John Bryden

[Privilege, February 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege pertaining to what I believe are circumstances or words leading to an act of contempt of Parliament. My remarks relate to that.

Contempt of Parliament as you know, Mr. Speaker, is very analogous to contempt of court. If you consult any authority you will find that the definitions for contempt of Parliament and contempt of court are very similar.

Just to give a very quick example, contempt of Parliament is an offence against the authority and dignity of the House or an act which offends against the authority and dignity of Parliament or against its officers or members.

A contempt of court is any act calculated to embarrass the court or lessens its authority or dignity. Contempt is that which is expressly aimed against the dignity and authority of the court itself in the person of its judges and its officers.

We take contempt of court and contempt of Parliament very seriously and provision is made for severe penalties on those who are found in contempt of court or contempt of Parliament. The reason is that the courts and Parliament are two institutions that must maintain the confidence of the people. The people must believe that the judges act with integrity and that parliamentarians act with integrity and honesty at all times. Contempt provisions exist to make sure that the courts and Parliament are not attacked in a malicious or unfounded fashion.

Indeed, severe penalties are available to judges when for example a newspaper were to accuse a judge of being a hanging judge because it did not agree with the findings of that court. Indeed, jail terms are possible in this case.

So you may be very surprised to learn in that context, Mr. Speaker, that my complaint of contempt of Parliament is aimed at a justice, Mr. Justice Louis Marcel Joyal.

The context of that contempt of Parliament occurred because on December 2 the Minister of Labour rose in this House and announced that he was taking legal steps to fire the chairman of the Canada Labour Relations Board. This entire House rose in unanimous support, including the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, indeed all members.

The chairman of the Canada Labour Relations Board took his situation to federal court. He was trying to get an injunction to prevent the legal proceedings that would lead to his firing. His case was heard in federal court before Mr. Justice Joyal.

The next day the Ottawa Citizen came out with a newspaper headline across the front page. It was at the very top, a banner headline. The headline read “Judge slams Weatherill firing”. More interestingly the subheading read “Parliamentarians compared to `people around guillotine' in French Revolution”.

The remarks that I complain about in my address to you as a contempt of Parliament are contained in two paragraphs in this story. I will read them as quickly as I can: “Yesterday, in the Federal Court of Canada, Mr. Justice Louis Marcel Joyal compared such behaviour”—that is the applauding of the decision to take legal action against the chairman of the Canada Labour Relations Board—“to the bloody actions of the French Revolution and said it worried him”.

“I'm concerned as a citizen,” Judge Joyal said from the bench, “that with immunity, a minister of the Crown can get up in the House—on the basis of I don't know what—and say, `I'm going to fire this guy,' and everybody is up and cheering. I was thinking of these people around the guillotine. I don't know if I have a right to intervene. But it left a bad taste in my mouth”.

This was not said in evidence. This was a justice musing from the bench. For example, by suggesting that the Minister of Labour uses parliamentary immunity to take an unfair action against a person, he is implying that if he spoke outside the House of Commons the Minister of Labour would be subject to some kind of civil suit, so he is imputing motives to the Minister of Labour. Not only that, he is comparing all of us, not one side or the other side, not backbenchers or frontbenchers, but all of us to the rabble of the French revolution, to people who are not in control of our ability to make good judgments in this House, people who are not in fact representatives of the people.

Mr. Speaker, I feel there is a prima facie case of contempt of Parliament in the judge's remarks. There seems to be three possible courses of action in a situation like this. One is that the House could decide to move a motion of censure. Second, the House could decide to send the issue to committee where it could be debated and appropriate action determined. Finally, the judge could be called to the bar to explain the context and the intention of his remarks. There is something to be said for that.

I did apply to the federal court to get the transcript of his remarks so I could see the context of what he said and so I could see what else he said. Unfortunately the transcripts are not available. Apparently it is a case where the judge has control over the transcripts and a parliamentarian like myself cannot obtain them.

I do not want to suggest that we should be unfair to the judge but I think we should look very seriously at this third option of bringing him to the bar to explain himself. But Mr. Speaker, this is subject to whether you feel there is a prima facie case of contempt of Parliament in the circumstances I have just described.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, February 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on the transfer of tax points that was undertaken in massive form by the previous Conservative government. That is a singular erosion of national unity because when you give federal tax points to the provinces, you lose control. I think that the Conservatives played right into the hands of the separatist Bloc Quebecois and the Parti Quebecois when they transferred tax points to the provinces, and this is something this government stands firmly against.

[Committees Of The House, December 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the government has moved on some of the concerns I have raised with respect to charities.

Revenue Canada revised the T-3010 financial reporting statement that charities are required to fill out every year. It is much more stringent, more elaborate and less ambiguous.

In the last budget the government closed a major loophole in the charity system. Corporations were giving money to charities and borrowing it back. This major abuse was covered in the last budget.

In the last budget about $35 million more was allocated to the charity division of Revenue Canada and more people were hired to do audits and that kind of thing. Revenue Canada took very positive steps.

The problem with charities and non-profit organizations is so huge because of the lack of legislation. There is a limit to what can be done by regulation. The difficulty is in not having adequate laws and this exists particularly for non-profit organizations. There are guidelines set for them by Revenue Canada through the corporations directorate but it is unfortunate that without legislation those guidelines can be ignored. People cannot be sent to jail. They cannot be penalized because there is no law to that effect. I stress that the next major step must be legislation and I hope the government is listening.

To take up the member's second point with respect to closing tax loopholes, again that centres very much on non-profit organizations and charities. There is a lot of abuse with respect to the way money is put into charities and non-profit organizations as a method of tax avoidance and sometimes actual money laundering.

I hate to say it but the oversight is so loose and real problems have come to my attention. I will not bring them to the House now because I do not think it is suitable. I have raised these issues with Revenue Canada and it is investigating individual organizations. I do not think we should talk about that in an open session.

People have used some charities to produce their own perks. This is a major abuse and it is often done by the affluent. It deprives people in need and worthy of assistance and it deprives the very good charities of the type of support they need from the community.

The government would be on the right track to look into this area, in particular non-profit organizations. If you have not looked in a corner, you will find a lot of dust when you do.

[Committees Of The House, December 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Ottawa West—Nepean.

I am very grateful to have the opportunity to make some suggestions with respect to the upcoming budget. Before I do so, I would like to make a couple of comments on the speech by the member for Calgary Southwest, the Leader of the Opposition. He made these remarks yesterday.

After he spoke another Reform member rose in the House on a point of order and complained that only two Liberal members on this side were listening to the speech of the member for Calgary Southwest. I was one of those members.

I have to spring to the defence of my colleagues. I listened throughout the 40 minute speech which dealt with a single point, the proposal to bring forward a child care tax credit in the next budget. I have to say that many of us on this side support that kind of initiative, most especially the member for Mississauga South who has championed the initiative for a very long time.

The problem was that the member for Calgary Southwest in developing this point read at great length letters from constituents. If we look in yesterday's Hansard we will see column after column, four letters actually, of closely packed type which was read by the Leader of the Opposition.

It is very difficult—and I was a captive audience—to watch someone read text. It is very difficult to maintain one's attention level when someone is constantly reading, is not making eye contact and is only developing a single point with a single illustration. Perhaps the other members were justified in their attention wandering, but because I was part of the debate I paid rapt attention.

For something like a prebudget debate, our responsibility as MPs is to bring real suggestions to the table. While the Leader of the Opposition did bring one suggestion, I would like to bring several suggestions in the time that I have.

I have been very concerned over the years with charities and non-profit organizations. There is a tremendous oversight by government of this type of organization which accounts for approximately $100 billion in revenues every year. I am afraid that a lot of the taxpayer money which goes into these organizations either from government or individual donors is not actually reaching people in need. I have commented at some length on this before.

Recently I submitted a second report to the Standing Committee on Finance. I suggested ways in which the government could bring in legislation that would address some of the problems of accountability and transparency in not for profit organizations and charities. I will run very quickly through these suggestions. If anyone wants to read them in depth, copies of the report are available in my office. I will make three points.

It is very important that government move as soon as possible to define what charities are in law. As the situation now exists, we rely on an Elizabethan statute of 1601 to define charities. It would be very helpful if we modernized the definition in law and consulted with Canadians.

Charities include this broad, sweeping collection of organizations that are constantly badgering the public for projects which sometimes have very little to do with human suffering, the problems of the poor and those in need. At the very least, legislation would be written which would narrow the definition of charities to those helping people in need, rather than organizations which may be engaged in the arts, preserving the environment, et cetera. Charities should have a real human component and should deal with human suffering. I would like to see that change.

Right now our concept of a non-profit organization, unlike a charity, is simply an organization which can issue tax receipts, but does not pay taxes. There are about 30,000 of these organizations and the tax deferral is in the many billions of dollars. These organizations encompass a broad range of purposes and are defined as whatever charity is not, as non-profit organizations. This is a tremendous problem because these organizations have no accountability to the community. Revenue Canada does not even keep track of their financial statistics.

The second thing I would propose is that government revisit the Canada Corporations Act and set rules and standards in legislation for non-profit organizations. It is possible to be a federally incorporated non-profit organization and not have to produce a financial statement other than for its members. There could possibly be only two members of a non-profit organization.

Non-profit organizations do not have to send financial statements to Revenue Canada. There are absolutely no checks and balances. The government does not oversee non-profit organizations, which embrace organizations such as the Canadian Automobile Association, the Better Business Bureau and various industry and manufacturer associations. This is deplorable because when there is no oversight by government, there is no oversight by ordinary people. Unfortunately this can lead to all kinds of problems.

To point out one very briefly, in the past year since my first report on charities was released, many people have written to me. One point that has been drawn to my attention is the fact that charities and other types of non-profit organizations do not have to seek tenders to buy goods and services.

When the government buys goods and services from the community it always tries to do it by tender or by some form of open bidding process. When we download responsibilities to charitable or non-profit organizations and they do not have a similar responsibility to contract out or to seek tenders, we run a terrible risk that there will be abuse of the system. It is especially bad with non-profit organizations where there is actually no coherent or meaningful reporting to the public at large.

That is the second point. Revisit the Canada Corporations Act. Write legislation for non-profit organizations that makes them transparent and accountable at least in the same measure as for-profit organizations.

The last change in legislation I would like to see would save a lot of money and bring a lot of discipline to charities and non-profit organizations. That would be to change the Access to Information Act and the Income Tax Act so that when charities and non-profit organizations are audited by Revenue Canada, those audits are public.

Right now when Revenue Canada audits a charity, the audits remain secret. The difficulty is that an organization can be audited and all kinds of things that are very wrong can be found. That organization is slapped on the wrist and if there is no public disclosure, it can carry on doing exactly the same thing as it had been doing hitherto.

One of the greatest disciplines for any organization whether it is government, quasi-government or business, is the exposure to the public view of mismanagement. When an audit comes along, if the audit finds mismanagement and it is exposed, then all those other organizations will step back and think very carefully about their management practices.

It is not a matter of auditing every organization. It is a matter that every organization ought to fear a public audit. If the organizations conduct themselves properly and manage their affairs well, they have nothing to fear.

It would be a major, positive step for the government to consider this as an option when the finance minister examines the budget.

Those are my three suggestions. They are very important because the non-profit and charitable sector accounts for about $100 billion in revenue. It is an enormous sector. A lot of charities are doing very good work but the sad thing is that because there is such little government oversight and there are so few standards written in law, we cannot tell the good charities from the bad charities.

I think the majority are good charities and at this time of year we need to support them. So when we talk accountability and transparency, indeed what we are talking about is helping those charities help the people who are really in need.

[Access To Information Act, December 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly support the bill and I thank my colleagues who have given me the opportunity to speak a little sooner than otherwise. I will be brief but I have something I would like to bring to the debate that is a little special.

In a former life I had a lot of experience working with the Access to Information Act. The reason a jail term is necessary, which is now missing from the act, be it two years or five years—I actually prefer two years—is that access officers are subject to fierce pressure from their superiors when there is a request for a document that is sensitive and maybe a little embarrassing. It takes tremendous courage on the part of an access officer to resist the kind of bullying that comes down from authorities. They simply say “You don't want to release that. Don't do it”.

Unfortunately, without a penalty the access officer may stand on his or her principles. I have to say “her” as well because I remember a few instances when access officers who were women went out on limb to get documents for me. The point is that they may go out on a limb but they stand a good chance of being punished later.

The beauty of a jail term is that when bureaucratic bullies try to twist the arms of access officers who they know they should release a document, all they have to say is “Send me a written note”. If the access officer cuts the document and later on it is disclosed that the order was improper, it is the person up the line who will go to jail.

I emphasize that the beauty of a jail sentence is that it protects the line access officers and lets them exercise their judgement properly without being bullied from above.

I endorse this principle 100%. It will open doors everywhere if we can get some sort of jail sentences for those people who would flaunt the bill.

[Canada Marine Act, December 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have a few minutes to speak on Bill C-9. I would like to draw the attention of the House and the Canadian public to two major innovations in Bill C-9.

First, it is a giant step forward in developing accountability in arm's length institutions of government. The mechanisms of accountability in these new port authorities far exceed anything that existed with the harbour commissions and indeed with respect to many other types of organizations.

Second, I feel that the bill represents a reform in attitude of governments of the past and this government toward political patronage. Instead of harbour commissioners who were appointed indirectly by a regional minister, there is now a system of directors appointed to port authorities will all kinds of checks and balances to make sure that these appointees of the crown conduct themselves in a responsible manner.

With the old way of appointing harbour commissioners in my region there was one city appointee and two federal appointees. Under the new system the port authority in the city of Hamilton will have a federal appointee, a provincial appointee, a city or municipality appointee, and four appointees recommended by users in the area. The minister will listen to the users in the area who will name certain individuals who have competence in the field.

The bill explains at great length what type of competence is required of the people who are to become directors of the port authority. This is a huge step forward. It separates the directors of the port authority from political influence. This is hugely important.

I regret to say that in the history of harbour commissions across the country there have been too many instances where harbour commissioners have felt vulnerable or have come under the influence of area politicians. This bill changes that. It is an enormous step forward. It has a code of conduct. It requires annual meetings, financial reports, public accountability in large scale. I think all sides of the House, including the Bloc Quebecois should support this bill. I think the Canadian public will as well.

[Toy Labelling, December 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have only been in the House four years, but in that time I have never heard the use of such extreme language and such unfair language as I have just heard from the member who spoke previously.

We abuse our privilege as parliamentarians when we make exaggerated statements that we cannot make outside the House without being sued.

This talk of killer toys, polluted toys, when she knows full well that she has the protection of the Chamber to use that language, I do not think is something that is very admirable.

In fact, this whole thing springs from a Greenpeace report which says that there is a possibility of danger with phthalates, which are actually ethylhexylphthalate, a chemical softener used in polyvinyl chlorides, plastics, and in baby's soothers and that type of product.

Greenpeace raised a legitimate concern when it pointed out that there may be some possibility that this type of material existing in these toys could be leeched out when the child sucks on the toy.

However, the Greenpeace report goes into no detail whatsoever about the alleged toxic qualities of these phthalates. If the member opposite had taken the time to look up the various reports that have been done by Environment Canada and Health Canada, she would have discovered that there is little evidence found by the government that phthalates are a serious problem in the environment.

It is very easy to condemn a product when it gets headlines. But we have to take a responsible attitude to this problem. There is no evidence that these phthalates have any effect except over a very long term. Greenpeace has not supplied the evidence of its laboratory studies and the member opposite is obviously is not prepared to supply the evidence either.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have been listening very carefully to my colleague opposite. Could you ask her not to continue to use a prop. We do not believe in using props in this place and she has waved that book about Stanley Knowles around quite long enough.

[Division No. 49, December 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, when looking at the union's wage demands, I wonder what his reaction is. Did he feel that they were excessive demands? Does he feel what is proposed in this legislation is appropriate?

[Division No. 48, December 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Chairman, I just have a couple of comments.

I listened very carefully to what the Bloc was saying and I have great sympathy for the principle of appointing a mediator-arbitrator who is agreeable to both sides, but I would like to point out that this is an exceptional circumstance because it is the union versus the people of Canada. Canada Post is the people of Canada. It is a crown agency. It is the interests of the people of Canada that are at stake.

I have listened to the comments of the Bloc with great attention and great sympathy, but it does seem to me that one has to lean in the appointment of an arbitrator-mediator in this case to somebody who will look first to the interest of all Canadians rather than to the interest of the union.