Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a question of privilege to address misleading comments made in the House by the Prime Minister.
At the heart of the issue is the Prime Minister's denial that he was aware, in 2018, that the allegations of sexual misconduct against General Vance were a matter of a #MeToo me complaint. I have evidence that will demonstrate that this is a false statement. Further, the facts clearly indicate that the Prime Minister had to have known of the situation, and therefore deliberately misled the House. Bosc and Gagnon, at page 82, states that it is a contempt of the House for a member “deliberately attempting to mislead the House or a committee (by way of statement, evidence, or petition.”
During question period yesterday, the Prime Minister said:
Mr. Speaker, as I have been saying for some time now, yes, there was a complaint against General Vance. Nobody in my office or in the Minister of National Defence's office knew the nature of the complaint.
Then he went on to say:
Mr. Speaker, what the Leader of the Opposition is putting forward is simply untrue. While there was awareness that there was a complaint against General Vance, there was no awareness that it was in fact a #MeToo complaint of a sexual nature.
I have emails on this matter, internal to the Privy Council Office, from Janine Sherman, deputy secretary to the cabinet for appointments, to various political staff in the minister of defence's office and the Prime Minister's office that I would be happy to hand over to you, Mr. Speaker.
I will refer to a few of these emails, beginning with one from Janine Sherman in which she proposed transmittal language from the minister to the ombudsman, dated March 2, 2018. This is what she wrote:
“Dear Mr. Walbourne, I am further writing to our discussion concerning allegations of sexual harassment that were brought to your attention. As the allegations relate to a Governor in Council appointee, I would ask you to please transmit the information to Ms. Janine Sherman, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet for the Senior Personnel Secretariat, Privy Council Office, and provide her with your full cooperation.”
In a March 5, 2018, email from Ms. Sherman to Mr. Walbourne, the first paragraph is blacked out, but I will quote, “I understand that you have information concerning the conduct of a GIC appointee that the Minister has asked that you share with me.” Here there is another redaction. To continue, “...but given the sensitivity of this matter if it is at all possible to speak today or at your earliest convenience, I will make myself available.”
There is also an email from Ms. Sherman dated March 2, 2018, although the recipient is blacked out. It states, “On behalf of the Minister, I am writing further to your discussion concerning allegations of sexual harassment that had been brought to your attention.”
Ms. Sherman confirmed that these email exchanges were with political staff in her testimony to the committee on national defence, dated March 26. Ms. Sherman is recorded in the committee's evidence as saying:
Those redactions are done on the basis of the statutory requirements in the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act, so public servants' names are not redacted. For non-public servants, that does constitute personal information and that is the reason it is redacted.
In the interests of being helpful, I could indicate in a generic way that those interactions were between myself and people in the Prime Minister's Office.
The Prime Minister's statements in the House, which predate Ms. Sherman's testimony of March 26, confirm her version of the events as stated above. The Prime Minister stated during question period on March 10:
Mr. Speaker, my office was aware of the minister's direction to the ombudsman to follow up with appropriate authorities, but my office and I learned of the details of the allegations over the past months only.
Then, on March 24, the Prime Minister said:
Mr. Speaker, allegations of sexual misconduct or inappropriate behaviour need to be followed up by the appropriate authorities, and that is exactly what happened in this case.
That was the Prime Minister speaking on March 24. I am going to repeat that. He even said, “allegations of sexual misconduct”. Now I am going to go on to what he continued to say:
The ombudsperson was directed toward the right people in terms of following up on an investigation. The ombudsperson was not able to share further information with the investigators and, therefore, the investigation did not move forward.
We will continue to take very seriously any allegations that come forward, as we always have.
Ms. Sherman confirmed she had these discussions specifically with staff in the Prime Minister's Office later in her testimony before committee.
She stated:
As a matter of course, Madam Chair, in my responsibilities, I would not make a decision alone in that respect. I did meet with Mr. Walbourne myself. After that discussion, I would have briefed up to the people who had been involved in the discussion to pursue and try to get more information about the generality of the complaint.
I would have done a follow-up in terms of, certainly, the Clerk.
Later, in response to a question from the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman on whether the information was shared with the Clerk of the Privy Council and the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Katie Telford, she said:
I have shared information to say it was within the Prime Minister's Office.
The emails from Ms. Sherman outline the substance of the information that she was discussing with staff in the Prime Minister's Office addressing the Prime Minister's assertion that no one in the defence minister's office was aware of the nature of the complaint.
Gary Walbourne's testimony to the Standing Committee on National Defence from March 3 states the following:
The investigation process inexplicably moved at a snail's pace until March 2018, which just so happened to be the time when I personally met with [the Minister of Defence] to address an allegation of inappropriate sexual behaviour within the senior ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces, specifically, against the chief of the defence staff, and to discuss my concerns about this allegation.
He further stated:
To...conclude my statement, I will say that, yes, I did meet with [him] on March 1, 2018, and, yes, I did directly tell him about an allegation of inappropriate sexual behaviour made against the chief of the defence staff.
Finally, there is Michael Wernick's testimony at the Standing Committee on National Defence on April 6, replying to another question from the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman regarding the allegations being of a sexual misconduct nature.
Mr. Wernick stated:
I don't have the language of the emails in front of me. I think the language was “potential sexual harassment”. There is a back-and-forth of emails between Zita, Janine and Elder. I certainly would say that it was in the realm of sexual misconduct or sexual harassment, but I couldn't speak to the exact language.
Also, as to whether the Prime Minister's statements about his office should extend to the PCO, Wernick had this to offer, which appropriately places the PCO as responsible to the Prime Minister.
He stated:
The Privy Council Office is the Prime Minister's department. It's part of the executive branch of government. It is the Prime Minister's department, and the Prime Minister is the minister, just like any other department, and the Clerk is the deputy minister, just like any other department.
It's not independent in the sense of the courts, but it is separate from [the Minister of Defence]. I guess that's the argument he was making. It was somebody from outside.
Mr. Wernick later responded to a question from the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke as to why Elder Marques had gone to the Clerk instead of to the NSA.
Mr. Wernick stated:
That would be because I'm the boss of the Prime Minister's department. That would have been going right to the top and saying, “We have this very serious issue. The minister wants it looked into. What's the best way to proceed?
On February 1, 2002, the Speaker then ruled on a matter regarding the former minister of national defence. The hon. former member for Portage—Lisgar, now the current Premier of Manitoba, alleged that the then 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.
The Speaker considered the matter and found there was a prima facie question of privilege.
He stated:
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.
The authorities to which Speaker Milliken referred to include, but are not limited to, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, which states on page 115:
Misleading a Minister or a Member has also been considered a form of obstruction and thus a prima facie breach of privilege.
On February 25, 2014, the House leader of the official opposition raised a question of privilege regarding statements made in the House by the member for Mississauga—Streetsville.
The hon. member for Mississauga—Streetsville had deliberately misled the House during debate on Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act, when he stated that he had witnessed evidence of voter fraud first hand. He further argued that the matter was not resolved by the statements made by the member for Mississauga—Streetsville later on February 24 and 25, when he admitted that contrary to his original claim, he had not actually witnessed what he had originally claimed to have witnessed.
In the Speaker's view, this was not a simple case of someone misspeaking. He argued, rather, that it was a case where the member deliberately chose to take something he knew not to be true and present it as eyewitness evidence, something so egregious it constituted contempt. On March 3, the Speaker delivered his ruling and found the matter to be a prima facie question of privilege.
On November 3, 1978, the member for Northumberland—Durham raised a question of privilege and charged that he had been deliberately misled by a former solicitor general. The member had written a letter in 1973 to the solicitor general, who assured him that, as a matter of policy, the RCMP did not intercept the private mail of Canadians.
On November 1, 1978, during testimony before the McDonald Commission, the former commissioner of the RCMP stated that they did indeed intercept mail on a very restricted basis and that the practice was not one that had been concealed from ministers.
The Speaker ruled on December 6, 1978, that this was indeed a prima facie of contempt.
On the final analysis, does this meet the test for a prima facie question of period? The evidence above does clearly establish that the Prime Minister provided information that was misleading, and there is no doubt about that. Therefore, the first test is met.
On the second test, did the Prime Minister know that the information he provided was false?
On March 10, in questions from the official opposition, the Prime Minister specifically had to address the awareness of members of his office, Elder Marques and his department, Michael Wernick and Janine Sherman, and the defence minister. The Prime Minister's answer included the following, “The ombudsman came forward with allegations, the minister said that he needed to take those to independent authorities able to follow up on this investigation, and that is something my office was aware of.”:
Gary Walbourne's statement of March 3 to the Standing Committee on National Defence details specifically that the allegations brought forth were sexual in nature. The testimony predates the statement by the Prime Minister by a full week.
This was followed on March 11, in response to a question in the House, the Prime Minister named members of the Prime Minister's staff, as I said, Elder Marques and his department, Michael Wernick and Janie Sherman, and the defence minister, as having personal knowledge of the nature of the complaints. In that exchange, the defence minister speaks directly to his knowledge of the substance of the allegations and the actions he took with regard to it.
There is a strong case that the second test is met.
On the third test, was the Prime Minister intending to mislead the House?
The Prime Minister's answers on this matter have repeatedly changed, not only in the press but in the House. They have gone from “not being aware of allegations” to “not being aware of specific allegations” to “his office being aware.”
However, the public statement issued to the media by the Prime Minister's Office on February 23, and published in its entirety by Mercedes Stephenson, states the following, “The Prime Minister confirmed on March 10, in the House of Commons, that his office was aware of the concern raised by the defence ombudsman in 2018.”
That means the Prime Minister has issued a public statement prior to his statement in the House that his office was aware, as the defence minister has stated, that he raised concerns of a sexual nature regarding the chief of the defence staff.
In the face of a public statement by the Prime Minister, which contradicts the statement made yesterday in the House of Commons, there is an argument that the third test has been met.
In conclusion, it is just not believable that the Prime Minister was unaware that these allegations were of a #MeToo sexual complaint nature.
Let us remember, this was in 2018 at the height of the #MeToo movement, the very height of it. It was also during this period that allegations surfaced that the Prime Minister had inappropriately groped a young newspaper reporter. In addition, sitting on the Prime Minister's desk for three years was a report from former Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps that categorized the culture in the military as “sexualized”.
The second edition of Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, at page 227, states:
In the final analysis, in areas of doubt, the Speaker asks simply:
Does the act complained of appear at first sight to be a breach of privilege...or to put it shortly, has the Member an arguable point? If the Speaker feels any doubt on the question, he should...leave it to the House.
In the House, the Prime Minister is being accused of something very serious, something that should not be treated lightly or dismissed as a matter of experiencing something differently.
Let us not forget who we are dealing with here. We are dealing with a Prime Minister who has frequently breached our ethics laws. I am, of course, referring to the SNC-Lavalin scandal, his family vacation on billionaire island and the investigation about his family ties to WE Charity.
All things considered, I believe I have more than an arguable point. If the you rule this matter to be a prima facie question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.
