13 November.... I have considered the matter carefully, and I am satisfied that there is an arguable case that a contempt has been committed. I am therefore giving precedence to a motion to be tabled tonight before the House rises and to be taken as first business tomorrow, Tuesday. It will then be entirely for the House to decide on that motion.

The following day, the House considered such a motion. After defeating the government's amendment by a vote of 307 to 311, the House voted 311 to 293 to adopt the following motion, found on page 3 of Votes and Proceedings:

That this House finds Ministers in contempt for their failure to comply with the requirements of the motion for return passed on 13 November 2018, to publish the final and full legal advice provided by the Attorney General to the Cabinet concerning the EU Withdrawal Agreement and the framework for the future relationship, and orders its immediate publication.

In response, the government produced a complete, unredacted copy of the Attorney General's legal advice the next day. According to the Procedure Committee's report, at paragraph 68, the Attorney General “said that he had complied with the order of the House of 4 December out of respect of the House’s constitutional position.”

It is possible for a government to respect the constitutional position of the House of Commons. As I said earlier, in my humble opinion, this government is in contempt of Parliament.

In fact, page 60 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice by Bosc and Gagnon states that:

Any conduct which offends the authority or dignity of the House, even though no breach of any specific privilege may have been committed, is referred to as a contempt of the House. Contempt may be an act or an omission; it does not have to actually obstruct or impede the House or a Member, it merely has to have the tendency to produce such results.

Bosc and Gagnon add the following at page 81:

Thus, the House also claims the right to punish, as a contempt, any action which, though not a breach of a specific privilege: tends to obstruct or impede the House in the performance of its functions; obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of the House in the discharge of their duties; or is an offence against the authority or dignity of the House, such as disobedience of its legitimate commands....

Among the well-established types of contempt detailed at page 82 of Bosc and Gagnon are the following elements:

...deliberately altering, suppressing, concealing or destroying a paper required to be produced for the House or a committee;

...without reasonable excuse, refusing to answer a question or provide information or produce papers formally required by the House or a committee;

without reasonable excuse, disobeying a lawful order of the House or a committee....

In this case, the government disobeyed a lawful order of the House. It did not provide all the papers formally required and, by redacting others, it deliberately altered, suppressed and concealed papers required to be produced.

As for the government's excuses in its May 2020 response to the special committee's second order, Mr. Stewart wrote:

We share the Committee's interest in ensuring open and public government, in a manner that appropriately protects sensitive information, including national security information. To the end, we note that the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) was established to review such matters, while ensuring appropriate safeguards. Members of that committee come from both houses of Parliament, hold appropriate security clearances and have express right of access to otherwise restricted information. We would welcome the opportunity to further explore this avenue with you.

Last week, during Tuesday's debate on the order, we heard the same message from the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, who often speaks in the House of Commons on behalf of his government, and I know what I am talking about.

On Wednesday, when the Prime Minister answered a question about this in question period, he said:

That is why [Canadians] elect parliamentarians to hold governments to account, but on issues of national security, it is important that there be higher levels of clearance given to parliamentarians who can properly dig into them and ask all the right questions.

It is very important to remember that the government is talking here about a committee of parliamentarians, not a committee of Parliament. That makes all the difference. In fact, subsection 4(3) of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act states: “The Committee is not a committee of either House of Parliament or of both Houses”.

It does not stop there. Section 5 of the act states that the members of the committee are to be appointed by cabinet, on the personal recommendation of the Prime Minister. Section 6 states the same for the chair of the committee.

We are told that the Prime Minister can ask all the appropriate questions. Well, no. Section 8 of the act allows the minister to veto a committee study selection. Section 16 allows the minister to refuse to provide information. So much for transparency.

Still, even if they consult the documents, can they really set the record straight? Once again, the answer is no. Section 21 requires the committee to submit all its reports to the Prime Minister and allows the Prime Minister to censor all such reports before they are released publicly. That is the big difference between this type of committee and other committees of parliamentarians. The Prime Minister has the final say on anything that can be made public. It is not at all the same as a parliamentary committee.

Perhaps Parliament's former principle of freedom of expression, a constitutional principle dating back to 1689, would allow someone to sound the alarm if the Prime Minister is hiding something. Again, no. Subsection 12(2) destroys three centuries of freedom of expression and allows the government to prosecute a committee member who says something the Prime Minister does not want to hear.

The Prime Minister ultimately has the right to veto anything with this organization. The sad truth is that the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians is quite simply a puppet of the government. Speaker Milliken spoke to the use of this puppet in determining how to respond to House orders to produce documents on April 27, 2010, at page 2044 of the Debates:

The government, for its part, has sought to find a solution to the impasse. It has appointed former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci and given him a mandate to examine the documents and to recommend to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General what could be safely disclosed to the House.

The government has argued that in mandating this review by Mr. Iacobucci, it was taking steps to comply with the order consistent with its requirements to protect the security of Canada's armed forces and Canada's international obligations.

However, several members have pointed out that Mr. Iacobucci's appointment establishes a separate, parallel process outside of parliamentary oversight, and without parliamentary involvement. Furthermore, and in my view perhaps most significantly, Mr. Iacobucci reports to the Minister of Justice; his client is the government.

The Prime Minister's proposal to use the committee he himself composed is neither a reasonable excuse nor even a legitimate reason to defy the House's order of June 2. How can I ask it? Who can judge?

Bosc and Gagnon offer the following in footnote 176 at page 985:

...Speaker Milliken reaffirmed the authority of the House to order the production of papers, and to determine whether any reasons for withholding documents are sufficient.

The U.K. Procedure Committee, in its May 2019 report, concluded at paragraph 16, “The way in which the power [to require the production of papers] is exercised is a matter for the House and not subject to the discretion of the Chair.” That committee commented at paragraph 35 on the means of assessing compliance:

There is no recognised procedure to assess the papers provided to the House as a whole in response to a resolution or order, and no means of appeal against non-compliance, short of raising the issue as a matter of privilege.

Where papers have been provided to a body of the House, compliance has been easier to assess. Select committees in receipt of papers have been able to review the information they have received and to determine whether the House’s instructions have been complied with.

The U.K. Procedure Committee concluded at paragraph 86:

The House alone determines the scope of its power to call for papers. In its consideration of each motion it is able to discern whether an inappropriate or irresponsible use of the power is sought, and whether it is being asked to require the production of information from Ministers on a scale disproportionate to the matter under debate. We expect that in each such case the House will continue to exercise its judgment in favour of a responsible use of the power.

In our current circumstances, the House set up mechanisms to first assess consistence when its order was complied with. Paragraph (a) of last week's order required the document to be referred to the Law Clerk, both for the benefit of an initial judgment as well as to ensure appropriate security, while paragraph (b) has given a means to report.

On the strength of the Law Clerk's initial assessment, it now falls to this House to make a determination whenever the lawful exercise of its power has been satisfied or defied. The House takes its decision through the tried-and-true methods of motions, debates and votes.

That is what I am asking you to permit throughout this question of privilege.

The House had the benefit last Tuesday of hearing from the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, and then on Wednesday from the Prime Minister himself, on the government's proposed approach. Since these views were put before the House prior to the vote, I would argue that the House had the benefit of considering them and in the end preferred the approach of my friend, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. In any event, if you find there is prima facie contempt, the government can always test the will of the House on its alternative approach by proposing an amendment to my motion.

As I said earlier, the House does its best work on these issues when it takes into account various public policy considerations, which of course includes the public interest. In fact, as Speaker Milliken noted at page 2045 of the Debates of April 27, 2010, when he ruled on documents pertaining to Afghanistan, the interests of the executive and the legislature must be considered:

The House has long understood the role of the government as “defender of the realm” and its heavy responsibilities in matters of security, national defence and international relations. Similarly, the government understands the House's undoubted role as the “grand inquest of the nation” and its need for complete and accurate information in order to fulfill its duty of holding the government to account.

That balance is achieved through proper moderation of the House, not through a right of veto exercised by the outside authority. Speaker Milliken clearly explained this concept in the same ruling, this time at page 2043, where it reads:

It is the view of the Chair that accepting an unconditional authority of the executive to censor the information provided to Parliament would in fact jeopardize the very separation of powers that is purported to lie at the heart of our parliamentary system and the independence of its constituent parts. Furthermore, it risks diminishing the inherent privileges of the House and its members, which have been earned and must be safeguarded.

As has been noted earlier, procedural authorities are categorical in repeatedly asserting the powers of the House in ordering the production of documents. No exceptions are made for any category of government documents, even those related to national security.

Therefore, the Chair must conclude that it is perfectly within the existing privileges of the House to order production of the documents in question.

Having thus established that it is up to the House to decide how to exercise its power to order the production of papers, how are mechanisms established to ensure a good balance? Pages 986 and 987 of Bosc and Gagnon address the choices available to committees in the following circumstances. They said, and I quote:

In cases where the author of or the authority responsible for a record refuses to comply with an order issued by a committee to produce documents, the committee essentially has three options. The first is to accept the reasons and conditions put forward to justify the refusal; the committee members then concede that they will not have access to the record or accept the record with passages deleted. The second is to seek an acceptable compromise with the author or the authority responsible for access to the record. Normally, this entails putting measures in place to ensure that the record is kept confidential while it is being consulted. These include in camera review, limited and numbered copies, arrangements for disposing of or destroying the copies after the committee meeting, et cetera. The third option is to reject the reasons given for denying access to the record and uphold the order to produce the entire record.

As the House will recall, in the matter of the documents on Afghanistan in 2009-10, the House ordered a series of some 40,000 pages of documents to be produced immediately, in their original, uncensored form, even if their full disclosure would bring harm to Canada and its NATO allies in an armed conflict zone.

In the end, Speaker Milliken reserved his ruling to allow for a motion to be presented for a debate within two weeks, so the parties could find an appropriate balance. In the present case, I would say the appropriate balance was established by the House last week, with the adoption of the opposition motion. As I said, the unredacted documents should not be presented directly to the House, but handed over to the law clerk so he can, pursuant to paragraph (d) of the order of June 2:

confidentially review the documents with a view to redacting information which, in his opinion, could reasonably be expected to compromise national security or reveal details of an ongoing criminal investigation, other than the existence of an investigation....

I would like to point out that treating the law clerk and his office as a trusted intermediary is not unprecedented or unheard of. For example, on October 26, 2020, the House adopted an order for the production of various documents to support the Standing Committee on Health's study on the government's preparedness for and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These documents were to be submitted to the Office of the Law Clerk, who, pursuant to paragraphs (aa) and (ii) of the order, was to ensure that the documents:

(ii) be vetted for matters of personal privacy information, and national security, and, with respect to [vaccine documents], be additionally vetted for information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to interfere with contractual or other negotiations between the Government of Canada and a third party....

Once the approval was given, he was to submit them for tabling, as the June 2 order also called for. It was my understanding that on May 28, the law clerk submitted 14 sets of records representing approximately 6,271 documents for tabling. Although I have heard that there are still about 2,000 documents to be vetted and translated, in addition to the many documents that the government still needs to produce, this agreement that we voted on and adopted seems to be working.

On November 19, 2020, the Standing Committee on Finance agreed to have the law clerk examine a less redacted version of the documents that had been submitted to the committee in the previous Parliament during the initial study of the Liberal Party's WE Charity scandal.

As I mentioned earlier, the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations sought assistance from the law clerk. I want to share a quote from the law clerk's appearance before the special committee on March 31. On page 9 of the committee evidence, he states the following:

In terms of national security and other grounds, my office acts essentially as the department of justice for the legislative branch and we provide legal services and legal advice to committees on all of their areas of law, including all of those potential grounds for confidentiality that committees and/or the House may decide to accept or not accept. We are prepared and able to provide that legal advice in the interpretation of those concepts, including national security, commercial sensitivity and so on.

That said, there may well be some factual information and knowledge that the government or other entities have that we don't have, because it's their information and their concerns, and they may be well placed to share that with us with regard to proposed redactions or proposed areas of concern. That's certainly something the committee can consider, namely, to have my office provide you with advice on the scope and application of those grounds, but not preventing the government or any witness from proposing and raising a concern—albeit, with this committee, and ultimately the House, still having the last word on accepting or not that interpretation.

Once the documents have been produced, pursuant to the order made on June 2, the law clerk informs the special committee of the redacted information without disclosing any sensitive information so that the committee members understand the issues.

The special committee will be able to use the information provided in that overview to give the House a full report without compromising national security or jeopardizing a criminal investigation. That is the heart of the operation: to have access to relevant information without compromising national security or revealing details of criminal investigations.

If that is not enough for the Liberal ministers, I would like to quote the very eloquent words of Speaker Milliken at page 2042 of the Debates, where he said the following on April 27, 2010:

The hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia argued that even if the documents were provided to the committee, the committee could not, given their sensitive nature, make use of them publicly. However, I cannot agree with his conclusion that this obviates the government's requirement to provide the documents ordered by the House. To accept such a notion would completely undermine the importance of the role of parliamentarians in holding the government to account.

Speaker Milliken then added the following on page 2045:

The insinuation that members of Parliament cannot be trusted with the very information that they may well require to act on behalf of Canadians runs contrary to the inherent trust that Canadians have placed in their elected officials and which members require to act in their various parliamentary capacities.

In my humble opinion, the appropriate balance has already been struck by the House and now it is up to the House to decide how to proceed.

What should we do?

Bosc and Gagnon offer possible solutions on page 139 of their very important work:

If an order is issued and disregarded, the disciplinary powers of the House may be invoked. Individuals could be called to the Bar of the House, cited for contempt or otherwise punished. In 1891, a witness before a committee was called to the Bar of the House for refusing to produce documents requested by the committee. In 2004, the House found three companies in contempt of the House for refusing to provide a committee with the documents it had requested.

I already talked about the 2004 proceedings and the 19th-century case, summed up on page 131 of Bosc and Gagnon:

In 1891, Michael Connolly, a witness before the Privileges and Elections Committee, attended as requested with certain documents which he refused to put into the hands of the Committee. The Committee reported this to the House and requested “the action of the House”...to appear before the Bar. He appeared, was questioned, granted counsel, and ordered to produce the books of account requested by the Committee.

Anyone who wants more detail can consult the Journals of June 5, 1891, pages 204 and 205, of June 8, 1891, page 208, and of June 16, 1891, pages 211 and 212. To everyone's relief, we see on page 214 that, on June 17, 1891, Mr. Connelly handed over the requested documents after being called before the bar and questioned.

As members may remember, in 1991 and 2010, a workable agreement was finally reached. On the other hand, in 2011, the House recognized the findings of a committee that the government was in contempt of the House and reiterated its trust.

Of course, contempt and confidence do not have to be two sides of the same coin. As we saw in Westminster, in 2018, when ministers were found in contempt, the government easily maintained office.

Nonetheless, it is incumbent upon us to act. As Maingot writes at page 239:

Disobedience to rules or orders represents an affront to the dignity of the House, and accordingly the House could take action, not simply for satisfaction but to ensure that the House of Commons is held in the respect necessary for its authority to be vindicated. Without proper respect, the House of Commons could not function.

That brings me to the remedy which I am prepared to propose in a motion, should you agree that there is a prima facie case of contempt here.

In the interest of giving members appropriate notice of where this debate might go, the motion I intend to move would do the following things: (a) it would find the Public Health Agency of Canada to be in contempt; (b) it would order the Minister of Health to attend in her place, here in this House, to produce documents that have been ordered; (c) it would then require the minister to be questioned by the House; (d) finally, it would set out the procedures for this questioning because the old practices followed when the witness would be summoned to the House for questioning, which the curious could find explained in a search of Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure and Practice in the Dominion of Canada, do not fit neatly into our contemporary rules and ways of doing business.

In summary, first, the House adopted a valid order on June 2 under its Constitutional and unlimited power to send for papers.

Second, in the opinion of the law clerk, the Public Health Agency of Canada, to whom the order was addressed, did not comply with the order.

Third, the failure to comply with the lawful order of the House for the production of papers without reasonable excuse is a contempt of Parliament.

Fourth, the House, in granting a request of the nation, can summarily exercise its power to send for papers in a responsible fashion to account for the executive's duty as a defender of the realm. This balancing act was, in my view, appropriately struck in the House's original order last week.

Fifth, the government's reasons for defying the order, whatever they may be, are, in my humble opinion, inadequate and do not qualify as reasonable excuses, particularly in light of the mechanisms established by the House for the responsible treatment of requested documents. There is no doubt that the idea of getting the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians to deal with it is not an acceptable option because, as we have shown, the one who has the final word is the Prime Minister.

Sixth, in every case, only the House, not the government or the Speaker, can judge whether orders to produce documents have been complied with.

Seventh, the House makes decisions by means of motions, debate and votes. Failure to execute an order of the House is, in my humble opinion, a prima facie case of contempt requiring a decision by the House.

Eighth, unlike the case put to Speaker Milliken in 2010 about a motion calling for the production of unredacted copies of approximately 40,000 pages of military secrets pertaining to the armed military conflict in which Canada and its NATO allies were actively engaged, it is not necessary to suspend the effect of any decision because the House has already taken into account the conditions required for security and sensitive information.

Ninth, the House may accordingly consider appropriate sanctions in response to the breach of its order including a finding of contempt, the ordering of someone responsible to attend the House and be questioned and, as a means of allowing for yet another second chance, the further ordering of the production of the documents.

In closing, allow me to quote the Prime Minister's former caucus colleague directly when he raised the first of three questions of privilege, which led to Mr. Speaker Milliken's famous 2010 ruling. These words at page 610 of the debates for March 18, 2010, are equally applicable to us today. I will quote him:

Lastly, there is no place in this country where this issue can be raised and acted on. There is no department of government and there is no court allowed to interfere. There are no other persons who can come into this House to protect the constitutional foundations of this country, only the 308 persons here. So if we do not stand up for our Parliament's role on behalf of Canadians, then there is no one else out there to do it. It is an attempt to undermine the work of Parliament and its committees that I place before the House today. If we do not stand up, those efforts to undermine our Constitution will have succeeded. We cannot let that happen.

Madam Speaker, you have an important decision to make. I know it will perhaps be difficult, but I also know that you will do what it takes to ensure that this House can assert itself.

The House of Commons, Canadians and hundreds of years of constitutional parliamentary governments await your permission to defend, through a debate on the contempt that is the basis of this question of privilege, these ancient rights of the elected representatives of the people.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I thank the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent for his presentation of this question of privilege. Members will understand that there are far too many elements involved for me to make a ruling at this time, but the Chair will return to the House in due course.

Is the hon. member for Jonquière rising on the same question of privilege?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the brief presentation by my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent, and I share some of his concerns, especially about government accountability.

If we do not have all the relevant information, it is impossible for us to act as the watchdog we are meant to be and properly represent our constituents. The democratic process is based on the information we have at our disposal. How can people get a sense of the process of deliberation that happens and the issues we deal with here if they do not have all the information?

Personally, I think we have been going off on a rather strange tangent for the past few months. I will give three examples.

The first is CanSinoBIO. In committee, we questioned the government's decision, but the government hid behind its notorious COVID-19 vaccine task force, whose members, it said, had made that decision. It was almost impossible to find out more because the government claimed that the information contained personal information. However, after a bit of teeth pulling, we finally learned that the task force had never recommended that the government proceed with CanSinoBIO.

I do not believe that privacy and national security are adequate excuses for shirking one's responsibilities, and yet, it certainly seems as though this government is using privacy and national security to renege on its obligation to be transparent.

My second example is that of General Vance and my third is the WE Charity scandal. We had difficulty obtaining pertinent information to get a clear picture and, above all, to take a position on these issues. I believe that there is no democracy without transparency.

I would like to raise another rather important point. I am under the impression that, to paralyze the opposition, the government has adopted this approach of ensuring that the opposition does not have the information it asks for. However, the motions we vote on and the debates we have cannot be ignored because they bring the government face-to-face with its turpitude. I believe that is what we are seeing today.

I need to keep up with my colleague, so in closing, I want to point out another major problem. The Minister of Health sent this whole matter to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. However, this committee does not have a representative from my party at this time. I do not know why it is taking so long for a member of the Bloc Québécois to be appointed to the committee. I do not know whether this is typical of the Liberals, but, at the very least, it is yet more evidence that this government's track record on transparency could be better.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I thank the hon. member for the points he added to the debate. As I said earlier to the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, the Chair will take everything under advisement and return to the House in due course.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy), be read the third time and passed.

Criminal Code

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is good to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-6. This is my first opportunity to speak to the bill. There has been a lot of conversation and I have listened intently to some of the debate.

I will say at the outset that in my riding I received a huge number of phone calls, emails and letters about the bill. Many people were very concerned. There have been petitions brought forward calling on the government to amend the definition in the bill.

Of all of the phone calls, emails and letters I received, 100% of the people in Sarnia—Lambton are opposed to forced conversion therapy. It is harmful: there is no debate about that, so the issues the people in my riding are raising have to do with the definition in the bill.

We know that the purpose of the bill is to ban conversion therapy, to make sure that children cannot be forced into conversion therapy, and to make sure that advertising or benefiting materially from conversion therapy is also banned. These are all good things. As I said, there is no dispute on the fact that everybody wants to ban conversion therapy.

The issue is the definition in the bill, which is overly broad. It would criminalize things that are not conversion therapy. The definition in Bill C-6 says that it is a “practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual, to change a person’s gender identity or gender expression to cisgender or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour.”

The concern coming forward from many people is about private conversations or preaching in the public square, or about counsel and discussions that people might have about people's sexuality or gender expression and issues such as these.

Many people are opposed to the definition that has been put forward. It is not just me here as a member of Parliament with a concern. Across the country, there are 12 million Catholics. The Catholic school boards across the country have come out against the definition in Bill C-6. Again, no one is saying that they do not want to ban conversion therapy, but they are concerned that this will infringe on their freedom of speech, on their freedom of religion and on their freedom to teach what they believe in their schools, and that they will end up going to jail for five years for exercising those very freedoms.

If we look at other people of faith in the country, we know that between evangelical Christians, Baptists, Muslims and the Jewish community, we are talking about another 12 million Canadians. All told, that is 24 million people and many groups have come out of them. Groups of lawyers, the Christian Legal Fellowship and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs all have come out with concerns about the definition in the bill.

That is 24 million Canadians out of 38 million Canadians, so we are not talking about a minority or a small group of individuals. We are talking about a lot of people who want to have their rights under the charter protected. We need to look into what is it they are calling on the government to do.

They are calling on the government to ban coercive, degrading practices that are designed to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. I think we would all agree that we want to do that. They want to ensure that no laws discriminate against Canadians by limiting what services they can receive based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The point here is that there are individuals, even within the LGBTQ community, who want to be able to receive whatever type of counselling they want. They believe that is their freedom, so they are concerned. Similarly, people who want to have conversations about their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression feel like it is their freedom to be able to do that.

We heard from a lot of parents who were concerned. They wanted to speak with their children about sexuality and gender and set house rules, for example, about sex and about relationships. They did not want the far-reaching definition in Bill C-6 to criminalize their ability to be parents and to set rules and boundaries about what should go on in the household according to them.

We want to allow free and open conversations about sexuality and sexual behaviour and not criminalize professional and religious counselling voluntarily requested and consented to. People have the right to seek whatever help they want. One hundred per cent of the people in Sarnia—Lambton, me included, are opposed to forced conversion therapy.

The Liberals knew that there was a problem with the definition. When the noise started to happen from faith groups and legal professionals who said this would infringe on people's freedom of speech, they published a clarification on their web page. This is the clarification as published:

These new offences would not criminalize private conversations in which personal views on sexual orientation, sexual feelings or gender identity are expressed such as where teachers, school counsellors...doctors, mental health professionals, friends or family members provide affirming support to persons struggling with their sexual orientation, sexual feelings, or gender identity.

That is a great clarification. That is exactly what people were concerned about and exactly what they wanted to hear. Unfortunately, however, judges have to judge by what is in the law, not what is on the government's web page. Therefore, we did what anybody would do. We said that this was a great clarification, that it should be put in the bill. Then it would be clear that we were banning conversion therapy, but we would not be criminalizing things that were private conversations, that were voluntary counselling, that were pastoral duties, all these things.

The Conservatives proposed that be done, but the Liberals would not put the clarification into the bill. Why not? If they really do not want to criminalize things that are not conversion therapy, these kinds of private conversations, which is what they said on their web page, then why would they not put it in the bill? That is something for Canadians to consider.

The Liberals actually accepted some amendments at committee, so they cannot say that they were not going to accept any amendments. They accepted amendments to even expand this to gender expression, so that made the bill even more problematic from the point of view of private conversations, counselling and all the things about which I have been talking.

There are conversion therapy bans in other jurisdictions. We have heard about some of them during the debate. There are other provinces that have conversion therapy bans. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan talked about how his municipality had a ban. They have all used certain definitions. Quebec, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Yukon all have bans on conversion therapy and they have all used definitions, so that would be a good precedent to look at. The Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Israel and even Albania all have bans on conversion therapy. Therefore, it is worthwhile spending a few moments to talk about what definitions they used and what could we as Canadians learn from people who already implemented something and have not had issues.

Most of the people in the other provinces have used definitions from either the Canadian Psychological Association or the Canadian Psychiatric Association, recognizing that, in fact, it is not a bad thing to let the medical professionals, who understand what practices are acceptable and what practices are not, to define what conversion therapy is.

The Canadian Psychological Association says that, “Conversion therapy, or reparative therapy, refers to any formal therapeutic attempt to change the sexual orientation of bisexual, gay and lesbian individuals to heterosexual.”

The Canadian Psychiatric Association says that conversion therapy is, “a range of pseudo-scientific treatments that aim to change...sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual”.

Members can see the key words “formal therapeutic attempt” and “treatments that aim to change...sexual orientation” in these definitions. It is clear from this that they are not referring to conversations.

We know that in Israel, the definition is “any form of treatment or psychotherapy which aims to change a person's sexual orientation or to suppress a person's gender identity.” Again, it is a form of treatment or a form of psychotherapy.

In Germany's definition, it has to be shown that the individual “had not been deceived, coerced or threatened into taking part”, and I think that is important.

If we look at all the definitions I have presented, I think there are a lot of good options for the government to choose from. There are the ones that medical professionals have used, the ones that the provinces have used, and the ones that like-minded countries have used. All of these would be better than the definition that we have in the bill before us today.

Did I mention that 100% of the people who have spoken to me in Sarnia—Lambton are opposed to forced conversion therapy? I have to keep restating that because a lot of times when I am talking about the definition people think I am not against conversion therapy. No, 100%, everybody, including me and those I spoke to, is opposed to forced conversion therapy.

I will talk a little about my own experience and why I think it is clear that the Liberals and, in fact, the NDP want to criminalize things that are private conversations, things that people of faith are concerned about in this country.

When I was on the health committee, we studied LGBTQ health. Conversion therapy was one of the topics that came up during that discussion, and I shared some of my experiences. I was a youth leader for about 32 years in various churches, and over that time, I certainly had numerous conversations with young people about their sexuality. These are conversations that they initiated, and I do not think that anyone would be surprised about what a Baptist youth leader would say when they asked what I thought or what the Bible said about sexuality.

I mean, it is not a surprise. However, conversations were had, and I would say that of the individuals, some of them later came out gay, some of them came out straight, and the relationship with everybody was well established. We are still in contact, and the relationships are good, so there is not a problem. I talked about the benefit of being able to have those kinds of conversations for young people who are learning about their sexuality and trying to understand their feelings and bounce those ideas off of someone.

Do members know what the Liberal and NDP members said at health committee? They said that I should be in prison for having those conversations. I do not think I should be in prison. I really do not, but the fact that Liberal and NDP members thought I should be tells me that there is actually an intent on the part of some members opposite to actually criminalize things that are not conversion therapy. This is why I am very concerned and why I am asking to have the government change the definition.

I will share a story of one individual who came to me who was confused about his sexual orientation and had conversations with me when I was a youth leader. That individual has gone on to be a healthy member of the LGBTQ community, and he sees me regularly.

One day, he showed up at my house with a diamond ring. He had become a manager of jewellery store, and I do not know if he gets a discount or what, but he showed up with a diamond ring that he wanted to give me, along with a beautiful card thanking me for all of the mentorship that I had given to him over the years. He wanted me, every time I looked at the ring, to remember the positive impact that I had had on an individual.

I do not think those conversations are criminal conversations. I think they were helpful conversations. I do not think that anybody should be dictating to somebody what kinds of conversations they can have. I think that that is our freedom, that is something that is really important.

It has been apparent to me from Bill C-6, and even discussing these issues, that I have had a huge amount of harassment and a huge amount of hatred directed at me for questioning the definition in this bill. The same people who would put on a pink T-shirt for anti-bullying day, bullied me all day long on this issue. It is not always easy to stand up, but when I think about it, it is worth standing up for.

One of the reasons for that is because I have a good relationship with the LGBTQ community in my area. I attend their events. They invite me to their events. I go. I have been at the crosswalk reveal. I help their members the same way that I help all citizens. I have advocated for their issues, especially when we are working on LGBTQ health and making recommendations to the government about what we could do to help the community in areas like mental health where there are not adequate supports; things like supporting PrEP, which is paid for in some provinces and not in others; looking at all of the things that we can do and then standing up for members of the transgender community. My sister-in-law is transgender. There is a lack of support. These people are disproportionately targeted for violence. There is lots to be done there.

I am not coming to approach Bill C-6 from any position of being against any member of the community. I heard during the debate some members talk about how they wanted to uphold the LGBTQ rights over other rights. I do not want to be in a country where one group's rights are being taken away in order to give rights to another group.

I think we want to make sure we protect everybody's rights. I think we can do that in this bill. We have heard almost 100% agreement among members in the House that we want to ban forced conversion therapy. Other members and I have provided here today definitions that would be suitable, which would have unanimous support in this House. Again, there is this effort to not change the definition.

Twelve million people In Canada are Catholics. I want them to remember at election time that the Liberal government is trying to erode their freedom of speech and their freedom of religion. Their Catholic school boards are opposed to this and the government will not listen. If a person is a member of other faith communities like the Evangelical Fellowship, Baptists, Muslims and Jews, they are also having their rights eroded. I want them to remember that. There are 24 million of them in this country. If they all vote for their freedom of religion and freedom of speech, then the government will have to listen. That will be very important.

In the meantime, I have done a lot of thinking about this bill and whether it is worth the punishment of having all of the trolls out there not understanding that the issue with the bill is not about conversion therapy. Did I mention that 100% of the people who have spoken to me, and I, are opposed to forced conversion therapy? I hope I mentioned that.

There are men and women who fought for our country. In fact, yesterday was D-Day. People fought and died for our freedom of religion and our freedom of speech in this country. With that I am calling on the government to fix the definition in this bill. We want to criminalize conversion therapy but we do not want to criminalize other things. I hope that the government will recognize that it is not too late to uphold the rights and freedoms that people fought and died for.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I thank the chief opposition House leader for his question of privilege. I wish to inform the Chair and the House that the New Democratic Party will be intervening on this question of privilege as well. We hope to make our contribution to this important question of privilege as soon as is feasible.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I thank the hon. member for the contribution.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, questions and comments.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, wow, just wow, talk about the separation of church and state meaning absolutely nothing to this member. I will have her know that I am one of those 12 million Catholics. I am not just identified as a Catholic; I am a practising Catholic. I can tell her there are many Catholics out there who are against conversion therapy in all forms, not just forced conversion therapy. I note that she used the term “forced conversion therapy” repeatedly throughout her speech. Yes, of course, who would not be against forced conversion therapy? That would literally be trying to hold somebody down against their will to force the demons out of them, as I indicated in the speech I gave earlier about the experiences of a constituent of mine.

However, that is not what this is about. When the member talks about forced conversion therapy, she should realize that the vast majority of conversion therapy is done through tricking people into believing they are not right. Very, very few people come to conversion therapy by being forced against their will. The vast majority are made to believe so they want to be part of it.

For the member to suggest that this bill does not give the right for families to have conversations is nothing more than a red herring. She has to come to terms with whether she will support this bill because it will protect and save Canadians lives, or whether she is going to get hung up, like so many other Conservatives, on this definition and these nuances of the definition—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I have to give the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton an opportunity to answer.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Wow, Madam Speaker, just wow. I guess I would ask the member opposite what he thinks about the fact that Catholic school boards across the country are concerned and that many of their lawyers have looked at this bill, looked at this definition and are still concerned. There are a huge number of people who have an issue.

If I was not clear enough, 100% of people in my riding, myself included, are opposed to conversion therapy. I did not necessarily use the word “forced” all the time. I understand this is a damaging and harmful practice. This is about the definition, and the government needs to fix that.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, the debate seems to be venturing into the topic of religion.

I was born at the end of the 1970s. Since my parents had communist connections, I was not baptized. I wanted to make a little aside, but it may not be relevant to the debate. However, we are talking a lot about religious conscience and freedom of religion. We have also received a lot of emails from religious lobby groups.

How does my hon. think that right-wing and religious lobby groups influence the Conservative Party's position on Bill C-6, which we are debating today?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, when it comes to people of faith, many of them have just emailed and phoned, and it is not an organized effort. There have been efforts, as I mentioned, with the Catholic school board, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the CIJA organization and others, who have put their voices together. The point is not to do anything other than point out the number of Canadians, millions of Canadians, 24 million people of faith, and many of these people have concerns about the definition in this bill.

What is important is to get the definition right so we can all support this and ban conversion therapy, which is what everybody wants.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, there are young people who will be watching what is happening in the House of Commons. There will be young people who will be listening to the member talk about conversion therapy and her failure to support people as they go through conversion therapy. Does she worry about what the impact will be on children who hear parliamentarians talk about how they will not support a conversion therapy ban? Does she worry what the impacts will be?

All conversion therapy, regardless of how it is defined, is saying that something is wrong with one's identity. Every version says that something is wrong with one's identity. Is she comfortable telling young people there is something wrong with their identity? From my heart, I can say that there is nothing wrong with their identity.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am not sure if the member did not hear my speech, but I said at least 10 times in it that 100% of the people in my riding, including myself, are opposed to conversion therapy. I would tell young people that this is a harmful practice and we definitely do not want it. On the other hand, I would tell young people that, as a person who has been a youth leader and helped a lot of people over the years, I want to be able to have those conversations and be there to help them through the hard times and their questions.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have to say I was a little astounded at a question put to the member by the member for Kingston and the Islands when he said he was perturbed by the fact that she would be caught up in the nuances of the definition. Is that not precisely what we are dealing with, not conversion therapy in the abstract but a particular piece of legislation? Would my hon. colleague not agree that if we are going to pass a criminal law that imposes a penalty of up to five years behind bars, it had better be clear, it had better be targeted and it had better not be overly broad?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is right at the heart of the matter on this one. We know the Liberals knew there was a problem with the definition because they put a clarification on their web page that specifically said that it would not apply to private conversations, counselling, preaching, all of these different things, but they would not put that wording in the bill. Judges have to judge what is in the law and not what is on the government web page, so that is very telling, is it not?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I have had the opportunity to listen to a number of Conservatives talk about the legislation. To a certain degree, it is quite disappointing. When we look at the support for the legislation, in the chamber itself there are, not just the governing party, the Liberals, but the Bloc, the NDP and the Greens that recognize the true value of this legislation moving us forward, yet the Conservatives seem to be stuck on an issue within the definition, which the government and others have been very clear on, and for all intents and purposes, cannot be justified as a stalling tactic.

Can the member indicate to the House why she believes that all of the other political entities in the chamber seem to be supporting it, yet the Conservatives, with whatever wisdom, have based their decision strictly on the definition?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, the reality is that I am good at math and I know this bill is going to pass, but, as I also pointed out, men and women have died for our freedom of speech. I firmly believe the definition is not going to protect private conversations, it is not going to protect counselling, it is not going to protect preaching in the public square. I fully expect there will be court challenges in the future. I am trying to prevent that by having an adult conversation about fixing the definition to be something that is in some of the many other pieces of legislation that exists provincially and in other countries. That is what the government ought to do.