Candice Bergen

[Canadian Heritage, May 7th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, with Bill C-10, the fact is that the Prime Minister is taking away Canadians' freedoms. However, instead of admitting how bad the bill is and scrapping it, he would rather insult people and accuse those who oppose it of wearing tinfoil hats.

The Liberals' amendments to Bill C-10 do not even come close to their promise to protect free speech, and that is according to Canada's leading Internet law expert.

Why is the Prime Minister so fixated on trying to control online speech?

[Privilege, May 5th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I have been quite eager to stand up and add to my question of privilege. I would like to respond, just very briefly, to the government House leader's intervention on my question of privilege concerning the Prime Minister deliberately misleading the House about when he knew of the sexual misconduct of General Vance in 2018. I will let my submission of last week stand, as presented, but I want to make a few additional comments.

The government House leader raised the matter of my reference to the emails from Janine Sherman, the deputy secretary to the cabinet responsible for Governor in Council appointments, where Ms. Sherman sent a draft email that the Minister of National Defence could use to respond to Mr. Walbourne. This is what the government House leader actually said: “While she does not include the words 'allegations of sexual harassment', I can only speculate that she was making an assumption.”

The government House leader offers the speculation that someone is assuming, and this someone is not just anyone; she is the deputy secretary to the cabinet, and the person speculating on the assumption is a minister of the Crown. This is all the more reason, Mr. Speaker, for you to rule this to be a prima facie question of privilege and have the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs get to the bottom of this important matter.

I will not go over the three tests applied to the question of privilege. I made my submission on that subject and I know the government House leader offered his version. However, there is another important application that Speakers rely on that is just as important, and in many cases more important, when considering questions of privilege that I would like you to consider, Mr. Speaker.

I ended my original submission referencing Maginot's second edition of Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, at page 227, where he suggests that if the Speaker feels any doubt on the question, he should leave it to the House. This citation is from a ruling from March 21, 1978, page 3,975 of Debates, where the Speaker cites the report of the U.K. Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, and from a ruling of October 10, 1989, at pages 4,457 to 4,461 of Debates.

In another ruling, from October 24, 1966, at page 9,005 of Debates, the Speaker uses the same application when referring to the member at the time who was raising the question of privilege. I am going to quote what it says:

In considering this matter, I asked myself what is the duty of the Speaker in cases of doubt? If we take into consideration that at the moment the Speaker is about to render a decision as to whether or not the article complained of constitutes a breach of privilege ... and considering also that the Speaker is the guardian of the rules, rights and privileges of the House and of its members and that he cannot deprive them of such privileges when there is uncertainty in his mind ... I think, at this preliminary stage of the proceedings, the doubt which I have in my mind should be interpreted to the benefit of the member.

Again, on March 27, 1969, page 853 of Debates, the Speaker stated:

[The member] has, perhaps, a grievance against the government in that capacity rather than in his capacity as a Member of Parliament. On the other hand, honourable Members know that the House has always exercised great care in attempting to protect the rights and privileges of all its Members. Since there is some doubt about the interpretation of the precedents in this situation, I would be inclined to resolve the doubt in favour of the honourable Member [the one making the request].

No one will argue, except for the government House leader, that the Prime Minister's assertion that he did not know the nature of the complaints was believable; and no one will argue that there is much doubt and uncertainty about the interpretation of the evidence and precedents in this matter.

Casting further doubt on the innocence of the Prime Minister was the fact that on the same day the government House leader made his submission on the question of privilege, the Liberal chair of the Standing Committee on National Defence unilaterally cancelled the meeting where the committee was prepared to invite the Prime Minister's chief of staff to bring some clarity to this issue. Many viewed this as an attempt to cover up and conceal the truth about what the Prime Minister knew.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, 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 this House. As I said earlier, the government House leader is the only one who thinks there is not sufficient doubt to justify the Speaker's allowing me to move the appropriate motion and get to the bottom of this.

I would like to bring to the attention of the House a few observations to support that point, starting with an article written by Chantal Hébert over the weekend. She actually puts it much better than I could. She is talking about the report prepared by former Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps, a report I also referenced in my original submission. Here is what Ms. Hébert said:

Her 2015 report recommended the creation of an independent agency for reporting misconduct.

Those findings and that core prescription were in [the prime ministerial] in-tray when he took office.

And yet, following up on the recommendation to create an independent body has not made it into the marching orders the prime minister has given Defence Minister....over the years....

For weeks, the media and the opposition parties have been trying to find out why [the Minister of Defence] along with [the Prime Minister's] staff took so little action when first apprised in 2018 of allegations of misconduct against then-Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance. This, after all, is a government that never lets an opportunity pass to flaunt its self-styled feminist credentials.

Given that, being on the lookout for instances of sexual harassment [especially in the upper levels of institutions such as the armed forces] would be expected to be a priority....

And yet, to listen to the prime minister...[this week], his advisers were unaware that the allegations against Vance were sexual in nature.

Forget that there is correspondence between some PMO staffers that suggest otherwise.

For anyone who had read Deschamps’ report, sexual harassment would logically be one of the first possibilities that would spring to mind upon hearing about misconduct allegations against Vance.

In light of the prime minister’s oft-stated commitment to a zero-tolerance policy on sexual misconduct, the mere possibility that Canada’s top soldier might be part of the systemic problem he was tasked with fixing should have set off alarm bells.

That it apparently did not is testimony either to a remarkable collective case of wilful blindness or an abysmal lack of interest...

Andrew Coyne wrote an article published this morning that I believe colleagues will find pretty much sums up the confusion and what most Canadians are thinking about regarding this question. He states that:

The issue, then, is no longer "who knew what when," but who said what and did what—or did not say or do what—and for what reason. If the Prime Minister was, as he claims, not told, it would be of the greatest possible interest to know why.

Did his chief of staff take it entirely upon herself not to inform him of such a potentially explosive development? Or was there some prior understanding that he was to be kept out of the loop on such matters? If so, on what other matters is he kept out of the loop? And, most intriguing of all, why?

Or, if he was told, then it would follow that the Prime Minister has been lying through his teeth, again, about a scandal for which he bears primary responsibility.

I have one final article to briefly reference, but keep in mind that there are more. This article is one that I really appreciate from Robyn Urback, published at the beginning of the weekend. She concludes that:

If hundreds of (mostly) women were being sexually assaulted in any other federal workplace—and were accused of lying by their superiors—there would be marches in the street and demands for resignations. The minister on the file would not be able to get away with claiming he didn't want to look at allegations for fear of “political interference,” as [the defence minister] claimed, implausibly, when questioned about Mr. Vance during a committee hearing. Similarly, the Prime Minister would not be allowed to both boast about his government's “feminist credentials” and claim, also implausibly, that no one in his office knew the charge against Mr. Vance was a “Me Too” complaint - though emails show otherwise. And the minister would not be able to announce, with a straight face, a new independent review by another former Supreme Court justice....

In conclusion, a few moments ago, the House disposed of a Conservative motion, my motion, that suggests the Prime Minister's chief of staff failed to notify him about serious sexual harassment allegations at the highest ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces and was complicit in hiding the truth from Canadians. The Liberals voted against the motion, which suggests very strongly, that Katie Telford may very well have notified the Prime Minister.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, if you find there is a prima facie question of privilege, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.

[Digital Services Tax, May 5th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to add to my question of privilege from last week. Would allow me to do that now or do you prefer I do it after the vote?

[National Defence, May 5th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, that is just remarkable because one thing we do know is that the Prime Minister is not a feminist. His record when it comes to the treatment of women is abysmal. Just ask the poor girl he groped at the Kokanee festival, ask the member for Vancouver Granville, or maybe Jane Philpott. How about Celina Caesar-Chavannes? Katie Telford will probably be next when he is done with her.

Most importantly, ask the women in our military if they think the Prime Minister is a feminist. It will be a resounding no. Is that not the sad truth?

[National Defence, May 5th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, that is just not true. The Prime Minister is either complicit or he is incompetent. He either knew, which he denies, or his own chief of staff and minister of defence have so little regard for him that they see him as just a figurehead, or maybe they wanted to give him plausible deniability.

Which is it with the Prime Minister? Was he complicit in the cover-up, is he incompetent, or was he just conveniently left out of the loop so that with a nudge and a wink he could say, “I didn't know”?

[National Defence, May 5th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the pattern of the Prime Minister, when faced with evidence of a cover-up and misleading for his own benefit, is to deny, then deny again, then say he did not know and then blame someone else, usually a woman. He has done that with the SNC-Lavalin corruption affair. He has done that with the WE scandal, making sure his family comes out ahead, and he is doing it now with his denial of knowing about the allegations around Vance.

Is it not true that the Prime Minister abandoned our women in the military and was complicit in covering up and protecting General Vance?

[Business of Supply, May 4th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I agree with most of what my colleague said.

Would she not agree that those in government who were in the highest positions of power and knew of the misconduct allegations against General Vance, but did nothing, should be held accountable?

Certainly, most of us agree that the Minister of National Defence does not have the credibility to continue to serve. He needs to be held accountable, but Katie Telford, if indeed she did know and covered it up, should be held accountable. People say that, because she is a woman in a position of power, she should not be held to the same standard as a man. Does my hon. colleague, as a woman, not find that to be somewhat sexist in and of itself and patronizing, and that somehow strong capable women should not be held to the same account as men when they are in positions of power?

If Ms. Telford knew, and she told the Prime Minister, Conservatives believe very strongly it is the Prime Minister who needs to own up to that and not throw her under the bus—

[Business of Supply, May 4th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I would completely disagree.

What the NDP is mostly concerned about is propping up the Liberals every chance it gets. It is sad to see the NDP abandoning the men and women in uniform, instead of showing some courage, taking a stand and calling the Prime Minister, his office and the Minister of National Defence to account for what they are doing.

I am not surprised. The NDP has lost all relevance, and it continues to do so today.

[Business of Supply, May 4th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, my biggest recollection yesterday from the government House leader was him throwing the F-bomb into the House of Commons. I would think he would have regret about that.

The only regrets here should be with the government and the so-called feminist Prime Minister, who, time after time, throws strong and capable women under the bus. We have seen it with the hon. member for Vancouver Granville and Jane Philpott, and we could ask many women in the Liberal caucus. We are seeing it currently with the Prime Minister saying that Katie Telford knew but nobody told him about these sexual misconduct allegations. It is just not believable.

We are calling the Prime Minister's bluff. If, indeed, Telford did not tell him, he can fire her. However, if she did tell him, he needs to own up to it, he needs to take responsibility, and he needs to, for once in his career as Prime Minister, do the right thing for the men and women of the country and for the military, and not to protect himself.

[Business of Supply, May 4th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I would like to correct something. The Liberals have been trying to deflect from what they have done in this current situation. They are trying to do that by blaming others.

The fact is that it was the Conservative government that actually initiated the Deschamps report. When rumours around General Vance were heard, Conservatives acted on them. That is very different from the current government. When given very concrete evidence from the ombudsman, the Minister of National Defence pushed it away and covered it up for over three years, and instead gave General Vance a raise, a promotion, and praised him. This is very telling, as is the fact that the Liberals are not owning up to it.

What we are saying today is that there can be no fix for this terrible problem, this terrible situation, until the Prime Minister owns up to the cover-up he has participated in.