Candice Bergen

[Points of Order, May 28th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am rising today on a point of order to dispute the correctness of the records of the House of Commons related to Friday's proceedings. Specifically, I disagree with the entry at page 3282 of the unrevised Journals, concerning government Motion No. 22 that “Debate arose thereon.”

Page 1225 and 1226 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, informs readers that:

The daily Journals are verified and corrections or changes are incorporated prior to publication of the revised Journals. The accuracy of the record has rarely been questioned, but possible errors or omissions have on occasion been brought to the attention of the House. Errors are corrected by those responsible for the publication

On Friday, the government had scheduled consideration of government Motion No. 22. It is my respectful submission that the motion was not, however, actually debated.

Personally speaking, I do not think the calling or reading of the orders of the day on Friday morning was legitimate, but I will not dwell on that point. Suffice to say, the Chair has ruled that the motion was properly proposed to the House.

Turning to page 536 of Bosc and Gagnon, one reads, “Once a motion has been proposed to the House by the Chair, the House is formally seized of it. The motion may then be debated....”

Erskine May's Parliamentary Procedure, 23rd edition, at page 393 says, “When the question has been proposed by the Speaker, and, if necessary read to the House, the House is in possession of the question, debate begins....”

The authorities are clear. The act of calling an order of the day and the act of reading a motion do not constitute debate. The use of the word “then” by Bosc and Gagnon reflects a critical understanding that these are not sequential steps; they do not overlap. To be clear, debate had not yet started when the Speaker called upon the government House leader to speak. What she had to say we do not know because she could not be heard.

Members hoping to hear her remarks in French were totally frustrated. I am told that listeners to the French audio feed of the government House leader heard no fewer than five times an interpreter announce “inaudible”. When we check the record for the length of time the House leader spoke, she spoke for a total of about 91 seconds. In that 91 seconds, “inaudible” was stated at least five times. At one point, the English audio feed also heard the announced quote “the hon. leader is inaudible”. This was pointed out by the hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga Friday and also by several journalists following.

Subsection 4(2) of the Official Languages Act reads:

Facilities shall be made available for the simultaneous interpretation of the debates and other proceedings of Parliament from one official language into the other.

The French version is even more pointed:

Il doit être pourvu à l'interprétation simultanée des débats et autres travaux du Parlement.

Interpretation shall be provided. It could not be clearer. In fact, it is quite common in the House that whenever there is a glitch with the interpretation system, we take a break, we pause, we even suspend sittings.

Pages 408 and 409 of Bosc and Gagnon refer to this:

In recent years, the House has suspended its sittings for a variety of reasons: ...to rectify a technical problem with simultaneous interpretation in the Chamber.

That passage's footnote cross-references to the case found at page 18,516 of the Debates on June 18, 2013. Page 3,433 of the Journals for that sitting records that the sitting was suspended for eight minutes while the interpretation system was fixed.

The Standing Orders and usual practices of the House were breached. The Official Languages Act was violated. No one could hear the government House leader in her language of delivery. No one could hear an interpretation of the government House leader.

There have been many times in the House, whether during question period, during members' statements, or during debate, when we recognize that something is wrong with the interpretation or the microphones we get your attention, Madam Speaker, and everything is stopped until that is clarified and corrected. Then that member then starts again. According to the records, because it was not heard it, it did not happen. It cannot reasonably be said that on Motion No. 22 anyone has ever engaged in debate.

To conclude on my point of order, I ask that when we look at the Journals, there has been no debate on government Motion No. 22, and therefore page 3,282 of the unrevised Journals requires correction. I look forward to your ruling, Madam Speaker.

[Privilege, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, to add to my hon. colleague's intervention, I think the other question of privilege that we would be concerned about is that the member for Elmwood—Transcona said that he actually had five points to his point of order. I know that you heard one. Clearly, you ruled at that point that you felt it was out of order at that time, and we will accept that.

What about the other four points? You ruled them out of order without hearing them, in what appeared to be a rush to get to the orders of the day, namely, to government orders. The estimates process is nothing to dismiss so quickly. I think it is important that we do hear these other points of order, rather than rushing to government orders. They are valid or they would need to be heard before you would be able to rule whether they are valid.

[Indigenous Affairs, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, yes, it is different in that I require just one more point of clarification, if I could. What I still do not understand is this. It was clear that before we moved to government orders, you had recognized that there were points of order. There were actually a number of them. You proceeded, though, with government orders. I just want to know why—

[Ethics, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, what we did not do was award our friends and family contracts when they did not even own boats.

The fisheries minister is under federal investigation. Communities in Newfoundland, such as Grand Bank, are suffering as a result of his actions, but we are hearing crickets from other Liberal MPs in Atlantic Canada. Nothing.

Will the veterans affairs minister from Newfoundland or the health minister from New Brunswick finally stand up to the cronyism coming from their cabinet colleague and tell him to restart the bidding process?

[Ethics, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, let us review what we know about “clamscam”. The fisheries minister went out of his way to award a surf clam quota to a company that, one, was run by the brother of a Liberal MP; two, had the lowest percentage of indigenous ownership of all the bidders; and three, did not even own a boat when they were awarded the quota. Now the minister is under federal investigation for his actions.

Will the government scrap the cronyism and restart the bidding process?

[Public Safety, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, last night a blast from an improvised explosive device went off in a Mississauga restaurant. Initial reports are that a number of people are injured, some critically. On behalf of the Conservative Party and the official opposition, I convey our thoughts and our prayers to the victims and their families.

Can the government provide this House with an update on the situation?

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we do need some clarification on this in that we had not gone to orders of the day. We were dealing with the member for Elmwood—Transcona's point of order, which you cut him off. Then I brought in my intervention. Then the member for Carleton rose on a separate point of order. You did not recognize him, for whatever reason, and then you moved to orders of the day. Then clearly you came back and stopped orders of the day and went back to the member for Carleton's point of order, which should have actually been heard before orders of the day.

I understand there was a lot happening here, but procedurally we do need some clarification on how he should have been recognized and been allowed to speak before we went to orders of the day. Instead. Mr. Speaker, you went to orders of the day, and now we have a bit of a situation on our hands that will need to be rectified.

[Points of Order, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order on this.

The rules governing the main estimates were adopted only in June of last year. As the House knows, when new rules are adopted, clarification is often required. We are not talking about some of the rules that the Liberals dumped on us last year, such as their approach to prorogation and omnibus bills. We are talking about the financial role of Parliament. I know that some in this House may be impatient, but I want to remind everyone that it took centuries to get to where we are today, and spending a little time on this important topic on a Friday is not unreasonable.

Page 114 of Josef Redlich's The Procedure of the House of Commons: A Study of its History and Present Form states:

The whole law of finance, and consequently the whole British constitution, is grounded upon one fundamental principle, laid down at the very outset of English parliamentary history and secured by three hundred years of mingled conflict with the Crown and peaceful growth. All taxes and public burdens imposed upon the nation for purposes of state, whatsoever their nature, must be granted by the representatives of the citizens and taxpayers, i.e., by Parliament.

Page 404 of the fourth edition of Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure and Practice, published in 1916, states:

All the checks and guards which the wisdom of English parliamentarians has imposed in the course of centuries upon public expenditures now exist in their full force in the parliament of the dominion.

It could be seen as scandalous that what took centuries to develop cannot be given a little time on a quiet Friday. I am listening intently, as we all are, to my colleague from the NDP. I want to hear the arguments. I think he has been very careful not to engage in debate. This is an argument that we want to hear. Many of my colleagues who have been engaged on this file for some time, and who have brought it forward, no doubt want to return to the House and continue this debate with their own submissions.

The government proposed a change, promising more complete and accurate main estimates in exchange for less time to scrutinize them at committee. The President of the Treasury Board came through with his promise of less scrutiny at committee but has not provided accurate and complete information to Parliament.

Furthermore, vote 40 in this year's main estimates is nothing more than a $7-billion slush fund that would allow the Liberals to move money around wherever they want, without parliamentary approval. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, in his latest report on the main estimates, had this to say:

The Government delayed tabling the 2018-19 Main Estimates by several weeks to ensure better alignment between the Budget and Estimates. While the Government has included a new Budget Implementation Vote for $7.0 billion, the initiatives to be funded through this vote are not reflected in the Departmental Plans. Hence, there remains a lack of alignment between the Budget initiatives and planned results.

The Government’s approach to funding Budget 2018 initiatives provides parliamentarians with information that only marginally supports their deliberations and places fewer controls around the money it approves.

With respect to the former, virtually none of the money requested in the new Budget Implementation vote has undergone scrutiny through the standard Treasury Board Submission process, which as indicated by the Government, is to “ensure resources are directed to programs and activities that remain government priorities and achieve value for money.” With respect to the latter, it is unclear that the proposed vote wording would restrict the Government to funding each Budget 2018 measure in the amount set out in the Budget Plan for each Department and Agency, rather than changing the allocations across any initiative mentioned in Budget 2018.

As I said earlier, some of my colleagues serving on the estimates committee may want to weigh in on this important discussion at a later date. In the meantime, I believe we must hear from the member the full submission on this important topic and the matter that is before the House right now.

[Business of the House, May 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, could the government House leader share with the House what the business will be for the remainder of this week and for next week?

[Ethics, May 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, this is just another in the latest long list of Liberal ethics scandals: the Prime Minister under investigation; the Minister of Finance under investigation; the Liberal MP for Brampton East under investigation.

Now the fisheries minister is under formal investigation. There are new, serious allegations being reported, and the minister's credibility is in tatters. No one honestly believes that the deal was above board. It has Liberal corruption all over it.

If the minister will not do the right thing and reset the process, will the Prime Minister remove him from this file?