Debates of June 15th, 2023

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #378

Committees of the House

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I declare the amendment defeated.

The next question is on the main motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #379

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I declare the motion carried.

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, I know all members have been patiently waiting for the famous Thursday question.

Could the government House leader please inform the House what business the government intends to bring before the House for the remainder of this week and into next week?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to respond on behalf of the government.

This afternoon we will continue debate on Government Business No. 26, concerning amendments to the Standing Orders. When debate concludes later this evening, we will consider Bill C-35, respecting early learning and child care, followed by Senate amendments to Bill C-9, concerning the Judges Act.

Tomorrow we will consider Bill C-42, respecting the Canada Business Corporations Act, at report stage and third reading, and Bill S-8, respecting sanctions.

The priorities for next week shall include Bill S-8, on sanctions; Senate amendments to Bill C-18, respecting online news; Bill C-40, concerning the miscarriage of justice review commission act, also known as David and Joyce Milgaard's Law; and Bill C-33, which strengthens the port system and railway safety.

Thursday shall be an allotted day.

Finally, I request that the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the next sitting be 12 midnight, pursuant to order made Tuesday, November 15, 2022.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, November 15, 2022, the government House leader's request to extend the said sitting is deemed adopted.

Alleged Breach of Member's Right to Information

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege regarding evidence I have received through an ATIP request that demonstrates the government deliberately withheld information I sought from the Minister of Natural Resources through written question Question No. 974. Question No. 974 was also the subject of a point of order I raised on January 31, 2023.

As background context, on November 3, 1978, the member for Durham—Northumberland raised a question of privilege and charged that he had been deliberately misled by a former solicitor general. The member had written a letter in 1973 to the solicitor general, who assured him that, as a matter of policy, the RCMP did not intercept the private mail of Canadians.

On November 1, 1978, during testimony before the McDonald commission, the former commissioner of the RCMP stated that they did indeed intercept mail on a very restricted basis, and that the practice was not one which had been concealed from ministers.

The member claimed that the statement clearly conflicted with the information he had received from the then solicitor general some years earlier. The Speaker ruled, on December 6, 1978, that there was indeed a prima facie case of contempt.

I am in the same position today. I received information from a written question, and I am now in possession of new information from an ATIP that establishes that an answer from the Minister of Natural Resources was a deliberate attempt to deny me an answer.

Instead of providing the House with accurate information, which, in your own words, Mr. Speaker, “is a fundamental one and it is a central accountability mechanism”, the information was based on the communication needs of the minister. The quote I just gave is pulled from the ruling you made on my original point of order on this matter, which you made on February 2, 2023.

My claim of breach of privilege in this matter stems also from a ruling the Speaker made on December 16, 1980, at page 5797 of Hansard. The Speaker ruled, “ While it is correct to say that the government is not required by our rules to answer written or oral questions, it would be bold to suggest that no circumstances could ever exist for a prima facie question of privilege to be made where there was a deliberate attempt to deny answers to an Hon. Member.” This is clearly one of those circumstances.

In the ATI response regarding the government's preparation of the response to Question No. 974, there is a departmental note beside it that reads, “There is some communications risk resulting from the use of high-level limitation language that does not answer the written question from an MP who is an effective communicator and former Natural Resources critic.” The ATI file outlines correspondence between dozens of staff involved in a strategy on how to deny me information, instead of working to provide it to me. I encourage members to read this whole thing; it is quite something.

An email from Paige Ladouceur includes this description on the strategy behind the government's approach to Question No. 974: “IADT worked with CPS and PAU to land on this response, which relies on approved media lines. [Response] does not answer question directly....PAU has confirmed that this approach is appropriate.” This email in itself shows that the government was deliberately attempting to deny me information related to my question. It may be appropriate for the government to craft a political communications response to the information provided in an Order Paper question, after that information is produced for the member, but it is a breach of my privilege for government employees to craft a strategy designed to deliberately withhold information which I am to be afforded by way of the Standing Orders of this place.

Again, to re-emphasize, the emails in this ATI file, of which I will not read all into the record though I am happy to table this with the House, show that there were numerous meetings and discussions purposely designed to withhold information from me. I am referenced personally. The ATI file number is A-2022-00489 for anyone who is interested, and I encourage members to read it.

The government's approach to providing information to members appears to be based on defensive communications, and not on providing accurate information to members, which, as you, Mr. Speaker, said in your ruling on February 2, is fundamental and is a central accountability mechanism. That, and as per the 1980 Speaker's Ruling I mentioned above, should constitute a breach of my privilege.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage you to review the ATI response. It shows that there are dozens of federal public servants, likely collectively paid millions of dollars, engaged in an exercise to decide how best to withhold information from me, and then approving it.

However, there is another big problem that this ATI file outlines. The department's flippant views do not stop with me or other members of the House but are aimed at the Speaker's office. Allow me to explain. The Speaker's ruling of February 2, 2023 said:

The right of members to seek information from the government is a fundamental one and it is a central accountability mechanism. Written questions are one of the means members possess to obtain the information that allows them to perform their parliamentary duties.

Written question Q-974 was placed on the Order Paper on November 15, 2022. The government presented an answer on January 30, 2023, within the 45-day limit. The response provided appears in that day's Debates.

The main point of contention raised by the member for Calgary Nose Hill regards the substance and completeness of the government’s response. In her view, the response fails to address many of the matters raised in her question.

However, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, at page 529, states, “There are no provisions in the rules for the Speaker to review government responses to questions.”

Apparently, officials in the minister's office are well aware of this passage, and I have email communications within the minister's office that suggest they are using this as some sort of loophole to deny answers to a member of Parliament.

In the ATI, the minister's regional adviser for Quebec asks in an email, “What is the jurisprudence on those [types] of Points of Order?” The minister's deputy chief of staff, Kyle Harrietha, responds: “Thanks, heard it after QP and did the inbox search of Q-974. Already in touch with GHLO. I'm expecting the Speaker to tut tut and then say it is not for him to judge the quality of a response”.

Again, we have government staff who are depending on the office of the Speaker to say that the strategy of high-level withholding of information is appropriate to withholding information from me. They are using government resources to withhold information from me as opposed to providing it to me, and that is a breach of my privilege.

Should the Speaker take issue with the government's using this loophole to withhold information from me, it would not be the first time that a Speaker has taken departments to task for their attitude towards Parliament. On November 6, 1997, the Speaker ruled:

...the Chair acknowledges that this is a matter of potential importance since it touches the role of members as legislators, a role which should not be trivialized. It is from this perspective that the actions of the Department of Finance are of some concern....

This dismissive view of the legislative process, repeated often enough, makes a mockery of our parliamentary conventions and practices....

I trust that today's decision at this early stage of the 36th Parliament will not be forgotten by the minister and his officials and that the departments and agencies will be guided by it.

Again, as per my original point of order, the government purposely used, as revealed extensively and embarrassingly in this ATI, a strategy called “high-level limitation language that does not answer the written question” to deliberately withhold information from me.

This ATI file also outlines several other MPs, and folks may want to look at this as there are several members who are mentioned in this ATI file, whose Order Paper questions were also subject to the strategy with a risk analysis based on the Speaker's assessment as to whether or not member are good communicators. I encourage you, Madam Speaker, to look at this part of the ATI file to see just how pervasive this strategy is.

I find it atrocious that Canadian taxpayers are paying dozens of public servants to deliberately withhold information from members of Parliament. I also find it shameful that ministers are allowing this to happen.

However, the bottom line, as per the 1980 Speaker's ruling I cited before, is that this ATI file squarely shows a deliberate attempt to withhold information I requested in an Order Paper question, and I argue that my privilege has been breached. If you, Madam Speaker, find this to be a prima facie question of privilege, I am prepared to move the appropriate motions.

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

The Chair will take it under advisement and return to the hon. member with an appropriate answer if and when necessary.

The hon. leader of the government in the House.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further Adjourned

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, in relation to the consideration of Government Business No. 26, I move:

That debate be not further adjourned.

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

Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period.

I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places or use the “raise hand” function so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in question period.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, obviously, I feel profoundly disappointed again that we are here facing time allocation on a profoundly substantive change to the way Parliament functions. We have had just a few hours to discuss this. I am planning to speak to this issue later on.

This is an issue that goes back to during the COVID pandemic. The government made its intentions very clear at that time that this is the direction it wanted to go. There are a lot of voices that want to speak on this issue because of the substantive nature of this change, and I cannot quite understand why the government is invoking time allocation on something that would have a profound impact on the way this place functions. Here we go again. I am not surprised that the government House leader has risen on this matter. Does he not understand how substantive this issue is and how many voices he is silencing in this place, the voices of members of Parliament in this place, who are representing millions of people across this country? It is just ridiculous.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think the member recognizes well why we have to use time allocation. He can see that the Conservative Party has done everything from faking technical problems to raising point of order after point of order to try to disrupt the House from doing its business. In fact, last Friday, an entire day of Parliament was lost as a result of procedural tricks by the Conservatives, and the leader of the official opposition himself has said that they will do everything to block the ability of the House to do its job. Of course, one party that represents one-third of the seats does not have the opportunity or right to stand in the way of every other party from doing its business. That is most certainly not democratic.

The other thing I would point out is that it is the Conservatives' right to make the same point again and again, which is that they are against the utilization of hybrid Parliament, which they have said they would never support under any conditions. They can keep making that same speech again and again, but it is not a restriction of democracy to hear that speech 10, 20, 30 or 40 times. At some point, when they say the same thing, the message is heard. They are against it.

I am sorry, but the House is moving forward with this because it is the right thing to do.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am at a loss for words to express my frustration with this government, especially its leader, and its methods. The rules of Parliament are being changed without a consensus or even the semblance of one in the House. The government is riding roughshod over the way we do things, in complete violation of the very spirit of the parliamentary system. It is a disgrace to democracy and a disgrace to the House. To add insult to injury, a gag order is being imposed after a few days of debate. I have never seen anything like it.

As everyone knows, I sit on the Standing Committee on Finance. I had the pleasure of working with the committee's chair, former Liberal MP Wayne Easter, for several years. He agrees that attempting to make these changes is preposterous. These are fundamental changes that will have far-reaching implications. Whenever ministers are put on the spot, they can simply duck behind their screen or hide in their basement to avoid pressure from reporters or members of Parliament.

Since this involves changing the way things work, consensus is needed. We need to take the time to debate this motion before adopting it. Right now, the government leader is acting like a bulldozer and is not seeking consensus. He is telling us that he does not care. What is more, he is moving a time allocation motion to limit debate on this motion. I cannot believe what is happening to democracy and to the history of this Parliament. This way of doing things is unprecedented. It is unacceptable. I am truly disappointed.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, context is really important. At the start of the pandemic, when we were in a very difficult situation and it was impossible to work in person, we had to use technology to be able to continue our work in Parliament. At that time, we unanimously passed a motion to operate in a hybrid format.

When health conditions improved, we were able to return to the House to continue our work in person. Over the past three years, we have seen just how effective the system has been. Ministers have continued to be in the House when members on the other side stand up during question period, and this will continue to be the case. The concept of accountability is included in the change proposed today.

However, this motion provides some flexibility. Every party, whether it is the Conservative Party or the Bloc Québécois, uses the hybrid format. Every day, the members use technology to vote. Just a few moments ago, we saw the Bloc using this technology. I find it strange that the Bloc is against this proposal when it makes use of all the options available in the hybrid format, such as electronic voting.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, this is a pretty complex debate and there are substantive arguments on both sides of it. However, it seems like the government has had some challenges in managing its legislative priorities over the course of this year. We are in this final stretch. If this was such a priority, why was it not introduced a bit earlier, which perhaps would have provided for a fullness of discussion and debate and might not have forced us into closure and would have allowed for all of these nuances and democratic principles to be fully fleshed out?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, as the member knows, this matter was put before the procedure and House affairs committee. That committee did take an enormous amount of time to study the issue, and the member's party was part of those agreeing with the recommendations that were before this House. After that came forward, we worked with all parties, asking their opinions about the work PROC did. Of course, it takes a bit of time to hear from all parties, and now, after that consultation, we have a continuance of what we have done for the last three years.

If we were to take longer than this session and had not adequately used that time in PROC and then the time immediately after PROC to have those discussions, the consequence would be that we would have missed this window and we would have had to reintroduce these provisions in the fall and have the same debate that we have had again and again.

I want to thank the member opposite for their work at PROC and I want to thank the member for the work that they did after PROC to find a position that works. We have listened very carefully to how members are utilizing these provisions, and of course we are often hearing in hallways from every party about how much they love them. We see how they use them, evidently, and the rhetoric does not quite match what they are doing.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to start by recognizing that we are in the midst of never-ending partisan procedural games right now, so I get why this motion is being introduced, but let us also recognize that this is pretty serious.

We are in the midst of debating the very nature of how our Parliament functions. It is not legislation, so there is not even a chance to propose amendments. It is already a take-it-or-leave-it approach, and on top of that, we are now being limited in our debate. I believe it was just on Monday night that we began this conversation. I can speak for myself in saying that I am still researching, reading and listening to inform my own vote on this measure.

Therefore, I have this question for the member, whom I respect deeply and who I know is thoughtfully considering how best to move this ahead: If the official opposition were in government and put forward what is being put forward right now, how would he respond?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would respond in the following way.

The history is important. Let us remember that this system was created, with unanimity, in the depths of the pandemic. All parties agreed to how it would function and how it would work. Then those provisions started to live, and those provisions have lived for the last three years. In fact, the proposal that is on the table now is a continuance of an existing system that the member uses regularly, that I use regularly and that I think every member of this House has used. I see members rail against the utilization of these provisions, and then they turn on their application and vote electronically or they turn on their screen and use it.

After this system was unanimously created and had existed for three years, the procedure and House affairs committee heard from witnesses and did very detailed work, exactly as the member is describing. What came out of it was that it became very clear that two parties were against this under all conditions. The parties were asked numerous times what it would take for them to support it and if there was any flexibility: The answer was “no”. They do not support it in any form and they do not support it in any function.

As a result, we are at the point where continuing the debate means just listening to “no” a thousand times over. That does not make sense. At some point, we have to proceed to implement it, and that is what we are doing today.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Madam Speaker, I have been listening to the debate that we have been having in the House on this issue. The one issue that I keep hearing from the Bloc members is that we need to have consensus. However, I reflect on the fact that on Monday of this week, there was not a single vote in which fewer than 50% of the Bloc members used their voting app. As a matter of fact, when we voted on Bill C-41, 80% of the Bloc members used their voting app. When we voted on their own motion about climate change, 50% of the Bloc members used it.

Would the House leader not agree that consensus is pretty well established, given the participation in using the application?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is precisely right. If on the one hand members say they are against something and on the other hand 80% of them use it just in a single vote, it is a little hard to believe the rhetoric. We have to step back from that rhetoric and talk about the conversations that we have in hallways in this place. I have conversations with members from all parties who talk about how meaningful it is for them to be there for key moments in their families' lives or how they they personally are dealing with incredibly difficult health issues or how someone in their family is, and they are able to be there for them.

This measure provides a bit of flexibility and would change nothing. Our committees continue to work, the House continues to function and of course members from all parties, as the parliamentary secretary rightly pointed out, are using these provisions themselves. That hypocrisy is a little jarring.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am surprised and shocked that the debate on something as fundamental as the way this House operates is now going to be cut off. If we are going to have a hybrid Parliament, we need to come to an agreement on how it is going to operate.

I recall many years ago that Chuck Cadman, a member of Parliament for Surrey, in my area, came here to vote even though he was undergoing cancer treatment. That is how important it was for him. Nowadays we see people voting on the app just because it is more convenient for them. Often when there is a vote right after question period, a whole lot of Liberal members of Parliament dash out of here because they are going to vote on the app.

This is worthy of a full debate, but debate is being cut off right now. I do not think that is appropriate.

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

I would remind members that they cannot refer to the presence or the absence of members in the House.

The hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have a couple of points.

First of all, this has been debated at the start of every parliamentary session. We have had an enormous amount of debate on it. There was an enormous amount of debate that happened at PROC, and the position of the Conservatives was just “no”. I do not know how many times they think we need to hear “no” over three years to know that they are against it and that there is no point in continuing the debate.

The more important point I would make, if we are talking about Chuck Cadman, is that I am not sure if the member opposite listened to Chuck's wife Dona, who talked about the use of these provisions and their importance. I do not know if the member heard my speech when I talked about watching Arnold Chan, who was dedicated to this House, having to drag himself away from cancer treatment in the last moments of his life to fulfill his obligations to be in this place to vote. That is not a choice any member should have to make.

If members are in a position of losing their lives and are being forced to drag themselves across the country to exercise their vote on behalf of their constituents, that is unacceptable, with all due respect to the member opposite. If a member who is ill and is at the end of their life decides to come to this chamber, that is one thing, but I have to take great umbrage with the idea of not even giving them the choice at the end of their life to fulfill their functions remotely as they receive critical health treatment.