Debates of May 28th, 2024

Resuming debate on the privilege motion

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

Madam Speaker, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle merely attended an event. This is very different from the current Speaker of the House, who posted an overtly partisan message about the Liberal Party and expressly attacked the Leader of the Opposition. It is just more smoke and mirrors from the member for Kingston and the Islands.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Liberal Party refers to what is happening as obstruction, but I think the most serious obstruction is what we are experiencing because of the Speaker of the House of Commons.

I have heard some members say that, in any case, the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois are not expressing confidence. However, confidence has to be earned. It has to be built and created. The Speaker of the House of Commons has not earned that confidence.

Why is the government still defending the indefensible in light of the current situation?

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

Madam Speaker, I concur with the member for Thérèse-De Blainville that the Speaker's actions at this point are indefensible. It is part of a repeated pattern in which he has exercised a lack of judgment, blinded by his long-standing partisanship. The Speaker is a partisan, pure and simple. He is a partisan Liberal, and he has been unable to separate his partisan positions, his partisan views, when discharging the high office that he holds as the Speaker of the House. In the circumstances, it is why he needs to resign.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives had a Speaker, who is still in the House, who used his office for a video during a nomination meeting in an electoral process and was fined an unprecedented $500. I believe the Conservatives were part of the committee for that, and now they want something different from what was done in the past. That is what this really boils down to.

How can the Conservatives continue to propagate the stance they have when their own former Speaker paid a $500 fine because he used his parliamentary office for a video during an electoral process to support a candidate who is now here? How can they continue this charade?

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

Madam Speaker, once again, the member for Windsor West has demonstrated that he is a member of the government caucus defending the partisan Liberal Speaker of this House by conflating unrelated matters relating to the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who is not the Speaker of the House. It is more smoke and mirrors.

If the member wants to talk about consistency, I would remind him of the position that the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, the NDP House leader, took with regard to the Speaker on the very question of the Speaker's partisanship. He said, “This cannot happen moving forward.” However, this has happened at least three more times since then. Two incidents happened beforehand but were reported after the fact, and now this incident. The member for New Westminster—Burnaby also said that if there was “any derogation from that”, the NDP would vote “non-confidence”. They have an opportunity to do so now, but again—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry, but I have to allow for other questions. I know the hon. member loves to chat on this.

The hon. member for Regina—Lewvan.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to take to my feet.

The Liberals doth protest too much. They are trying to conflate two different scenarios. The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, when he was the Speaker, went to the airport to pick up a guest speaker for a fundraiser, the hon. Leader of the Opposition, drove him to the fundraiser, took a picture outside and then left. That is nothing like what the Speaker did. It is hilarious that the Liberals and their junior partners are trying to make the connection between these two events. This was a Liberal-advertised event with the Speaker, full stop, in a riding close to the Hill. There is a complete difference.

I wonder if my colleague would like to shed some light on those comments and how illogical and desperate this costly coalition looks right now.

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

Madam Speaker, the member for Regina—Lewvan is absolutely right. There is no connection. It is just an effort by the Liberals to sow confusion and smear the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, all the while failing to address the issue at hand, which is the pattern of repeated partisanship displayed by the Speaker of the House. The reason they are so defensive of the Speaker is that the Speaker is a partisan Liberal who has repeatedly demonstrated that he is prepared to take direction from the Prime Minister's Office. However, that is a whole other issue.

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

Madam Speaker, in essence, we are debating this issue today and did so yesterday because of an incident. That is what caused it. Here is what the Liberal Party—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton will have an opportunity to answer.

I would ask members to pretend that they are in a courthouse. As I am sure they know, it would not be acceptable in a courthouse to heckle or yell across the way. I would ask members to please be respectful.

The hon. parliamentary secretary has about a minute to ask his question.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the Conservative members rose on a matter of privilege based on one incident. Let me quote from a letter from the Liberal Party of Canada to the Speaker and Canadians: “The Liberal Party of Canada unequivocally apologizes to you for this mistake, and we take full responsibility.”

This is virtually laughable; it is a joke. The Conservative Party is using character assassination of the Speaker to justify the far-right reform attitudes that the Conservatives hold, while trying to demonstrate that Parliament is dysfunctional. I say shame on them. Let us get down to business, deal with the benefits that Canadians need today and start debating legislation, like the budget.

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

Madam Speaker, I would say shame on the parliamentary secretary. That is utter nonsense, even for him.

This motion arises from a prima facie question of privilege, a ruling of the Deputy Speaker, and the parliamentary secretary has demonstrated contempt for the Deputy Speaker by dismissing the seriousness of that matter, which has been ruled upon. Consequently, the motion has been brought forward. However, there is a broader context to the motion, and it is that this is not just one transgression, but part of a pattern of repeated transgressions of partisanship by the Speaker. It is why he needs to resign, and he needs to resign today.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with the wonderful and extraordinary member for Beauport—Limoilou. That is how she asked me to introduce her.

As we know, the current Speaker of the House is still engaging in partisan behaviour, this time through his riding association. That led the opposition to raise a question of privilege. The reason why we are having this debate today is that the Speaker's office approved the request because it found cause for the question of privilege.

The question of privilege does not have to do with the fact that the Speaker organized a partisan fundraising dinner in his riding. It has to do with how the event in question was promoted. The Speaker's partisan riding association published direct attacks on the Conservatives on its website to promote this summer evening with the Speaker. The website stated the following:

While [the Leader of the Opposition] and the Conservatives propose reckless policies that would risk our health, safety, and pocketbooks our Liberal team is focused on making life more affordable for Canadians and moving forward with our bold plan to grow an economy that works for everyone, protect our environment, keep our communities safe, and so much more.

Obviously, we completely disagree with the false claims about what the Liberals are doing, but that is not the issue. The advertisement was apparently online for almost a week before the media picked up the story and the invitation to the evening event was taken down.

The Chair recently ruled not on the question of privilege involving an umpteenth incident with the Speaker, but on the lack of a clear procedure for challenging or withdrawing confidence in the Speaker's actions by some means other than a non-confidence motion. The Chair is asking the House to consider this matter.

In response, the opposition is moving the motion being debated here: That the Speaker's ongoing and repetitive partisan conduct outside of the Chamber is a betrayal of the traditions and expectations of his office and a breach of trust required to discharge his duties and responsibilities, all of which this House judges to be a serious contempt and, therefore, declares that the office of Speaker shall be vacated effective immediately before the hour of meeting on the next Monday the House sits following the day that this order is adopted and directs that the election of a Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 2(2), shall be the first order of business at that Monday's sitting of the House.

Obviously, we agree with this motion.

The Speaker's latest partisan activity adds to an already long list. Last December, at the Ontario Liberal leadership convention, the Speaker paid tribute, in a highly partisan manner, to his friend John Fraser, the party's interim leader. Wearing his Speaker's robes, he addressed a speech to him in a video called “A Message from the...Speaker, House of Commons of Canada”. He recorded the video in the Speaker's office here in the House, using House of Commons resources.

In his remarks, the Speaker said:

And boy, did we have fun. We had a lot of fun together, through the Ottawa South Liberal Association, through Liberal Party politics, by helping Dalton McGuinty get elected. This was really a seminal part of my life. And when I think of the opportunities that I have now as being Speaker of the House of Commons, it's because of people like John....

He also used the phrase “our party,” as the Speaker actually admitted in his testimony before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The day before this convention, the Speaker had given an interview to Laura Stone of The Globe and Mail, in which he paid tribute to the outgoing interim leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, John Fraser, in glowing terms, while referencing Mr. Fraser's work within the Liberal Party. This interview was published on The Globe and Mail website that evening and appeared in the paper's print edition the following morning.

Also last December, there was another partisan incident. In Washington on December 5, as part of an official trip he had decided to make of his own accord as Speaker of the House of Commons, just as the House was debating a question of privilege in connection with his actions, the Speaker attended a reception honouring a long-time friend with whom he shared common political affiliations. He had met this friend while running for president of the Young Liberals of Canada. The Speaker gave a public tribute to his friend.

A third partisan incident also occurred in December in the Speaker's riding. The Speaker attended in an event billed as an activist cocktail party bringing together Liberal activists from both the provincial and federal levels. Though the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs was already looking into the Speaker's ethical lapses, donations were reportedly collected at the event. Despite this, in his testimony before the committee, the Speaker did not believe it was appropriate or honest to state that he had participated in other partisan events.

Here are two excerpts from House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition:

When in the Chair, the Speaker embodies the power and authority of the office, strengthened by rule and precedent. He or she must at all times show, and be seen to show, the impartiality required to sustain the trust and goodwill of the House.

In order to protect the impartiality of the office, the Speaker abstains from all partisan political activity (for example, by not attending caucus meetings), does not participate in debate and votes only in the event of an equality of voices, normally referred to as the “casting vote” of the Chair.

By all accounts, the Speaker has failed to meet his duty of care with his many partisan activities, and every party, with no exceptions, has acknowledged that to be true. He has been unable to show impartiality, despite the fact that he is a seasoned parliamentarian and that the House of Commons administration provided him with information on the duty of impartiality in writing and orally when he began his new role, as indicated in the committee report entitled “Speaker's Public Participation at an Ontario Liberal Party Event”.

I also want to note that the Speaker exhibited a serious lack of judgment on several occasions, particularly when he recorded a partisan video while dressed in his Speaker robes in the offices he occupies and with the resources of the House that are at his disposal because of the responsibilities assigned to him since his election as Speaker. Furthermore, when he apologized, it was not for having engaged in partisan acts, but for how these acts had been interpreted.

During his testimony before the committee, in response to one of my questions, Eric Janse, the Speaker's top professional procedural adviser, stated that, as Clerk of the House, he would have advised against recording this video had the Speaker asked for his advice. No such request was made, however. Not only did the Speaker not take to heart the information he had received about his duty of impartiality, but he did not see fit to request advice from the appropriate professionals at his disposal in the exercise of his duties. The fact that the Speaker did not ask his top adviser for advice and that he then neglected to mention to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that he had participated in other partisan activities demonstrates once again that the Speaker tends to lack judgment.

As we all know, the Speaker of the House is a very nice person with whom I get along really well. However, that is not the issue. To carry out his duties properly and have the support of his peers, a Speaker must have two indispensable qualities: judgment and impartiality. Unfortunately, with the latest incident, he has once again revealed that he has neither, and that is why we will be supporting the motion we are debating today.

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

Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate that the members of the Bloc have fallen into the Conservative trap and have taken this approach to filibuster, which is what we are really witnessing, on a privilege issue. I can tell members that when we look at things within the budget, such as pharmacare, the disability program and the dental program, those are things that affect the lives of Canadians on a daily basis. We now have the Bloc playing games, in an unholy alliance with Conservatives, and continuing to push the issue to prevent things from passing into legislation.

My question is this: Why has the Bloc party gone so far to the right, in circumstances such as this, to defend Conservatives?

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I do not thank my colleague for his remarks, because I find them highly disrespectful.

As we know, the Bloc Québécois is doing well in Quebec. Perhaps that explains why the Liberals are accusing us of colluding with the Conservatives and of leaning to the right, if not the far right. Meanwhile, the Conservatives say we have joined the Liberals in promoting socialism. This is what the House has been reduced to: rhetoric and caricature.

Personally, I am just trying to do my job fairly and properly. The Speaker tried to participate in yet another partisan activity, despite knowing he could not. Today we are debating a motion about the confidence we have in the Speaker and the fact that he must exhibit impartiality and judgment. This matter has moved to the top of the agenda because it is a priority. Last time, we were told that the Speaker would learn from his mistakes and would not repeat them, yet he has in fact repeated them. We need to talk about this.

I could then respond at length to the other questions, but I see that my time is up.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague. I believe that his intention and his party's intention is not to just do this as a tactic to block pharmacare from getting to people who need help. They are genuinely concerned about the Speaker's office being used for partisan reasons. It is clear that we call on the Liberal Party to apologize for breaking the rules and for what it did.

When we look at the Conservatives and their track record, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle got a $500 fine for using his office for partisan reasons. When he was Speaker, he used his office as a home base for a barbecue that was partisan. There were an number of violations that the Conservatives had, and then they are here as hypocrites when they call out the Speaker of the day on issues of relevance. We know that their real intention is to block pharmacare and to block help from getting to people who need the medicine they rely on.

Can my colleague comment on the true intentions of the Conservatives?

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

Madam Speaker, let us be clear. I am not giving a speech here to slow down or block the pharmacare program. Personally, I would like every individual and every citizen to have access to the medication that they need. That is very important, and we want that to go forward. That being said, we have serious concerns about the way that is being done, and rightly so. For example, Quebec is not being consulted, and the program is not being aligned with the existing program. The work keeps being done in layers of silos. I am not rising today to delay the passage of the bill, quite the contrary.

We are debating a fundamental issue: the partiality of the Speaker. Can he be trusted to do his job in the House? Even though I get along really well with him, we see that he is unable to be neutral and use good judgment when deciding on his activities. That is serious. Members can use sophistry and say that another Speaker before him was even worse, but that is not the issue. Today, we are looking at the actions of the current Speaker.

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

Madam Speaker, I would ask the member about the member for New Westminster—Burnaby's quote after the first incident. He said to the media, after the incident with the Speaker, “This cannot happen moving forward. From now on, you cannot have the Speaker engage in partisan activity”. He also said, “if there is any derogation from that, in the weeks and months to come”, his party would be voting “non-confidence” in the Speaker.

Can the member explain why the NDP is going back on the word of its House leader?

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague obviously needs to ask him that question directly.

I would say this to my colleague. People decide for themselves whether to believe a politician's promises and commitments. We can see how consistent some of the parliamentarians here are.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, it brings us no joy to speak on a matter like the one we are seized with today, but we must do it, because the Speaker's role is important. The Speaker's job is to maintain order in the House of Commons. He must ensure members do not cross the floor to hit each other, as we have seen in other parliaments. He must make impartial decisions about the operation of the House of Commons.

Today, we are once again debating the Speaker's impartiality. I would like to provide a little historical background, if I may.

We inherited Britain's parliamentary monarchy. The first Speaker was either Sir Peter de la Mare, in 1376, or Sir Thomas Hungerford, in 1377. Back then, the Speaker was considered as much the King's man as the servant of the House. It was not until 1642 that the Speaker broke with the Crown, when Speaker William Lenthall stood up to Charles I as the King sat in the Speaker's chair, demanding the heads of five parliamentary leaders. Despite threats, Speaker Lenthall stood up to the King, thereby cleaving his role from the Crown.

After this, the speakership was still an appointment coveted by the parties in power, since it gave them extra leverage to promote their ideas and ideals. Only in 1728, when Arthur Onslow became Speaker, was the role severed from the party in power and shifted toward impartiality with the establishment of the first standards of independence and impartiality, which are still associated with the role today.

By the time Charles Shaw-Lefevre became Speaker in 1839, the principle that the Speaker should abstain from all political activity was already firmly established. Unlike the United Kingdom, Canada was not obliged to waste much time debating the Speaker's role, since it was spelled out in the Constitution of 1867, the British North America Act. Apparently, not everything was covered, since we are now in a grey area that the rules did not account for.

Now, I would like to talk a little about the impartiality that the Speaker should show. The authority and duties of the Speaker of the House of Commons arise largely from the Constitution and the written rules of the House. Page 317 of Bosc and Gagnon's House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, reads as follows:

The duties of the Speaker of the House of Commons require the balancing of the rights and interests of the majority and minority in the House to ensure that public business is transacted efficiently and that the interests of all parts of the House are advocated and protected against the use of arbitrary authority. It is in this spirit that the Speaker, as the chief servant of the House, applies the rules. The Speaker is the servant, neither of any part of the House nor of any majority in the House, but of the entire institution and serves the best interests of the House as distilled over many generations in its practices.

Despite the considerable authority of the office, the Speaker may exercise only those powers conferred upon him or her by the House, within the limits established by the House itself. In ruling on matters of procedure, the Speaker is expected to adhere strictly to this principle, delineating the extent of the Speaker’s authority and in some cases offering suggestions as to matters which the House may see fit to pursue.

Still according to Bosc and Gagnon, it states on pages 323 and 324 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice:

When in the Chair, the Speaker embodies the power and authority of the office, strengthened by rule and precedent. He or she must at all times show, and be seen to show, the impartiality required to sustain the trust and goodwill of the House.

In order to protect the impartiality of the office, the Speaker abstains from all partisan political activity....

My colleague has already mentioned a few examples. We see there is a flaw in the Standing Orders when it comes to situations like the one we are dealing with right now, specifically, when activist and partisan activities have taken place outside the House.

True, six days after the activity in which the Speaker took part, the Liberal Party said that the press release was its fault and that the Speaker was in no way involved. I seriously question how this party operates and the kind of planning it does. Certainly the Speaker has a right to thank the party's volunteers. Personally, I would have waited for a time when the House was not in session, such as the Quebec's national holiday, or Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day for francophones, or even July 1. Then impartiality would have been respected.

That said, the Liberal Party sent a press release without even asking authorization from the person concerned regarding the wording. They did it without even asking the team in that riding if it was really what they wanted to disclose, if it was cautious or proper. The party sent press releases about its own MPs and, in this case, about an MP who is Speaker of the House of Commons. However, they did not inform and or consult MPs on the contents of that press release. Apparently some parties are more democratic than others, because I have always been informed about the content of press releases. When I did not agree with the content of a press release, it was changed. The same applies for all my colleagues. Perhaps this is something that needs improvement.

It is the fault of the Liberal Party, of the party organization. As I was saying, we can ask questions about the timing of the activity, about any follow-up, about how no one monitored the contents of the publication, about how the party did not consult its own MPs before publishing something and about how the team of the member for Hull—Aylmer failed to follow up to ensure that its own press release could be used instead of the party's highly partisan release. Apparently, the member for Hull—Aylmer's team did prepare a press release.

In closing, the current question pertaining to the House's confidence in the Speaker arose not only as a result of a highly partisan press release from the Liberal Party of Canada, at a time when the Speaker was still sitting, when he could have waited to do another activist activity, but also as a result of the decision that he made and that openly raises the question of partisanship. Had the same event been held when the House was not sitting, it would not have created the problems it is creating now.

An impartial Speaker is essential to the functioning of the House of Commons. The impartiality of this office must be so complete that every time the Speaker opens his or her mouth, no member should be able to recall which party the Speaker comes from. That is what full and total impartiality and neutrality look like.

As things stand now, unfortunately, that is not the case with this Speaker. When he makes a decision, between 44% and 45% of the members of the House wonder whether the decision is truly impartial. No one should ever have to wonder about that, regardless of which side of the House they sit on.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I note that the member is admitting that it was an error on the part of the Liberal Party.

Political party business is of no concern to the House of Commons. In fact, when a member rises during question period to ask a question dealing exclusively with party business, the Speaker rises to say that this is out of order in the House.

I would ask, therefore, why the member and her party want an error by a political party, whose activities fall outside the scope of the House, to thwart the will of the House that the member for Hull—Aylmer be Speaker? This was settled by a vote a few months ago.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would have liked my full remarks to be taken into account. I mentioned, and I even repeated it a few times, that the Liberal Party had erred, not just by sending a hyper-partisan release but by failing to ask the member or his team for authorization as to the content.

I also mentioned that a mistake had been made, in that no one followed up and it took six days before someone woke up.

Apologies are fine, but I will use the analogy of a Kleenex box to illustrate my point. Someone takes a pin and pokes hole after hole in the Kleenex box. At some point, someone apologizes, so each of the holes is plugged. When all is said and done, has my box of Kleenex been fixed? The answer is no. The same is true of confidence.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, it seems that the Prime Minister and the Speaker are having a personal competition to see who can break the most ethics laws and continue to get away with it. The Prime Minister has three in his name. The Speaker has one ethics violation in his name, and there are now three instances where he violated the chair with partisan activity.

Would my colleague from the Bloc agree that the time has finally come for the Speaker to do the honourable thing and resign?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will again use an analogy to explain how apologies are no cure-all. This will be in response to my colleague`s question.

If I take a sheet of paper and crumple it up, this represents all the harm, all the mistakes, all the ethics breaches and all the lack of judgment a person is guilty of. Then, each time the person apologizes, I try to flatten out the sheet of paper so that it reverts to its original shape. The paper will still be creased all the same. That is what is happening. People will remember, and here in the House, we remember that despite the 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8,000 apologies and some $500 fines here and there, the sheet of paper remains creased and the confidence is still gone.