Craig Scott

[Privilege, October 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. I am rising on this question of privilege at the earliest opportunity.

Shortly before the summer adjournment this past June, you, Mr. Speaker, had been asked to rule on whether or not a prima facie breach of privilege existed surrounding the finding by Elections Canada that members of the House had contravened certain sections of the Canada Elections Act. This finding had been followed by a letter from Elections Canada asserting that members in question should therefore be suspended from the House and prevented from sitting and voting until the matter was resolved.

I and a number of colleagues made submissions on this matter. On June 18, 2013, you, Mr. Speaker, noted a serious gap in our procedures in the House in cases where an impasse of this sort is reached in a dispute between a member and Elections Canada. You thereupon ruled that the situation did warrant further study and allowed for the House to be seized with a motion that would refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The House adjourned for the summer recess later that day, and the motion unfortunately died with prorogation of the session.

I ask, Mr. Speaker, that you today take as given the arguments that were made in June, as well as the ruling that you rendered then. Accordingly, in order to save time, I adopt by reference the exact words of my own intervention on the question of privilege found in Hansard for the first session of the 41st Parliament, on June 10, 2013, pages 17994-18001.

If I could be indulged for about a minute, I would like to reference key passages from the Speaker's ruling of June 18, 2013.

The current situation—and the various interventions on the matter—points to a serious gap in our procedures here in the House in cases where an impasse is reached in a dispute between a member and Elections Canada....

Therefore, in the absence of statutory guidance, should a Standing Order mechanism be developed to guide the Chair in such cases?

To answer that question, I believe it would be helpful to the whole House, and to me as Speaker, if the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs were to examine the issue with a view to incorporating in our Standing Orders provisions on how the Chair and the House ought to deal with such matters in the future.

Then you went on to say:

For his part, in remarking that he had a certain appreciation of the Speaker’s position in the absence of any guidance at all, either from the statute or from the Standing Orders, as to how to execute the provisions of subsection 463(2) of the act, the member for Toronto—Danforth came to a conclusion with which I can entirely agree, namely:

“this honourable House cannot function without the Speaker and the House as a whole working in concert...”.

It seems evident to me that the lack of a clear process is not satisfying the needs of the House nor indeed of the individual members concerned....

However, the Chair is faced with the fact that some have argued that it is just and prudent to continue to await the conclusion of legal proceedings, while others have maintained that the two members ought, even now, not to be sitting in the House.

I believe that the House must have an opportunity to consider these complex issues. This approach is founded on an ancient practice summarized in a section of Bourinot's, fourth edition, found at pages 161 and 162 of that work, where it states:

“In the Canadian as in the English House of Commons, 'whenever any question is raised affecting the seat of a member, and involving matters of doubt, either in law or fact, it is customary to refer it to the consideration of a committee'.”

Accordingly, the Chair has concluded that there is a prima facie case of privilege here....

In summary, then, to bring clarity to the situation at hand and to give the House a voice on the matter and to seek its guidance, the Chair has concluded that immediate consideration of the matter by the House is warranted.

I am prepared to move that this matter be dealt with by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, and will move a motion to that effect upon your invitation should you, Mr. Speaker, rule again that there has been a prima facie breach of privilege in this case.

[Democratic Reform, October 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, 584 days ago, the government agreed to act on an NDP proposal to strengthen Canada's electoral laws to prevent election fraud.

Last April, the former minister finally acted to table a bill but, lo and behold, he met with the Conservative caucus and he was shut down.

In yesterday's throne speech, the government again had the gall to promise this long-delayed bill. I have a question for the new minister, a very simple question. When will we see this bill?

[Committees of the House, October 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of the previous unanimous consents, I rise to seek the unanimous consent of the House for a motion related to the Prime Minister's tabling yesterday of pro forma Bill C-1, which symbolically asserts the supremacy of Parliament and the authority of the House to deliberate and take decisions.

The government is accountable to the House for its actions, as Bill C-1 signalled. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister may need more than Bill C-1 to remind him of this.

Accordingly, I would like to seek the unanimous consent of the House to move the following motion, which reaffirms what the House previously adopted in 2010, and which I had also placed on the Order Paper before prorogation ironically killed the motion.

I move that the House reaffirm its expressed will and support of the motion moved by Jack Layton on March 17, 2010, that in the opinion of the House, the Prime Minister shall not advise the Governor General to prorogue any session of any Parliament for longer than seven calendar days without a specific resolution of the House of Commons to support such prorogation.

Let there be no mistake that the government and the Prime Minister have not honoured the will of the House as expressed in March 2010. Canadians deserve better than democracy with dishonour.

[Privilege, June 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would not mind some clarity from my friend about this question of what we now do about the right of our colleague from Selkirk—Interlake to sit or vote. It is a matter of whether he still wants to vote, or would he prefer this to be left in the hands of our colleague to do the right thing?

[Privilege, June 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to thank you for the carefully considered ruling. It is quite obvious that you considered it from all points of view and you did come up with a very judicious ruling.

As you noted toward the end of your remarks, I ended my own intervention by indicating that we did indeed trust the good counsel of the Speaker on the matter. We did appreciate the position that you, as Speaker, were in with respect to the absence of clarity in subsection 463(2) on what the effect of going to court was on whether it would enter into immediate effect.

You have canvassed very well, Mr. Speaker, the legal issues at stake with interpreting the statute, but also the very special question of the House's own jurisdiction, to make its own interpretation of what should happen with respect to our colleagues from Saint Boniface and Selkirk—Interlake. I note, however, that you have now brought to our attention that the Chief Electoral Officer appears to have sent a letter that indicates that one of the two members, if I heard correctly, may now indeed be in compliance with the corrected returns provision of the act, and we may be in the position of only talking about one of our colleagues.

I would like to return to what my colleague from Beauséjour has referred to, which is that we are still left with the issue of what should be the case with respect to the right to sit or vote now. I will use the member for Selkirk—Interface as the reference point.

The fact that the member for Saint Boniface has received a new letter that indicates her right to sit or vote in the past will still be legitimately looked at as part of the package of the issues PROC has to deal with, but we are at the moment immediately dealing with the right of the member for Selkirk—Interlake to sit or vote.

All I would like to say there is that in the spirit of your ruling, Mr. Speaker, and the fact that we have not actually implemented any suspension but are going to PROC, and you did find a prima facie question of privilege, it is incumbent on our colleague to ask himself whether he should voluntarily recuse from his right to sit or vote.

I see that you are wanting to end the debate, Mr. Speaker.

[Petitions, June 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition from citizens in Toronto, especially in my riding of Toronto—Danforth.

The petitioners are concerned that the Don River was removed from protection under what was then the Navigable Waters Protection Act by Bill C-45 and are calling for its re-protection.

The petitioners also want to draw attention to the fact that the right to navigation should include non-mechanized vessels, such as canoes and kayaks.

The petitioners want a commitment from the government to meaningful public consultation prior to approval of any project that affects the Don River.

[Democratic Reform, June 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, nine months of these feeble lines wore thin a long long time ago. This is about strengthening Elections Canada to be able to go after fraud. The minister promised that he would table a bill so many times. He then met with the Conservative caucus and, poof, up in smoke, he suddenly changed his mind.

The Chief Electoral Officer said that we needed this bill before the next election. Why are the Conservatives dragging their heels, missing deadlines and actually risking not having this bill in place before the next election?

[Democratic Reform, June 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the New Democrats have tried in vain to get answers from the minister about when he will table the amendments to the Elections Act. More and more it seems like he does not even know what is happening with his own bill. However, it is his bill, so surely he must want to know where it is.

I hear on good authority that the bill was actually hijacked by the gang in the PMO. What has the minister done to track down his missing bill and when will he share it with Canadians?

[Petitions, June 12th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition today signed by over 1,000 people, many from my riding of Toronto—Danforth and others from all over the GTA. The petitioners wish to draw attention to the House that unwanted contamination from genetically modified alfalfa is inevitable, and that this contamination threatens both export markets and organic farming.

The petitioners call on Parliament to impose a moratorium on the release of genetically modified alfalfa in order to allow proper review of the impact on farmers in Canada and to protect family farms.

Finally, I would like to thank the people at the Big Carrot Natural Food Market in Toronto—Danforth for all their work on this issue and this petition, and for their constant service to, and the example that they set in, our community.

[Elections Canada, June 12th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, today is day 457 of the government's inaction on amendments to the Canada Elections Act. After announcing back in April he was finally about to table the bill, the minister then did an about-face hours after meeting with the Conservative caucus.

What happened at that Conservative caucus meeting to cause the minister to put this bill on ice? Will he finally table the bill before we rise this summer, yes or no?