Mr. Speaker, this morning I gave notice with respect to the question of privilege I am raising today. The question arises from the reporting obligations of the Minister of International Trade, specifically the requirement under the order in council that annual reports be tabled in each House of Parliament by the minister.
I am honoured to be one of the co-chairs of the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. We just held a parliamentary briefing with the International Justice and Human Rights Clinic from UBC. At that briefing, we learned from the former ombudsman that the Minister of International Trade has failed to fulfill this obligation to table annual reports from the Canadian ombudsman for responsible enterprise. Not only was one report not reported, but three reports have not been reported.
I want to be clear. What we are discussing here is the annual reports of an entity empowered by the Crown to respond to potential victims of exploitation, forced labour and modern slavery being committed by Canadian companies operating in other countries.
I went to the CORE web page to verify this for myself yesterday, and the last annual report tabled in Parliament was the 2021-22 report tabled on March 22, 2023, by the minister. The former ombudsman confirmed that she sent the 2022-23 annual report to the minister in November 2023. She also confirmed to me that she provided a draft report to the interim ombudsperson at the end of her term in April 2024. That report has never been tabled in Parliament, nor has the 2024-25 report that would have been completed by the interim ombudsperson. Furthermore, the minister has left this position unfilled for over a year, and I doubt we will see a report later this year.
In accordance with Order in Council P.C. 2019-1323, dated September 6, 2019, which establishes the mandate of the CORE, section 13 states:
(1) The Ombudsperson is to submit an annual report to the Minister on their activities.
(2) The Minister is to table [that] annual report in each House of Parliament.
(3) The Ombudsperson is to publish the annual report after it is tabled in Parliament.
This raises concerns regarding the compliance with this order in council, which imposes a clear legal and fiduciary obligation on the minister to table these reports in both Houses each year. If the minister does not table these reports in the House of Commons, the CORE cannot release them publicly.
Furthermore, the failure to ensure timely tabling of these reports limits our ability as members to access this information, required for effective parliamentary oversight of an entity established by the Government of Canada. It also prevents members from engaging the House's established process for scrutiny of these tabled documents.
I recognize that orders in council are not statutes, but they do have force in law. Orders in council are indeed a form of subordinate legislation, deriving their power from a statute, an act of Parliament. In other words, they are legal instruments made by the Governor in Council pursuant to a statutory authority and take legal effect when signed by the Governor General.
There is a clear precedent in supporting this proposition that the failure to comply with the statutory tabling obligations may engage the privileges of this House.
On February 3, 1992, a question of privilege was raised concerning the failure of a minister of finance to table order in council appointments in the House of Commons required under the order of the Customs Tariff. In the ruling on February 5, 1992, at pages 6425 to 6427 of the Debates, Speaker Fraser affirmed, “It is through tabling that Members are officially apprised of the existence of a document....it is not done lightly but is done for a serious purpose.”
Speaker Fraser went on to state that “the tabling of documents...is one of the procedures on which hinges the ability of Members to discharge their functions” and recognized that the failure to table these required documents may impede both members and the standing committees in carrying out their mandate under Standing Order 108(1).
Speaker Fraser also noted that the House is the appropriate forum to address the deficiencies arising from non-compliance with statutory tabling requirements. In that instance, the Chair declined to find a prima facie breach because the matter had already been taken up by the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations.
That circumstance does not exist in the present case. No committee has been seized, however, with the failure to table the CORE annual reports.
As a result, members have been deprived of access to these reports that would have otherwise been subject to parliamentary scrutiny through the House's established procedures, including the referral mechanism contemplated under Standing Order 32(5), which depends on proper tabling in the House.
A further ruling, in 2001, similarly addressed a failure to comply with statutory tabling obligations. In that case, the Chair observed that where statutory deadlines exist, the prima facie finding of contempt would be more readily supportable, as the members' ability to scrutinize the government's action is directly affected by compliance with tabling requirements. The Chair also emphasized that the tabling obligations are central to Parliament's ability to function.
Unlike that circumstance, the present case involves a recurring statutory obligation to table annual reports. The concern here is not an isolated delay but an ongoing failure to ensure that Parliament is kept informed through the mechanism that it established. In this situation, I would remind members, we are discussing annual reports addressing potential situations of exploitation, forced labour and modern-day slavery being committed by Canadian companies operating in other countries.
I am sure every member of the House would agree that we need to have access to these annual reports, which the minister is obligated to table in the House of Commons and has failed to do for three years. The effect of this failure is to limit members' access to information required for effective parliamentary oversight of an entity established by the Government of Canada and to frustrate the operation of the House's own procedures for examining these reports.
It is on this basis that I submit that this matter engages the privileges of the House, Mr. Speaker, and I respectfully ask that you find a prima facie question of privilege, at which point I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.