John Reynolds

[Minister of National Defence, February 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, maybe we should call up Bono. He seems to know more about what is happening than anybody else these days.

This is about honesty in government and it is about civilian control of the military. When the Prime Minister said that the capture of al-Qaeda prisoners was hypothetical last Monday, had he or his office been informed by the ministry of defence? Had they been informed before last Monday, or certainly before the cabinet meeting last Tuesday?

He has not answered that question and we want an answer to it.

[Minister of National Defence, February 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, joint task force 2 cannot deploy without the PMO signing off on its mission. Yet here we are on one of the most sensitive missions ever and the PMO seems to have been left in the dark.

Does the Deputy Prime Minister expect us to believe that for a whole week while the minister was in Mexico and an international debate was raging over the treatment of al-Qaeda captives nobody in the government bothered to tell the PMO or the PCO? Does he expect us to believe that?

[Minister of National Defence, February 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence learned that Canadian soldiers had handed al-Qaeda terrorists over to the United States on Monday, January 21.

During the whole week that followed a fierce debate occurred over the handling of the al-Qaeda captives. We know what the defence minister has said but we do not understand why nobody else was informed.

Did anybody within the Department of National Defence inform the PCO, PMO or foreign affairs at the cabinet meeting that al-Qaeda terrorists had already been captured before last Tuesday?

[Privilege, February 1st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I certainly respect that. I was just getting to the point that this needs to go before committee so we can determine the real chronology of events in this case. That is why we were using the preamble to establish why it needs to go to committee. We need to establish when the minister knew and when the Prime Minister knew about the capture of al-Qaeda terrorists and their handover to the United States. That is the important issue here.

We look forward to this going before committee. We hope it will get there quickly and that we can have all the witnesses we want. We would like to see witnesses from the PMO with full documentation as to when they knew, witnesses from the minister's department, witnesses from the deputy minister's department and witnesses from the Deputy Prime Minister's department. We look forward to this.

[Privilege, February 1st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, he said “All that needs to be said has been said”. I wrote it down. I am saying to him that is not accurate, that all that needs to be said has not been said. I will have some more things to say about this issue. I am sure that other members will have other things to say about the issue because the subject matter of the motion that the member put this morning is a very serious concern to all Canadians.

I want to read the motion again. The motion moved by one of my colleagues and seconded by me indicates that the charge against the Minister of National Defence of making misleading statements in the House be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

My hon. colleague knows that with the Speaker allowing that to take place, it is a very serious concern. With the advice of the experts sitting at the Clerk's table, to allow that motion to take place and go to a committee is something Speakers do not do all that often. That is the importance of the issue before the House today. The fact is that the Speaker has made his very important ruling and a debate will take place in committee.

The issue of whether the Minister of National Defence should resign for misleading the House has come up in this debate many times. It is a very relevant point, particularly with regard to the charge of contempt.

In 1976, following comments André Ouellet, the then minister of consumer and corporate affairs, made on the acquittal by Mr. Justice Mackay of the sugar companies accused of forming cartels and combines, Mr. Justice Mackay cited him for contempt of court. Mr. Ouellet resigned his cabinet post over the incident.

A charge of contempt by the House should be considered just as serious, if not more serious, as a charge of contempt by a court. The minister should do the honourable thing and resign his cabinet post while the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs considers a charge against him because it involves a matter of confidence.

We may have 100 reasons to ask for this particular minister's resignation over various other charges. However, a charge of contempt standing alone is sufficient to seek the minister's resignation, as André Ouellet did in 1976. Others will say that the judge cited him but it has not gone to committee yet. Our point is that the minister is in charge of our troops and they are at war. He is going to have to spend a lot of time going to a committee to defend himself on this issue while taking his mind off the very important issue of our troops and the war.

I know that this morning the Deputy Prime Minister had quotes from generals stating that they do not want the minister to go now. I can understand their concerns. The fact is we know that the minister has other issues and other problems. This is another one he faces before committee. He should resign and allow someone to take over that portfolio full time while this investigation is going on.

During my speech on the motion to adopt the recommendations of the modernization committee, I brought up some unfortunate omissions from that report. I was hoping the committee would recommend some wording clarifying ministerial responsibility. We have lots of documents written by PCO and academics but the House has never made a statement of its own. It is ironic since ministers are responsible to it.

The U.K. passed a resolution regarding ministerial accountability, which we find on page 63 of the 22nd edition of Erskine May. It states:

--it is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament....Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister--

As the Speaker has already ruled, the minister already has given two different versions of events to the House. One of them has to be correct and one of them is incorrect.

There are even further issues. Those involve the Prime Minister. When did he really know? On Monday the events were hypothetical, but did anybody in the PMO hear from the Minister of National Defence during that week? If they did not, I am shocked.

I can tell the House that if I were the Prime Minister of Canada and our troops had just captured some of these terrorists and criminals, I would want to have a press conference to tell the Canadian people that our troops were successful. Yet here we are a week later and the Prime Minister is saying that it was hypothetical. I think that is terrible. It is poor management and the Minister of National Defence is in charge of that management.

This is not the first time the Minister of National Defence has been caught stretching the truth. In early October 2001, the minister announced that the JTF2 special forces would be made available to the coalition war effort. For two months he broadly implied that Canadian Forces were already in the field without directly saying so.

On November 22, 2001 the member for Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke questioned whether the troops were actually there.

On November 27 the minister finally admitted, after weeks of playing coy and letting people infer that our soldiers were on the ground, that they had not even left Canada.

Then we had the incident in early January when the deployment of 750 soldiers from the PPCLI was announced. The minister said that we had chosen to deploy with the Americans because the Americans had asked Canada to participate. That is why we joined the U.S.-led offensive operation, not the multilateral peacekeeping operation. Then General Richard Myers said that Canada had offered our troops to the U.S. mission, contradicting the minister.

We have also seen many contradictions in the timing of the helicopter contract with the minister still saying that they would be delivered by 2005, while Ranald Quail, the deputy minister of public works, is saying December 2006 at the earliest. Many experts are saying 2010.

Unfortunately, the minister has shown by his past actions that he cannot be trusted and that he changes his stories. This is not the kind of minister that Canadians or our troops deserve. They deserve a minister who will tell the truth all the time on matters as important as the actions and safety of the Canadian Forces.

We need this matter to go before the committee.

[Privilege, February 1st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I have some things I want to say but I would like to start by answering some statements made by the member for Davenport about my being in the House which are very unparliamentary for someone of his seniority in the House. I have been in the House since 10 o'clock this morning when the Speaker made his ruling, with the exception of leaving for lunch, which we all have to do, although some of us may not have to leave as often as others.

I did talk to the government House leader and he did agree that this would go to committee. Certainly the member should realize that in the House members have the right to speak. That is why we have standing orders and that is why the debate is still taking place. It will finish sometime and then it will go to committee.

The member said that all that needs to be said has been said. I can remember back when the Liberals had the rat pack. There were a lot of debates that went on forever.

[Privilege, February 1st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the member for Davenport. However, he talks about getting back to the government business of the House and how important parliament is; there is nothing more important than a Speaker's ruling in the House. The Speaker has made a ruling with regard to sending this issue to a committee. The rules then allow a debate to take place before a vote is taken by all members of the House on whether to send it to committee. The government always has the opportunity to vote against that motion if it so wishes, although I doubt it would do that on this issue.

What could be more important than a Speaker's ruling that allows us to have the debate today? Nothing can be more important than accusations made against a minister that are very serious. It is not the opposition playing politics. We are talking about a ruling made by the Speaker of the House.

I ask the member, what could be more important than the House debating a very important ruling made by the Speaker of the House?

[Points of Order, February 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my friend the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration mentioned during an answer today that he would be making a statement in Montreal this afternoon with regard to government policy. As you know, Mr. Speaker, you have had concerns about policy statements outside the House before members were notified.

Will the minister agree to make a ministerial statement before he leaves so members of parliament will know what the policy change will be?

[Foreign Affairs, February 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, our troops have our support 100%. I wish it were the same on the other side.

The minister has quite a nerve talking about divisions in caucus when six cabinet ministers have been fired, one has quit to go back to the rock and the women's caucus has been hammering at the Prime Minister every day.

On Monday the Prime Minister said that the capture of prisoners by Canadian troops was hypothetical. Seven days after, it was already a reality. Many Liberal members did not support the handing over of the prisoners or wanted al-Qaeda terrorists to be given the dignity of prisoners of war.

Did the Prime Minister call this hypothetical because he did not know, or because he did not want an embarrassing split in his own ranks about our troops' role in Afghanistan?

[Minister of National Defence, February 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is so clear we have a question of privilege today. It has been recommended that the matter go to a committee because there are two versions.

We are left wondering why there is such confusion and cover-up on the other side. Is it just incompetence and indifference about our troops, or is this just an attempt to manage divisions within the Liberal caucus about treatment of prisoners by the United States?