John Solomon

[Parliamentary Privilege, November 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I stand corrected. I apologize and withdraw that. The secretary of state was served with a subpoena in his constituency office to testify in court about a meeting he had with constituents a few years before. Speaker Fraser ruled: “The service of a subpoena within the precincts of the House of Commons is improper without the permission of the Speaker”.

The member at the time and now secretary of state was asking Speaker Fraser to extend the definition of privilege to encompass something akin to a solicitor-client privilege between an MP and his or her constituents. Speaker Fraser declined to do so. The current secretary of state may have a point in wanting to extend our privileges on that score but I am seeking to limit the blanket waiver against MPs or senators having to testify in court.

I do not believe MPs or senators should have an unfettered privilege to refuse to testify in court as witnesses. The primary claim of parliament to members' attendance no longer demands this blanket waiver. I make reference to the practice created in Britain in the 1600s to safeguard MPs from King Charles I who often imprisoned outspoken politicians. It also prevented poorly paid MPs from being thrown into debtors prison for non-payment of debts. Enshrined in the Canadian Constitution Act of 1867, the privilege grants members the right to speak in parliament without fear of harassment for what he or she says. I still support that privilege without which we would be handcuffed as spokespersons for our constituents and others outside our ridings.

MPs and senators are exempted from jury duty because of their obligation to serve the nation's highest court, parliament. Parliamentary privilege exists to ensure the people's representatives are free to work in the public interest. I maintain and support that point of view.

Beauchesne's and Maingot assert that the two houses of parliament have the first call on the attendance of their members. Fair enough, but that principle was elaborated in the specific rules of privilege before the invention of the airplane. At that time parliament was called for a session that lasted some months and then prorogued at the end. MPs and senators had to travel for up to a week and maybe more sometimes to attend the session. They travelled by train or horse and buggy.

Today a parliamentary session is never prorogued until just before a new session is announced, usually the day before or the day of the new session. However, the House and the Senate adjourn regularly and even predictably because of our calendar. MPs and senators can fly anywhere in Canada in under a day if they really need to. Therefore I believe it is not necessary to assert the primary claim of parliament to members' attendance by giving members an unfettered right to avoid testifying as witnesses in court. MPs or Senators who have information relevant to non-frivolous criminal or civil proceedings should be required to testify like any other Canadian so long as the Chamber is adjourned or prorogued.

Of course as whip of the NDP, I would not want to see a situation where one political party could subpoena MPs from another political party to defeat a government with respect to a vote or ensure that a close vote was passed, for example. But the current blanket privilege makes Canadians believe parliamentarians are above the law.

Many people in Saskatchewan two years ago told me they thought Senator Berntson was exercising his privileges not out of a sense of the importance of his work in the Senate but to avoid giving testimony at one trial that might later lead to his own criminal charges. Although I do not want to comment on a matter that is currently before the courts, I can say that it was not so impossible to see how they might come to that conclusion.

What will happen if the RCMP public complaints commission should subpoena the former solicitor general or the Prime Minister? A subpoena cannot be served on Parliament Hill without the permission of the Speaker. The public complaints commission has the powers of a board of inquiry, but the Prime Minister is saying there is no precedent for him to testify if called.

I do not believe we should give prime ministers or cabinet ministers or MPs any shields to hide behind anymore, in particular as they appear as witnesses. My motion is intended to modernize the rules of parliament and the rules for parliamentarians to maintain public confidence in their elected representatives as well as to ensure an equitable justice system and to make sure that politicians are not above the law.

I hope hon. members will find the motion worthy of support. I look forward to addressing their comments at the end of the hour.

[Parliamentary Privilege, November 25th, 1998]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, members of the House of Commons and senators should be treated equally before the law and therefore the parliamentary privilege that allows members of the House of Commons and senators to refuse to give evidence in a Canadian courts of law should be abolished.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, for seconding this motion.

I am pleased to speak on this motion today, particularly since I drafted it two years ago as a result of some unfortunate circumstances in my home province of Saskatchewan but which could continue to have some importance as efforts to discover the extent of government's involvement in the APEC issue unfold.

MPs and senators do not have to obey a subpoena to testify in court, ever. I think that is wrong, as do many other Canadians. So I moved Motion No. 53 to remove that absolute privilege. I would like to explain why.

Motion No. 53 seeks to eliminate the privilege of members of the House of Commons and senators to evade an obligation to testify before a court or civil proceeding. It is a privilege I am not sure many new MPs realize they have. The principle behind the privilege not to attend a court of law and give evidence is that attendance at the House of Commons or the Senate is the first call on a member's or senator's time. There are practical reasons for this principle and historic reasons for the rule being written in such an absolute fashion.

But there is a competing principle that parliamentarians should not be above the law. We need to reconsider how we reconcile these two principles and allow for some time in MPs' schedules to show up in court if they are needed.

In October 1996 when I drafted this motion we were in the middle of a series of trials in Saskatchewan regarding allegations of fraud, theft of public funds and breach of public trust. The charges dated back to the period from 1986 to 1991 and involved members of a previous provincial government, both cabinet members and members of the legislative assembly.

In January 1995, 11 current and former MLAs, including former deputy premier and now Saskatchewan Senator Eric Berntson, were trying to evade testifying in a preliminary inquiry into charges against former PC caucus communications director John Scraba. The Court of Queen's Bench ruled that they had to testify.

By October 1996 one staffer and twelve former Conservative MLAs had been charged. By then five had been convicted, three were acquitted and one committed suicide. At that time former Lloydminister MLA Michael Hopfner was on trial. He called Senator Berntson as a witness. A subpoena was issued but police could not serve it on the senator on the Parliament Hill precincts because of his parliamentary privilege. The senator in any event was not required as a matter of parliamentary privilege to answer or to even acknowledge the subpoena.

Senator Berntson would not discuss his reasons for this action with the media, but the Senate's legal counsel, in a letter to the senator's personal lawyer Clyne Harradance, apparently confirmed that Senator Berntson was entitled to refuse the subpoena all together as part of his parliamentary privileges and immunities.

I will go into the specifics of the privilege issue shortly. To continue the story, the issue was raised at that time by several members of parliament, myself included. It was the subject of media stories and several columns and editorials. There was a public outcry against the way the senator seemed to be hiding behind his parliamentary privilege. There was even a suggestion in some quarters that by appointing him to the senate, the former prime minister was deliberately availing Senator Berntson of this potential cover.

Three weeks later the senator wrote an open letter claiming he was not trying to evade testifying by invoking his Senate privileges and he eventually took the stand. Mr. Hopfner was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in jail. Three months later, on January 24, 1997, Senator Berntson was charged with breach of trust and two counts of fraud. Five other individuals were also charged that day, bringing the total number of individuals charged to some 20 people. Senator Berntson resigned the next day as deputy leader of the opposition in the Senate and also from the Tory caucus pending both the preliminary hearing held this time last year and his trial before a judge which it was recently announced will commence January 11, 1999.

Senators and members of parliament do not have the privilege to avoid arrest or even to escape criminal charges but they may not be compelled to appear in court as witnesses or to serve on a jury, according to Beauchesne's sixth edition, citations 89 and 90. Citation 89 refers to the privilege I would like to abolish, namely that no member may be compelled to appear in court as a witness.

Beauchesne's sixth edition was published in 1989. Citation 91 states: “Neither the House nor its members have ever made any specific claims to freedom from service of process within the precincts”. No sooner was it published than the situation changed. In March 1989 Edmonton MP David Kilgour, now a Liberal cabinet minister, was served with a subpoena in his constituency office to testify—

[Balanced Budget Act, November 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to follow up on a question to the minister of agriculture last Thursday.

I asked him very simply when the farmers in Saskatchewan and western Canada, and particularly the communities in my constituency like Craik, Tugaske, Nokomis and others, could expect him to announce some federal cash and assistance to help with the immediate net farm income disaster. The minister answered to the effect that he found the repeated demands of the NDP for such a program to be a bit of a nuisance, but that he was working on it.

Today his parliamentary secretary seemed to suggest during question period in reply to a question by my colleague the member for Palliser that cabinet had discussed the issue with the minister of agriculture and an announcement would be coming soon. I hope the parliamentary secretary this evening can give us more information on that issue.

Last Friday when I spoke at the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool convention, I heard from many wheat farmers who just could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Then yesterday I received a letter from Mr. John Germs, the president of the Saskatchewan Pork Producers, who worried that some of his members were contemplating suicide because of the agricultural crisis.

As members of parliament, we often receive very strongly worded representations from constituents and lobby groups but I was really struck by this letter that arrived in my office. I want to quote from it:

Words cannot describe the catastrophic situation we as producers are facing. With the path continuing on this devastating course, I estimate 50% of the producers will be forced to exit the industry by spring—. The existing safety nets are not sufficient to carry us through this extreme low period. Many people have invested their life savings in this industry and now are watching it—week by week—quickly destroying their livelihood—. Hog producers in this province are desperate, many producers are suicidal, and live every day in fear of a foreclosure or local utilities disconnected.

Saskatchewan farm income, including that of wheat farmers and hog farmers, is projected to be negative next year for the first time since the depression of the 1930s. Hog prices may rebound for those who survive the year but the situation with wheat prices may not improve for quite some time unless the Europeans and Americans cut back on their market-distorting subsidies.

The current net farm income disaster, and I use that generally overused term advisedly, can be directly traced to the federal Liberal government's record at negotiating international trade agreements where it got suckered by Europe and the U.S. We recall that the government chopped the Crow benefit and other federal agriculture support programs. While Europeans who had 2.5 to three times the subsidies increased their agriculture subsidies, we eliminated all of ours.

Those farmers are growing more wheat in Europe and the United States and the price of wheat is dropping like a stone. Our farmers and our buyers are waiting until the price drops even more. But the bins are full and the U.S. is offering even more support to their farmers. It is crazy.

We need some emergency bridge funding to help especially the wheat farmers and the hog farmers in western Canada and the hog farmers in other parts of the country. We need a national disaster assistance program for all farmers to complement NISA.

I believe that if a forthcoming program was announced tonight or in very short order, the provinces might be willing to participate in this sort of emergency farm aid program financially.

I am calling on the government to recognize the failure in its cutting the Crow benefit which has cost Saskatchewan $320 million a year and to reinstate in the interim, while the European and U.S. subsidies are negotiated away, this particular farm aid for our farmers.

[Balanced Budget Act, November 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to have this motion referred to committee for further study.

[Division No. 275, November 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present vote yes on this motion.

[Division No. 274, November 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members this evening will vote yes on this motion.

[Division No. 273, November 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present vote no on this motion.

[Division No. 272, November 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present vote yes on this motion.

[Division No. 271, November 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present vote no on this motion.

[Division No. 270, November 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present vote no on this motion.