Erin O'Toole

[National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, September 27th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Eglinton—Lawrence certainly knows the importance of such security information. I am sure he has been secretly lobbying to have the Prime Minister select him for this committee. He might bring some good insights to the committee from his work as a crown attorney.

I highlighted the election promise about the election of chairs, because the Prime Minister said that he would act in this way for transparency and accountability reasons. However, at the first opportunity to actually fulfill that promise, he broke it, on a committee that is of the utmost importance to national safety and security.

When the minister, who did not introduce this very important bill, appeared at committee on estimates, he had not tabled Bill C-22. He had appointed the chair. He had travelled the world to consult, and we know that the current government enjoys consulting heavily. However, there was no bill before the committee that I could question the minister on.

The Liberals dropped three security or border bills in this Parliament mere days before we rose for the summer. They did that because they did not want to be held to account, which is what I am doing today.

I could not finish the quote, because I ran out of time, but I will remind the member that in 2010, the minister, following Milliken's decision, stated:

Instead of unilateral, absolute control over information, which was the government's original position, the state of play today is that Parliament has taken charge of the process.

Let Parliament take charge of the process now.

[National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, September 27th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, as the public safety critic for the Conservative Party, the opposition here in the House of Commons, it is my distinct honour to stand and begin to state our position in this debate on Bill C-22.

I would like to thank the government House leader for her remarks and to start by saying that I agree with one part of what she said in response to several questions and comments, that this is something that probably should have been in place for some time. If my friend looks back at it, she would know that in the past, in the last generation, this has been examined on several occasions by both Conservatives and Liberals.

The MP for Malpeque from her caucus, and the former MP from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, Peter MacKay, from our caucus were supportive of this concept, as was the retired Senator Hugh Segal. Moreover, a number of eminent parliamentarians and scholars have talked about how Canada, as one of the Five Eyes allies, should have some degree of parliamentary oversight of its intelligence and security operations.

That is a ground of agreement. That is hard to carve when there is a minority Parliament and the government is trying to do something that needs to be above politics, because the operations and, indeed, the safety of our security and intelligence personnel depend upon this committee of parliamentarians not being politicized or not being used to advance political ends.

That is why I am profoundly disappointed that the minister did not begin debate on this subject. Here I want to congratulate my friend, the MP for Victoria, the NDP critic on this subject, for his own extensive background working as a lawyer on national security matters, including as an adviser to the last Conservative government and with the Security Intelligence Review Committee, SIRC, some years ago.

That member from Victoria and I have collaborated on this subject from the beginning of this Parliament, because we want it to be above politics. Sadly, the government has not participated in that collaboration, despite several entreaties to take the politics out of this.

It is profoundly disappointing that the minister did not appear to introduce his own bill today on something that is supposed to be above politics. I am not overreacting. I have tried to speak to him on this. I wrote the minister on March 1, on behalf of our caucus, after consultations, and said that “the Conservative Party is willing to work with the Government to create this Committee”.

I laid out several recommendations that I thought should be part of a parliamentary oversight committee, a special committee of this unique nature. I got no response. In fact, I collaborated and shared my thoughts and ideas with the NDP critic, the member for Victoria. I wrote the minister again on April 15, outlining some additional considerations on how this committee of parliamentarians should work in conjunction with existing bodies like SIRC. I appreciate the amazing work that SIRC does, and the CSE commissioner, and the constellation of security oversight review that we already have. How can this committee fit within that constellation and not duplicate existing efforts and not to create a competitive oversight environment?

Finally, the minister gave me what I used to call a “thanks for coming out” response letter on April 20, after I had written him twice, and also the NDP member for Victoria, in trying to take the politics out of this. He said:

It remains the Government's intention to engage with parliamentary colleagues as the process of developing the committee of parliamentarians unfolds.

That never happened, despite the opposition's asking for this, to do this right, to do this the way the British, the Australians, and our Kiwi allies do. The minister has really failed in this department, because he has not sat down and taken advice. In fact, he has acted in a very cavalier manner.

As members will see, this bill violates the privileges of members of the House. That could easily have been remedied.

Proposed subparagraph 6(1) of the bill would designate the Prime Minister, not Parliament, as the controlling mind of the committee. I will remind members that the Prime Minister is just the MP for Papineau. He is a member of this chamber, like all of us. He does have a role within the government, but that is separate. Your office, Mr. Speaker, has considered this on several occasions. The Prime Minister should not have full control over this committee. What is ironic is that he also designates the members of the upper house, the Senate. Remember, he tossed the Liberal senators out. The Senate is now independent, according to the Prime Minister, except with respect to this committee. Those members are selected by him as well.

Why is this disappointing? Bill C-22 was dropped on Parliament about four days before we rose for the summer. Not only did the minister ignore opposition requests to discuss, it was tossed in before people left. However, months before that bill was tabled and before the structure of this committee was even understood, the Liberals appointed a chair to the committee.

I have a lot of respect for my friend from Ottawa South, but that has not left a good impression on how he will take the chairmanship role of this committee. If he wanted to be chair, he should have stood before this place or members of that committee and sought the position of chair. In fact, that was the position his party ran on in the election of last year. It was the Prime Minister's position with respect to committees of parliamentarians. I will quote from the Liberals' election platform. It states, “To increase accountability, we will strengthen the role of Parliamentary committee chairs, including elections by secret ballot.”

The Prime Minister talks so much about sunny ways that the glare of the sun allows him to break a lot of promises and people do not see them, and they do not get reported. This is yet another broken promise. The committees are to be more accountable and responsible. If we ever want a committee to be beyond partisanship, it is this one. However, sadly, the Liberals picked the chair months before they even brought the originating legislation to the House of Commons. That is unparalleled in terms of contempt for the House. We did not even know the structure of the committee, yet the deemed chair was travelling around the world with the minister, talking about it.

What is interesting is that in the last Parliament, my friend whose riding was Saskatoon—Humboldt in the last Parliament, introduced Motion No. 431, a motion where the members of this chamber unanimously reaffirmed the desire to have elected chairs of committees. Something ironic about that motion from 2014 is that the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness voted for it. So did the MP for Ottawa South. Where was that good intention from that vote? They stood in this place and said that they wanted committee chairs elected. In fact, that motion from my friend and Conservative colleague was to elect the chairs from the entire chamber, not one person, the MP for Papineau.

This is pretty much everything the government does. It is set up with a facade of sunny ways, accountability, transparency, and it is a mug's game. It is actually not. Everything is done for the Liberals' own partisan advantage, but it is very much captured in a way that presents them in a positive fashion.

The Treasury Board president, the member for Kings—Hants, spoke in favour of the election of chairs. He said that having the election of chairs “has the capacity to render committees more independent, potentially more constructive and less partisan”. Another member of the Liberals' caucus, the member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame in Newfoundland and Labrador, went further and said that chairs of committees should be elected. However, is it not refreshing that all 308 members of the House have the chance to put themselves in a place where they are the chair of a committee based on their skill of being a member of Parliament and a decent chair?

It is not based on what kind of favours are owed to them in a party structure or a reward given for good behaviour. Quite frankly, that is essentially how it works. This takes control away from the executive and brings it back to the House of Commons.

That member is still in this caucus. I hope he referenced that in the way Bill C-22 has been handled, where the chair was not elected by this place. The chair was appointed before the committee was even struck, in fact, before the committee even existed. It was just an idea before Bill C-22 was tabled. It is profoundly disappointing that my friend for Ottawa South has to start under this cloud. I am quite sure he would have made the case for being the chair.

I will now switch to what renders the proposed legislation essentially ineffective and why we are still trying to work with the government on it. We want to see some substantive amendments, and I have talked to my NDP colleague on it as well.

There are seven exemptions under section 14, including that the committee cannot look at ongoing investigations that may lead to criminal charges. That is pretty much every investigation or operation of law enforcement or security agencies in the country. Defence intelligence cannot be looked at. The Investment Canada Act cannot be looked at. Then section 16, on top of those seven exemptions, piles on two broad “let's catch everything” exceptions. Special operational info is excluded and anything “injurious to national security”.

Once again, the Prime Minister appoints people and then he and his ministry decide. Those ministers are just members of the House like me. They decide what this committee sees. Therefore, the exceptions and outright control of all aspects of this committee by the Prime Minister's Office renders it ineffective and does not render it what my friend for Malpeque or other parliamentarians wanted to see years ago, which was Parliament being supreme and actually conducting oversight of security and intelligence. It is a real missed opportunity.

I now want to show how the bill, particularly the ham-fisted way the minister has not worked with the opposition parties on this thing that should be above partisanship, actually violates the privilege of the members of the House. Who will support me in my argument? The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, because I will be using some remarks from him.

The House leader tried to discount these exceptions by saying that ministers would have to justify why information could not go to the committee. With 20 different doors of exceptions to choose from, it will be simple to have this just as a token committee that will not be effective. I think all parliamentarians want it to be effective. It is supposed to be like it is in the U.K., a cabinet-like level of secrecy with a special room, and with special advisers. However, if they are not even seeing information relating to an ongoing investigation that may lead to charges, this is essentially window dressing.

Why I think this violates the privilege of members of the House of Commons is because your predecessor, Mr. Speaker, declared this, in Speaker Milliken's reading of April 27, 2010. In that widely covered Speaker's ruling, the question of privilege was considered with respect to the production of documents regarding Afghan detainees.

Members will remember the positions were reversed at the time. The Conservative Party was in government and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness was then a very upset member of the opposition, as many people were.

However, the issues and the privilege attaching to the decision of Speaker Milliken is on the mark for this very issue, because it is the balance of what the House and members of the House should be able to see to perform their job, and how we balanced off sensitive information.

The House leader said they would have to justify why information would not be received. I will quote Speaker Milliken dealing specifically with this sensitive information argument. The Speaker said:

However, I cannot agree with his conclusion that this obviates the government's requirement to provide the documents ordered by the House. To accept such a notion would completely undermine the importance of the role of parliamentarians in holding the government to account.

He went on to say:

Before us are issues that question the very foundations upon which our parliamentary system is built. In a system of responsible government, the fundamental right of the House of Commons to hold the government to account for its actions is an indisputable privilege and in fact an obligation.

Remember, as members of the House, we are the members holding the government to account. Speaker Milliken was quite clear that the fact there was sensitive information, or intelligence documents, or information relating to an ongoing investigation did not remove the obligation of the government to share those documents with the House.

That is even more pronounced now that the government is setting up a specialized committee of parliamentarians with security oversights and an oath of secrecy. There are even more safeguards for the sensitive information with the committee that wants to be formed by Bill C-22 than that which existed over the Afghan detainee issue in 2010.

Speaker Milliken went on to say:

The right of Parliament to obtain every possible information on public questions is undoubted, and the circumstances must be exceptional, and the reasons very cogent, when it cannot be at once laid before the houses.

Speaker Milliken was talking before the House. There was not even consideration of this highly secret, highly confidential, and protected, designed committee of parliamentarians. However, Speaker Milliken said that members of the House, as it stands, were entitled to that information. Bill C-22 violates that privilege.

The minister could have raised this issue by working with the opposition. We expressed some concerns. He could have raised it with some of the leading experts. He refused to meet with them too. Once again, sunny ways is the slogan but not the conduct.

Finally, I will provide one last quote from Speaker Milliken's judgment, because it is germane to this discussion on why this violates privilege. He said:

The insinuation that members of Parliament cannot be trusted with the very information that they may well require to act on behalf of Canadians runs contrary to the inherent trust that Canadians have placed in their elected officials and which members require to act in their various parliamentary capacities.

Speaker Milliken was clear in saying there could be a balance struck on sensitive information and the absolute right of the House to review information and to hold the government to account. With the apparatus and security safeguards set up around a special committee of parliamentarians, it is even easier to ensure that balance is struck. Sadly, the minister has missed the mark.

Let us see what the minister himself said in 2010, some weeks after Speaker Milliken's ruling. The member from Wascana called the actions of the government of the day's holding back some documents unilateral, arbitrary, and contrary to parliamentary tradition. He then went on to say:

That series of questions of privilege resulted in your ruling on April 27, when, in very eloquent terms, you indicated that Parliament did have the right to information. You indicated, at the same time, that there were sensitivities around issues related to national defence, national security, and international relations and that the House leaders and parliamentary critics should get together and arrive at a process to make information available to members of Parliament and Canadians for the purpose of holding the government to account and to do so in a way that would not imperil national security, national defence, or international relations.

He went on to say that Parliament was entitled to such information if safeguards could be in place. These are the minister's own words in 2010, saying that members of the House were entitled to that information.

I would ask the government, through its Minister of Public Safety, the member from Wascana, why the seven exceptions? Why the two blanket exceptions in section 16 that would not allow parliamentarians to fulfill their duties? Why the absolute control by the Prime Minister's Office?

[Public Safety, September 23rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, thousands of Canadians have their mobility rights and livelihoods threatened because of the potential ban from entering the U.S. if they admit to ever having used marijuana, a drug the Liberals are now making legal.

The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness totally missed the mark. He just concluded a customs pre-clearance agreement with the United States that failed to address this issue. That is a huge mistake.

Will the minister withdraw Bill C-23 and renegotiate an agreement with the U.S. on pre-clearance that actually protects Canadians?

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend from Cariboo—Prince George, particularly after I visited that part of the country this year. They are passionate people, represented by a passionate advocate. That is why he is concerned about this as a B.C. MP, as are some of my other B.C. colleagues with me here today. We are apparently more concerned than the 32 Atlantic MPs, because I do not see them speaking much, other than the MP for Charlottetown who is under strict orders from the Minister of Justice not to stray from the script.

He raised a good point. The legal action, asking for an order from the court declaring the Prime Minister's conduct unconstitutional, is from the Atlantic Provinces Trial Lawyers Association. He asked me if there were an impression that this callous act by the Prime Minister was causing a negative impression in Nova Scotia. Well, a legal action suggesting that it is unconstitutional by the men and women who make their livelihood advocating and defending people in our courts is a pretty good indication that they feel it is an affront.

I would suggest that the parliamentary secretary, the MP for Charlottetown, is likely still called to the bar there. He should talk to some of his colleagues.

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, had I had time to do a little more research, I would have checked to see if the school of law at McGill, where I know my friend taught for many years, had as its early dean a Dalhousie graduate. I would go out on a limb to say I think McGill was one of the later law schools to adopt the case law approach trailblazed at Dalhousie. Dalhousie followed the Harvard tradition, so it really goes back that far.

As the member well knows, our constitution is both written and by convention, and that convention is reinforced the longer the practice is maintained. In this case, I would suggest, and I hope he would agree with me, that in terms of constitutional convention, that also fits with the spirit of paragraph 41(d) of the Constitution Act, 1982. This is probably one of our oldest and most profound constitutional conventions.

I highlighted the word “custom” because in the last Parliament the MP for Charlottetown found that the diversity of having the Atlantic Canadian justice on the Supreme Court of Canada was fundamental. Now he seems to be backing away from that. For someone who is a well-spoken and thoughtful MP, trained in the legal system by Atlantic Canada, he should now stand up for it.

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to follow my good friend from British Columbia who, in his last number of months in Parliament, has been a strong advocate for Atlantic Canada.

In his role as fisheries critic for the Conservative Party, he has brought attention to a range of issues, which shows that if someone is a parliamentarian with knowledge and passion, that person can represent all Canadians and, indeed, a region on the other side of the country that has not received such representation despite having 32 members of Parliament.

Every single member of Parliament from Atlantic Canada is a Liberal. I am going to highlight some of the hypocrisy that some of those members are demonstrating with their lack of commitment to equality for Atlantic Canada in one of our key institutions, particularly the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice, who regularly feigned outrage in the last Parliament if one touched the Supreme Court Act. He now describes the long-standing constitutional convention to have an Atlantic Canadian jurist on the top court as just a custom. Before, he had expressed it as a requirement of our diversity as a country.

It is profoundly disappointing. I do like a lot of the members from Atlantic Canada. As someone who has spent a lot of time there myself, I know they are well-intended. However, it is about time that they start to speak up to their Prime Minister and their Minister of Justice to correct this major omission and start showing that there is more than just a silence of the lambs in Atlantic Canada.

I am passionate about this, as members can tell, because I am a product of the outstanding legal system and legal education system in Atlantic Canada, in my case, Dalhousie University. Dalhousie Law School, now known as the Schulich School of Law, is the oldest law school in the British Commonwealth, founded in 1883. In fact, the graduates from the early classes at Dalhousie Law School in Halifax became the deans of most of the early law schools across the country, including in Alberta.

Alberta still has a tradition of sending a number of great young minds to Halifax for law school, starting with many people like Joe Lougheed, son of former premier Peter Lougheed, and my friend, Luke Day.

That mix at Dalhousie, one of the finest schools, produces great legal minds. It is the law school for Newfoundland and Labrador. There is a special admission provision.

Between Dalhousie and the University of New Brunswick, they have some of the best legal education in the country. From the early days of our country, those lawyers, those judicial minds, have forged Canadian law here in Parliament, in legislatures, and at the Supreme Court of Canada.

For the Prime Minister to just wave that aside is rather insulting. For someone who claims that diversity is a fundamental tenet of his government, geographic diversity and the tradition of an Atlantic Canada seat to secure that geographic diversity seem like an afterthought.

Atlantic Canada's first justice, William Johnstone Ritchie, a Nova Scotia-trained barrister who became the chief justice of New Brunswick and was an appointment from New Brunswick, was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada by Alexander Mackenzie, the first Liberal Prime Minister.

Let us—including the 32 members from Atlantic Canada—study the history. It was Sir John A. Macdonald, when he returned to office as a Conservative, who made Ritchie the first Atlantic Canadian chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Some of that early jurisprudence is still referenced today.

These are important traditions in our country. To think that they can be so callously swept aside, even when the entire Atlantic Canadian region is represented by the government party, is astonishing. I would ask them to think about that. They could visit the grave of Justice Ritchie at Beechwood Cemetery here in Ottawa, which is emblematic of the significance of the Supreme Court to this country.

Sir Robert Borden, a Nova Scotia-trained lawyer and my favourite Prime Minister of this country, who held the country together through the challenges of the great war, started the Canadian Bar Association.

Atlantic Canada blazed the trail for common law jurisprudence and our legal education and judicial structure in Canada. There is no question about it. It punched well above its weight since the earliest days of Confederation. In fact, Joseph Howe, the father of representative government, granted to Nova Scotia the first stand-alone representative government of a British colony at that time. In Howe's tradition, I would ask the 32 members from Atlantic Canada to start speaking up, because they are not living up to the ideals of the men and women who have come before them.

Most recently, I had the honour of meeting Constance Glube, who just passed away this February. She was another Dalhousie law grad and the first female chief justice of a superior court in Canada.

I could go on, but it is disappointing that I have to give this primer to the Minister of Justice, because she, and particularly her parliamentary secretary, should not disregard this important tradition and convention as easily as they are doing.

I will show the hypocrisy from the last Parliament. The MP for Charlottetown, who is a lawyer like me, and who practised for a time at the same firm, said this in February 2014:

I say that because the Supreme Court of Canada Act is also a piece of legislation that should be considered of the utmost importance given how the Supreme Court influences all our institutions.

That is when he was complaining about changes to a private member's bill.

We have no bill before this House. We have the Prime Minister's decision on a whim to erase a century of history, yet the MP for Charlottetown seems quite fine with that. At least with a private member's bill, we had debate in this chamber. We had to bring this debate here through an opposition day motion.

The member for Charlottetown then went on to say in that same debate:

In normal times, when matters regarding the appointment of a Supreme Court justice arise, we would be assured that the process would unfold in a manner that was inclusive and meaningful. Canadians also expect matters related to the Supreme Court to be treated in a non-political way, and we expect appointments to be made to ensure a proper linguistic, gender, and regional balance as part of the process.

That was the MP for Charlottetown, who is taking part in this debate today, who now calls this just a custom, that there was a custom to have a judge once in a while from Atlantic Canada. I would ask him to stand up. It is time for a couple of them to do so, including the Minister of Fisheries, another graduate of the Atlantic Canadian legal education system.

In June 2015, the member for Charlottetown also complained that there was an amendment to the Supreme Court Act in the budget implementation bill, and he feigned quite a bit of outrage at the time about that.

We do not even have legislation before this chamber. The Prime Minister feels that he can do what he wants, and so far the 32 members from Atlantic Canada are allowing him to govern that way. Nothing highlights it better than a legal action brought by the trial lawyers of Atlantic Canada, stating that the Prime Minister's conduct constitutes an amendment to the Constitution of Canada. What the Liberals are doing is, in the view of leading Atlantic Canadian trial lawyers, unconstitutional. Where is the member for Charlottetown on this? This legal action was filed on September 19. Specifically they cite paragraph 41(d) of the Constitution Act, on the composition of the Supreme Court of Canada.

As an essential feature of our constitution directly and through convention, the Supreme Court has had for over a century Atlantic Canadian representation. Justice Cromwell, a distinguished jurist, was just the most recent example of that in the long line that goes back to Chief Justice Ritchie. It concerns me that among the photo ops and press conferences he has had, the Prime Minister feels that not only can he disregard a century of constitutional convention, but that he can also disregard the profound and leading impact of Atlantic Canada in our modern judicial system, and claim that he is doing this with diversity in mind.

Diversity is as much in our regional differences and our viewpoints that come from our lived experience in these regions. That is why it is a convention. It is just one seat. To take that away from the part of Canada that gave us our modern common law is atrocious, and now is the time for the 32 members from Atlantic Canada, led by the MP for Charlottetown, to show some backbone and say no to this Prime Minister.

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2016]

What about Sean Casey?

[Veterans, June 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has allowed an agreement in the Equitas Society veterans lawsuit to fall apart, and his lawyers are back to attacking veterans.

The Prime Minister promised to uphold the sacred obligation to our veterans, and his minister quotes this obligation today in the House, yet lawyers this week in Vancouver are denying this sacred obligation.

When will the Prime Minister and the silent veterans in his caucus finally stand up, take this court case out of circulation, and keep their promises to our Equitas veterans?

[Veterans, June 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is the member of Parliament for Papineau, a riding named after Joseph Papineau, one of the most significant figures in Quebec history. Papineau's great-grandson was World War 1 hero Talbot Papineau, a PPCLI officer, Military Cross winner, and a writer called the soul of Canada. Ironically, the Prime Minister, when he was an actor, portrayed Talbot Papineau in the CBC movie The Great War.

In 1917, in a speech to soldiers near the front, Papineau made this pledge to Canada's injured veterans, “For those who have been disabled, who cannot carry on the good fight—it is certainly for us to see that they want for nothing.”

This statement by Papineau is yet another expression of the tremendous obligation Canada owes to its injured veterans, an obligation that this week the member of Parliament for Papineau is denying in a courtroom in Vancouver.

Talbot Papineau died a century ago at Passchendaele, but the Prime Minister has the power today to fulfill the pledge that Papineau made. I ask that the Prime Minister, the member for Papineau, once again act like Talbot Papineau and stop the court fight with our veterans.

[Business of Supply, June 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad my friend, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, got up to complete the Dalhousie trifecta here today and to show that there is a quiet Dalhousie law school mafia running the Parliament of Canada. We do not like to admit it. It is kind of the illuminati of Parliament.

However, she raises a great point on whether there has been a Supreme Court reference on a matter in the courts below, in the superior court.

I would refer the hon. member to what the previous government did with respect to the Senate reference where we go straight to the Supreme Court for a reference. The government did that in part because of comments from the Government of Prince Edward Island, which intimated that it would challenge a move to modernize the Senate, which the last government tried to do. To go for that reference would set clarity and allow us to break down the trade barriers before Canada turns 150.

As I said in my speech, the case law, particularly, Bedford and Carter, which showed that societal change, and then the intent of the Blais decision, shows that the Supreme Court would likely look favourably and support the Comeau decision from New Brunswick.