Debates of Nov. 20th, 2024

Question No.3045—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

With regard to performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in international sport and in Canada up to 1990: (a) what specific actions did Sport Canada (SC) take to combat the use of PEDs after (i) the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) establishment of the Medical Commission in 1967, (ii) the Council of Europe’s resolution on drug abuse in sport in 1967, (iii) testing for stimulants and narcotics at the 1968 Grenoble Olympic Games and Mexico City Olympic Games, (iv) the first large-scale drug testing at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, (v) the International Association of Athletics Federations’ (IAAF) and IOC Medical Commission’s ban on the use of anabolic steroids in 1974, (vi) a positive test by a Canadian at the 1975 Pan American Games in Mexico City, (vii) the Sport Medicine Council of Canada’s establishment in 1978, (viii) two disqualifications of Canadians at the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas, (ix) the acceptance of the European Anti-Doping Charter of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Sports Ministers in 1984;

(b) what specific actions did SC take to combat the use of PEDs after anti-doping legislation was enacted in (i) Belgium and France (1965), (ii) Ireland (1966), (iii) Italy and Turkey (1971), (iv) Greece (1976), (v) Portugal (1979); (c) in what year did Canada introduce an anti-doping policy; (d) why were only 15% of specimens at the 1976 Montreal Olympics tested for anabolic steroids; (e) in what year were PEDs first identified in any Canadian sport, and what (i) was the specific sport, (ii) were all the drugs reported to be used at that time; (f) what actions have been taken by SC on PEDs from its first action through to 1990, and on what date was each action taken; (g) what specific actions did SC take to address steroid use in sport after the editor of Track and Field News called anabolic steroids the “breakfast of champions” in 1969; (h) what specific action did SC take in 1976 to prevent the use of PEDs at the Montreal Olympics and Toronto Paralympics;

(i) what specific actions did SC take to address steroid use in sport after the first edition of The Underground Steroid Handbook appeared in 1981, and what action, if any, did SC take to address the use of human growth hormone in sport, which was included in the handbook, before randomized, double-blind, controlled trials were published; (j) what specific actions did SC take to address steroid use in sport after the Sport Medicine Council of Canada surveyed 1,500 athletes, coaches, and medical and para-medical practitioners about doping in 1982 and found that “fewer than five percent of athletes” stated they used or had previously used PEDs; (k) what specific actions did SC take to address steroid use in sport after the publication of “The Practical Use of Anabolic Steroids with Athletes” in 1982; (l) in what year did testing for PEDs begin at the Canada Summer Games, how did SC decide what sports to test, what specific sports were tested at each Games since testing began until 1990, and what PEDs were tested for at each Games since testing began until 1990;

(m) in what year did testing for PEDs begin at the Canada Winter Games, how did SC decide which sports to test, what specific sports were tested at each Games since testing began until 1990, and what PEDs were tested for at each Games since testing began until 1990; (n) in what year did the Canadian Olympic Committee first act to address PEDs, what specific actions did it take, and, for each action, on what date was it taken; (o) in what year did the Canadian Paralympic Committee first act to address PEDs, what specific actions did it take, and, for each action, on what date was it taken; (p) in what year did each national sport organization in Canada (i) begin testing for PEDs at competitions, (ii) begin announced testing for PEDs between competitions, (iii) begin unannounced testing for PEDs between competitions; (q) in five-year increments from 1970 to 1990, how many athletes were found to have used PEDs in Canada, broken down by sport, and what specific PEDs were being used, broken down by sport;

(r) in five-year increments from 1970 to 1990, and for each identified PED, was the drug approved for veterinary use in Canada, what clinical trials did the drug pass for use in humans, was the drug approved for human use in Canada, for what specific medical use was the drug approved in Canada, what specific medical dosages were approved in Canada, was off-label use of the drug approved in Canada, what side-effects, if any, did the drug have, and what long-term impacts, if any, might the drug have had; (s) what are the details of all Olympic and Paralympic team physicians from 1968 to 1988, including, for each, (i) the dates they served, (ii) who, if anybody, raised concerns about PED use among athletes to SC and the date of the report to SC; (t) what investigation, if any, has SC undertaken to look at health impacts of anabolic steroids when (i) doses used were much higher than the recommended doses, (ii) there was simultaneous use of oral and injectable steroids, (iii) they were possibly used with human growth hormone;

(u) what investigation, if any, has SC undertaken to look at morbidity and mortality of athletes who used PEDs during the 1970s and 1980s; (v) in five-year increments from 1970 to 1990, if an athlete was sanctioned in any way for use of a PED, what investigation, if any, was undertaken of any (i) coaches, (ii) medical personnel, (iii) other members of an athlete’s team, and what are the details of the investigation process; (w) in five-year increments from 1970 to 1990, how many athletes, broken down by sport, were sanctioned for any kind of drug infraction, and, for each identified infraction, were any (i) coaches, (ii) medical personnel, (iii) other members of an athlete’s team, sanctioned; and (x) in five-year increments from 1970 to 1990, how many (i) coaches, (ii) medical personnel, (iii) other members of an athlete’s team, were sanctioned?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all the remaining questions be allowed to stand at this time, please.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Motions for Papers

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers also be allowed to stand at this time, please.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from November 19 consideration of the motion, of the amendment and of the amendment to the amendment.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I rise in the House to deal with this privilege motion. For those watching, just to help us understand where we are, the House, with a majority of MPs, passed a motion in June. It demanded that all documents related to Sustainable Development Technology Canada, otherwise known as the Liberal billion-dollar green slush fund, be tabled with the law clerk of the House of Commons and be transferred to the RCMP for investigation.

It gave the government, the Liberals, 30 days to do this. They did not comply. As a result, on the first day back in the fall, the opposition House leader raised a question of privilege. The Speaker agreed that members' privileges had been breached and that the government had ignored an order of the House. The government decided, yet again, to ignore a majority of MPs of the House, representing a majority of Canadians. Why did the Liberals ignore this?

It is true that they have tabled 29,000 pages of documents, as the government House leader said yesterday; most of them are what is called redacted. What that means is that they are censored, 29,000 pages of black ink. There was so much black ink that the government had to commission the printing presses at the Toronto Star to black out all the secrets they are trying to hide about Liberal insiders who funnelled $400 million of taxpayer money to companies they had a financial interest in.

We have been extensively asking questions in the House and in committee, and the government and Liberal members have been trying to cover it up. They continue to do so. In fact, yesterday, I asked a question in the House about the interest of the radical Liberal environment minister in profiting from the Liberal green slush fund.

I asked that question, as did my other colleagues on other Liberal scandals, and the Liberal MP who occupies the Chair in question period thought that the language we were using offended Liberals. I can tell everyone that Canadians are offended by the corruption and by the obstruction of justice by the government.

For six months since that order, the government has refused to table the unredacted and uncensored documents, the 29,000 pages of hidden Liberal secrets. It must be really bad. I asked questions about the particular individual who sits in cabinet, the Liberal Minister of Environment.

Prior to his election in 2019, the Minister of Environment was an in-house lobbyist for a venture capital company in Quebec called Cycle Capital. In the four years prior to his election in 2019, he lobbied the federal government; the Prime Minister's Office; the Prime Minister's principal secretary, Gerald Butts; the industry department; the industry minister's office; and many other government departments. He did this 47 times.

What was his reward for that? The owner of Cycle Capital gave him shares in the company. How do we know that? We know that because the Minister of Environment declares on his ethics reports that he owns shares in Cycle Capital. The owner of Cycle Capital was appointed to the board of the Liberal green slush fund by former Liberal industry minister Navdeep Bains.

We remember Navdeep Bains. He is the one from industry who left government early and is now an executive at Rogers Communications, the most expensive cellphone company in the world. He was in charge of reducing cellphone bills while minister of industry, and his reward for seeing cellphone bills escalate was a nice, cushy, fat corporate job at Rogers. If that is not an ethical challenge for people, the Minister of Environment's ownership of these shares as a reward for his lobbying for Cycle Capital is. The owner of Cycle Capital was on the board in 2016.

During the Minister of Environment's career prior to politics, when he lobbied the government, companies owned by Cycle Capital received over $100 million from the Liberal green slush fund. They received money from the BDC. They received money from EDC in what is called fund of funds. They were investors in these funds. The Minister of Environment was rewarded with these shares. He has refused all invitations by parliamentary committees to come and explain himself.

I raised the question yet again in the House, which offended many Liberals. I can tell members what offends Canadians. It is the graft and corruption that goes on with the Liberal government. The government seems to accept it and think it is just fine. The Liberals think it is okay to give $400 million of green slush fund money to people appointed to the board by the government, and they voted to give that money to companies they own. That is okay for them. They can just cover it up.

The privilege motion was agreed to by the Speaker on September 26. We are about to be in December, and then into next year. It would be a nice Christmas present for Canadians for the Prime Minister to come clean, stop censoring the documents and release the documents. He will not do that. However, he stands in the House, as he did today, complaining that the important work of the ineffective programs the Liberals are proud of, such as the housing decelerator program, is being held up because Conservatives continue to press for honesty, for integrity, for the government to not put itself above the House of Commons and for it to obey the order of the House. It refuses to do so.

From September to December, it will have been four or five months in which the House has debated this. It will go on. The way to stop this is for the government to actually obey the order of the House, the Conservatives, the Bloc and the NDP. The majority of members of Parliament voted for the release of these documents. It has not received much media coverage. We had $16 glasses of orange juice receive much more media coverage than this. The mainstream media are not covering this, although online media are covering it.

Shockingly, yesterday, The Globe and Mail wrote an editorial on this. I will quote what it said. I will not read the whole thing, because I know that Liberal members read it intently and then quietly kept their heads down in question period, hoping no one would notice. Here is what The Globe and Mail said is the actual cause of what is going on here in the House. It said, “But the actual cause is the Trudeau government's contemptuous refusal—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Order. The member referred to the Prime Minister by his name. I know the member is reading a quote and it is always difficult, so I just want to get the hon. member to back up.

The hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, here is what The Globe and Mail said: “But the actual cause is the [Liberal] government's contemptuous refusal to hand over an unredacted set of documents that the House ordered it to produce in a motion passed in June.”

It went on to say, “The House has already lost more than a fifth of the 122 sitting days scheduled in 2024. If this goes on to the end of the year, Canadians could see half of Parliament's sitting days erased”, and I will add that this is because of the intransigence and the cover-up of the Liberals.

It goes on to say:

There are a few ways this could end. But there is only one right way, and that is for the Liberal government to respect the will of the House and hand over the documents. Anything else would be a disgraceful blow to Parliament's ability to hold government to account.

It goes on to say:

...it's not hard to suspect that, were the reference to the RCMP not in order, the Liberals would find other excuses not to hand over the documents that might well embarrass them...even if the [PROC] committee ruled the government had committed a violation, the upshot would still be that the Liberals were able to thumb their noses at the House's right to demand the production of government documents.

It must be really bad. We know about the financial interests of the radical Liberal environment minister. Since that radical Liberal environment minister joined cabinet, the company that he owns shares in has received another $17 million from taxpayers. The value of Cycle Capital has gone up 600% since he started to lobby his friends in the PMO to get money into the company that he owns shares of. I would have thought a person with strong ethics, on becoming Minister of Environment, would have sold the shares in an environmental venture capital firm to ensure no actual, or appearance of, conflict, but as we know, from the two Randys onward, that is not much of a concern.

Early on, we heard lots of excuses from the government house leader in a vain attempt to say only the police can ask for documents or turn over documents. Of course, that was disposed of quickly by most members of the House who said that any company that discovers inappropriate action is free to turn over its documents to the police for investigation, which is what we are doing here.

However, the Prime Minister's department, called the Privy Council Office, said for departments to use the Privacy Act to exempt and censor the documents. However, the Privacy Act actually says that, for a body that can order the production of documents, such as Parliament, the Privacy Act cannot be used as an excuse to exempt information. If a body that has the power to demand documents has that power, the Privacy Act does not apply, yet the Prime Minister's office uses that as an excuse to direct every government department to do differently.

Just in case anyone is saying that this is kind of arcane, there is an act that created this organization: the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act. Section 7 of the Conflict of Interest Act says, “No public office holder shall, in the exercise of an official power, duty or function, give preferential treatment to any person or organization based on the identity of the person or organization that represents the first-mentioned person or organization.” An example of a “public office holder” is somebody who has been appointed by the government to the board, while being on the board is an example of the “exercise of an official power”. What that means in “lawyerese” is that, if someone sits on the board of SDTC, they cannot profit by being on that board.

What did the Auditor General find out? The Auditor General did an audit for five years of SDTC. She did a sample of only about half the transactions, 226 transactions, that the board approved, and the Auditor General found that 186 of the 226 transactions, in other words 82% of all those transactions, were conflicted. That was not a mistake. That was not bad lawyerly advice. That was people coming in and out and voting for each other's stuff.

That is a culture of conflict of interest driven by a chair who was appointed by Navdeep Bains, over the objection of the then CEO because the chair's company was already doing business with SDTC. The chair said not to worry, that they can manage the conflicts. Well, the way they managed conflicts was to take 82%, or $400 million, and stuff it into their own pockets. One of the beneficiaries of that was the accelerated value of those shares of Cycle Capital owned by the Liberal environment minister. Perhaps that is the reason the government will not release the unredacted documents. Perhaps they show the extent to which that minister is involved in this corruption and the unethical breaches of acts of Parliament.

The minister at the time, Mr. Bains, has appeared before committee. His deputy at the time, a fellow named Knubley, appeared this week. For those who remember Hogan's Heroes, there was a character called Sergeant Schultz. Sergeant Schultz always said, “I know nothing” when confronted by Hogan on things. Well, former minister Bains could not remember anything about SDTC, even though he appointed all of these people, and even though one month after former minister Bains left cabinet and joined CIBC, one of the people who worked at SDTC went to work at CIBC. However, he does not remember anything.

The deputy minister, Mr. Knubley, could remember the résumé of Annette Verschuren, the Liberal-appointed chair, back to grade six. He could remember everything she had ever done. He could remember his ADM Noseworthy and everybody who sat in on every board meeting. They worked together since Meech Lake, for 40 years. He could remember everything in his career.

Mr. Knubley said that ADM Noseworthy had been there to be his eyes and ears on what was going on and that not every deputy minister believes in that, but he did, so he had a person there all the time. I asked whether, when 82% of the time the board members were voting for money for their own companies, ADM Noseworthy, as his eyes and ears, had told him about it and if he had told the minister. Mr. Knubley answered that he did not remember. He did not remember having discussions with him on it. Then, he said that he did remember that the act needs to be changed and that he had specific ideas about how the act needs to be changed. I asked if the act needs to be changed to allow for conflicts of interest, since it does not allow for it now, and he said that he was not that familiar with the act.

These folks were covering up for the Liberals, and that comes straight from the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office. We have been unable to locate the director of appointments who approved all of these people. The minister of industry of the day, Navdeep Bains, claimed that they made him do it. It was the devil that made him do the PMO appointments and he was just a puppet. The Prime Minister said they have freedom, but apparently not. Navdeep Bains said he did not appoint anyone; he was just doing what the PMO told him to do. What we have here is a situation where absolutely nobody in the Liberal government is responsible yet again. This time it is for the $400 million being stuffed into Liberal pockets and the 29,000 blacked out documents are probably hiding more corruption that we are unaware of.

This is not a one-off incident with the government. It is a corrupt government, and it has been a corrupt government. It is led by the Prime Minister at the top who has been twice found in ethics breaches by the Ethics Commissioner and Conflict of Interest Commissioner. We remember the Aga Khan incident and the Prime Minister's going for free vacations to billionaires' Caribbean islands on his private jet. He did not declare it, saying “Oh, sorry, I forgot. He is a friend of the family, so I am excused. I can get freebies from people I call friends of the family.”

Do members remember the second one where the Prime Minister's family members got paid by the WE Charity while his minister of finance was sending taxpayer money to the WE Charity? The Prime Minister's mother was getting paid by them. His brother was getting paid by them, and the minister of finance's daughter was getting paid by them. They were found in breach of ethics rules. Of course, everybody remembers the blackface incident, and of course, the Prime Minister experienced that differently.

In 2019, there was also the SNC-Lavalin scandal, which resulted in the firing of the first first nation justice minister because she told truth to the fake feminist Prime Minister. He fired this female indigenous justice minister. We know about the sole-source contracts the minister of trade had for her companies and her own campaign manager. We know about the Minister of Public Safety appointing his sister-in-law as the ethics commissioner as a way to cover up their Essex stuff. Everybody is aware of arrive scam, that app that was supposed to cost $60,000 but cost millions and millions of dollars.

The list goes on. I would be remiss if I were to not mention the other Randy, although which Randy, I am not sure. It is the now former employment minister, the other, other, Randy, Randall or Randy. It is very confusing. One of the Randys has now left cabinet to go and look for the other Randy. I think he will find the other Randy with the killer of O.J.'s wife. There is about the same credibility here.

What we have, wrought from the top, is a Prime Minister who leads by example and who does not believe in ethics, so why should any of his appointees? The result is that $400 million that was shuffled to Liberal insiders.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, when I take a look at the leader of the Conservative Party today, and the issues that we see, I see there is a multi-million dollar game being played. If we look at the time when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, when he was found in contempt of Parliament, his then parliamentary secretary is the now leader of the Conservative Party. If we advance that to today, we get to the leader of the Conservative Party believing he does not require a security clearance, unlike every other leader of the House of Commons.

If we read the CBC story that came out today, it says, “After two years of [the leader of the Conservative Party], many Conservative MPs say they are much less free now than they were before his arrival.” It goes on to say, “The man who promised during his leadership run to make Canada ‘the freest country in the world’ maintains tight control over the actions of his caucus members.” It says that it is almost as though the leader of the Conservative Party wants to dominate. The question to the member is—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

We need to keep the questions going because there is only a certain amount of time for everybody to get their questions and comments in.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, is the member concerned at all that the leader of the Conservative Party is using his authority to potentially be borderline in contempt of Parliament because we are being denied the opportunity to pass legislation and deal with budgetary measures?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the only people holding up the House are the Liberals who are refusing and blocking the House order to release unredacted documents and turn them over to the police. Why will they not turn them over to the police? How many more Liberals are going to be caught and charged in this conspiracy to defraud the taxpayer of their money and funnel it to Liberal ridings?

The member for Winnipeg North knows very well that I am not often accused of being a person who has been silenced. Even the Speaker could not silence me yesterday.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by my colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets. I agree in part with several of the things he said, especially with respect to the Liberal Party's inherent corruption and lack of transparency.

That being said, it is easy to talk about others. I would like him to talk about his own party. I will remind him of something. Does he know what former Conservative minister Tony Clement did? He was not just any minister. He was president of the Treasury Board at the time. He diverted $50 million of public money to his own riding, which was criticized by the then auditor general. What is that called if not a lack of transparency, even inherent corruption within the Conservative Party?

I would like my colleague to explain what has changed since. How can Quebeckers trust that party, which has demonstrated its own lack of transparency and whose ministers have engaged in corruption?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will tell colleagues what has happened: almost 10 years of a corrupt Liberal government. I need a spreadsheet to keep track of all the corruption.

I will give members another one. Liberal fisheries minister number six spent $45 million of taxpayer money in her own riding on small-craft harbours this summer because she will be running against a Bloc MP and fears for her life. She is abusing taxpayer money for her own self-interest. That is yet another example of Liberals using taxpayer money for their own personal benefit, driven from the top by the Prime Minister.

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

Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, thanks to NDP MPs, we got to the bottom of the SNC-Lavalin scandal and the WE Charity scandal. The NDP is supporting this motion to get to the bottom of the SDTC scandal.

The member talked about spreadsheets. We have a spreadsheet on the Harper regime, the most corrupt government in Canadian history, with scandal after scandal. We are not talking about tens of millions of dollars; we are talking about billions of dollars. I think it is important to remind the member of the ETS scandal of $400 million; the G8 scandal, a billion-dollar boondoggle; the Phoenix pay scandal of $2.2 billion, which was sadly continued by the Liberals; and the anti-terrorism funding of $3.1 billion. That is over $7 billion that the Conservatives, with their corrupt government, basically stole from Canadians. They never apologized and they shut down Parliament so we could never get to the bottom of it.

My question is simply this: Is there one Conservative MP who has the fortitude to stand up, apologize for the years of corruption under the Harper Conservatives and say, “I am sorry, Canadians. We'll never act that way again”?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the gall and hypocrisy of the member absolutely knows no bounds, because the most corrupt government in the history of this country is the NDP-Liberal government, for which he is the House leader. I just went through scandal after scandal, and he voted for the government every time there was a budget or to protect it.

The New Democrats continue to vote and support the government. Their fake ripping up of their document meant nothing. They scotch-taped it back together and continue to vote every single day with the Liberals to keep this corrupt government in office.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, at the public accounts committee, we heard from the founder of Cycle Capital, who was a partner of the Liberal Minister of Environment. She claimed it was basically okay to scam money from the government because she and the minister only benefited a small amount.

I wonder if the member can say what level of corruption is acceptable such that the minister and his partner can steal from Canadians because it is only a small amount.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, apparently the amount of money that is not significant enough to call a corruption problem was the at least $400 million that went to Liberal slush fund appointees. It is incredible that the board director said this is what entrepreneurs do. Andrée-Lise Méthot admitted only two weeks ago at committee that our numbers were too high, as she only got $10.7 million while on the board, as if somehow $10.7 million excused her trough at the Liberal gravy train. For Andrée-Lise Méthot, at least, $10.7 million was okay and not a conflict.

When I search through the SDTC act and the Conflict of Interest Act, I do not see a clause saying that up to $10.7 million is okay and is not a conflict of interest. I do not see a clause that says if someone walks out of a room while their buddies vote to give them money, that is okay and they can still profit from it. I do not see the Conflict of Interest Act or the SDTC act giving the freedom to a chair to tell somebody to go out of the room while they vote to give them money.

Liberal MPs at every single committee continue to defend that behaviour. The Liberal MP for Beaches—East York sits there saying there is nothing to see here; he does not see any problems. This is a person who aspired to be the premier of Ontario. Luckily, the Liberals did not pick him to do that. That is probably the reason he was not capable of leading the four-seat Ontario Liberal Party and instead sits here defending the Prime Minister, saying it is okay to steal $400 million. By the way, he also decided to curse and swear in committee at other members of Parliament, being the class act that he is.

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, there have been discussions among the parties, and if you seek it, I believe you will find find unanimous consent for the following motion.

I move:

That, notwithstanding any standing order, special order or usual practice of the House, during the debate pursuant to Standing Order 66 on Motion No. 69 to concur in the twelfth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, no quorum calls, dilatory motions or requests for unanimous consent shall be received by the Chair.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay.

It is agreed.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

(Motion agreed to)

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Public Services and Procurement, and the hon. member for Spadina—Fort York, Democratic Institutions.

Refusal of Witness to Respond to Questions from Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to respond to the question of privilege raised by the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford respecting the meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security for the study of Russian interference and disinformation campaigns in Canada on November 5, 2024.

The committee reported to the House on November 7, 2024, that the witness at the meeting in question refused to respond to questions posed by members of the committee. The committee expressed its view that the failure to respond to questions constituted contempt.

I want to be clear with the House that this particular witness was called before committee for a very serious reason. We believe that the evidence suggests that she has been involved in very odious behaviour on behalf of a foreign government. The government takes the issue of foreign interference very seriously.

I submit that this is a unique situation that requires some restraint on the part of the House in considering how we deal with this case. The witness is under indictment in the United States on very serious charges for which she has been advised by her legal counsel to not speak about the material facts of her activities, which are before the courts, for fear of self-incrimination. While the House does have the authority to compel responses from witnesses at committee, this matter is being considered before a court in another country that may not agree that witness testimony is protected under our privileges. It could therefore be used as evidence against her.

Our role as parliamentarians is to be thoughtful about the context in which we compel information from witnesses. I submit, due to the extremely unique situation we are in, that before the Speaker pronounces on whether this constitutes a prima facie question of privilege, a thoughtful and balanced study of this matter at the procedure and House affairs committee be undertaken. It would provide members and the Speaker with recommendations on the appropriate manner to handle situations of such a delicate nature.

I would like to quote my hon. colleague from the Bloc and thank her for her thoughtful intervention on this issue. The member indicated:

However, the Bloc Québécois finds that the reason provided by Ms. Chen to justify her systematic refusal to answer might require an analysis of whether the immunity relating to freedom of speech extended to Canadian defendants applies before a body having jurisdiction in another country, in this case the United States, considering that Ms. Chen is currently being investigated in a criminal matter in that country following allegations.

She continued:

What we can glean from her testimony, or at least from the little she provided as testimony, is that she was afraid that what she said before a House of Commons of Canada committee could be held against her in the United States. In that case, I think it is important to take that into account. We believe that the case should be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

We do not believe this matter should displace all other House business at this time. This is a unique set of circumstances where the witness is under an indictment in another country where testimony is not protected by the usual parliamentary privilege that exists in Canada and where the witness is at a real risk of self-incrimination. While we want to get to the bottom of the witness's actions, we believe that at this time it would be premature for the Speaker to find a prima facie breach of privilege and that a reasonable approach, given these circumstances, would be for PROC to undertake a study of its own volition to provide recommendations on how to deal with this unique situation.