Mr. Speaker, I gave you the required notice of a question of privilege arising out of answers given in question period last Thursday and Friday. This relates to answers given by the government over the Royal LePage scandal.
We assume that the government speaks to the House with one voice, one set of facts and its version of the truth, but the House has been left with two versions. It is time to give the government an opportunity to tell the truth to the House.
On Thursday the following exchange took place between my leader and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services.
The member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough asked:
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Works must know that a senior procurement officer in his department invited a Royal LePage vice-president on a Caribbean cruise.
Will the minister also confirm that the RCMP is investigating allegations that public works employees accepted gifts from that same company that won a $1.4 billion contract?
Will the minister finally assure Canadians that his department's cruise for contracts procedure practice has ended?
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services answered as follows:
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the question, but I am certain he knows from the many years he has sat in the House that we do not comment on RCMP investigations.
On Friday, the following day, the following exchange occurred in relation to government contracts. I will quote directly from Hansard the question I asked, which was answered by the same parliamentary secretary. My question:
Mr. Speaker, government officials have confirmed the public works department's fraud investigations unit was involved in probing the circumstances surrounding the Liberals' cruise for contracts policy and the $1.4 billion relocation contract for Royal LePage. The Solicitor General has admitted the RCMP has been called in to investigate.
Will he now table the internal audit which led to the investigation and can he tell us if there are other departments involved in this $1.4 billion scandal?
The same parliamentary secretary who had answered the question the day before answered again. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services answered:
Mr. Speaker, we are not aware of any RCMP investigation in this file. Issues were raised and the minister and the department have retendered the contract.
My second question to her was:
Mr. Speaker, this investigation goes beyond what government is willing to admit.
Will the minister confirm that eight other members of the evaluation committee, representatives from the Department of National Defence, Treasury Board and the RCMP, attended various Royal LePage sponsored golf tournaments at no cost to themselves?
Has the RCMP investigation branched out to include other government departments?
Will public works re-evaluate the way contracts are tendered to ensure this practice is discontinued?
The parliamentary secretary answered:
Mr. Speaker, as I indicated previously, we are not aware of any RCMP investigation into this particular contract. Issues were raised to the minister and he felt it was better to turn around and retender this contract.
Any reasonable person would assume that the House was told on Thursday that there was an RCMP investigation and on Friday we were told that there has not been an RCMP investigation.
I now turn to your ruling on February 1, 2002, Mr. Speaker. In that case the Minister of National Defence had left the House with two different versions of the facts and he failed to inform the House of his error in giving two versions of the facts to the House. In ruling that this constituted a prima facie contempt, the Speaker stated:
The hon. member for Portage--Lisgar alleged that the Minister of National Defence deliberately misled the House as to when he knew that prisoners taken by Canadian JTF2 troops in Afghanistan had been handed over to the Americans. In support of that allegation, he cited the minister's responses in question period on two successive days and alluded to a number of statements made to the media by the minister. Other hon. members rose to support those arguments citing various parliamentary authorities including Beauchesne's 6th edition and Marleau and Montpetit. In this regard, I commend to the House a citation from Erskine May, twenty-second edition, quoted by the hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough as follows:
“The Commons may treat the making of a deliberately misleading statement as contempt. In 1963 the House resolved that in making a personal statement which contained words which he later admitted not to be true, a former Member had been guilty of a grave contempt”.
The authorities are consistent about the need for clarity in our proceedings and about the need to ensure the integrity of the information provided by the government to the House. Furthermore, in this case, as hon. members have pointed out, integrity of information is of paramount importance since it directly concerns the rules of engagement for Canadian troops involved in the conflict in Afghanistan, a principle that goes to the very heart of Canada's participation in the war against terrorism.
Mr. Speaker, as I said, I was quoting you. The Speaker went on to quote from Marleau and Montpetit as follows:
There are...affronts against the dignity and authority of Parliament which may not fall within one of the specifically defined privileges...the House also claims the right to punish, as a contempt, any action which, though not a breach of a specific privilege, tends to obstruct or impede the House in the performance of its functions; [or that] obstructs or impedes any Member or Officer of the House in the discharge of their duties...
The Speaker ruled as follows:
On the basis of the arguments presented by hon. members and in view of the gravity of the matter, I have concluded that the situation before us where the House is left with two versions of events is one that merits further consideration by an appropriate committee, if only to clear the air.
There is a difference in gravity here but the government is still required to tell the truth and we have been left with two different stories.
Two sitting days have passed since the matter was raised last Friday. The government has not come forward to set the record straight and the House still has two positions coming from the cabinet.
It would be a simple thing for a minister of the crown to rise and set the record straight and offer an apology. I ask the minister to do that. If not, we are left to sit here with two versions of the facts from the same government, from the same parliamentary secretary.
You should find in my favour, Mr. Speaker. I am prepared to move that the matter be referred to a committee for consideration and report.
