Joe Clark

[Points of Order, May 1st, 2003]

Will he be allowed to speak?

[Points of Order, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to seek your guidance on a matter that came to public attention this morning. There would appear to be interference with the business of the House by officials of the Prime Minister's Office.

I refer to an article by Campbell Clark in this morning's Globe and Mail , wherein it is reported that the duly elected president of the Liberal Party of Canada, Mr. Stephen LeDrew, was prevented by the Prime Minister's Office from giving testimony to a committee of the House. The article stated:

In an unusual move that highlights a battle over the bill between the outgoing Prime Minister and his party, [the Prime Minister's] office told Liberal Party president Stephen LeDrew that it did not want him to testify on the changes to fundraising laws at a parliamentary committee yesterday.

Instead, the Prime Minister's Office asked the party's senior paid staffer, national director Terry Mercer, to give the Liberal view. Mr. Mercer said he would speak in favour of the bill. He was accompanied by Eddie Goldenberg, the Prime Minister's senior policy adviser and right-hand man, who rarely appears before Commons committees.

The article went on to say:

Mr. LeDrew said he found it unusual when [the Prime Minister's] chief of staff, Percy Downe, told him the PMO did not want him to testify at the hearing. “The Prime Minister wants Terry to give the evidence,” Mr. LeDrew said in an interview yesterday

Mr. Speaker, as an experienced parliamentarian, you know that irregularities before committees are usually dealt with in committee. However, from time to time, Speakers have implicated that in grave circumstances the Chair would be justified in intervening without a report from the committee.

It is known that there is a dispute between the Prime Minister and the president of the Liberal Party of Canada. That is not a matter for the House. What may be a matter for the House is an interference with witnesses or people who seek to be witnesses before committees of the House.

If Stephen LeDrew were prevented from giving testimony on Bill C-24, and I remind you that he seems to oppose the bill, having described it as, “dumb as a bag of hammers”, if he were prevented by the Prime Minister's agents from giving testimony to a parliamentary committee, that would seem to me to be a grave and serious matter. Therefore, I seek the guidance of the Chair.

On April 7, when dealing with irregularities in the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources , Mr. Speaker stated:

That said, it is, I think, advisable, to remind the House of our usual practice with respect to procedural irregularities in a committee. Marleau and Montpetit, page 858, states: “If a committee desires that some action be taken against those disrupting its proceedings, it must report the situation to the House”.

At page 128, we read: “Speakers have consistently ruled that, except in the most extreme situations, they will only hear questions of privilege arising from committee proceedings upon presentation of a report from the committee which directly deals with the matter and not as a question of privilege raised by an individual member”.

In ruling that there are extreme cases where the Speaker would have a responsibility to hear a question of privilege on a matter that was before a committee, did the Speaker have in mind such a matter as interference with a potential witness? Or is there another avenue open to the House to ensure that the Prime Minister's agents do not stop the elected president of the Liberal Party from expressing his opposition to a measure that the Prime Minister has threatened to push through the House whether or not his party favours it?

I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your courtesy in hearing me on this important issue.

[Points of Order, May 1st, 2003]

Who would pay if the House did not?

[Health, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the heritage minister broke clear cabinet guidelines this week when she criticized the inept and beleaguered health minister on the SARS outbreak, but the Prime Minister did not enforce his own guidelines. He said the rules of resignation do not apply to his friend the heritage minister.

Government policy now is to refuse federal help to Toronto dealing with the economic impact of SARS. Do the guidelines of cabinet solidarity apply to ministers who disagree with that cold shoulder to Toronto? Are they also free to disagree with the government and keep their seats in cabinet?

[Health, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, after the 1998 ice storm the Prime Minister authorized $717 million in relief. In the SARS outbreak he has authorized only $10 million for Toronto. He has the same legal authority now that he had in the ice storm. The difference is that he wanted to help in the ice storm. He could end this double standard very quickly.

When the government spent $100 million on two executive Challenger jets, it took only one day to submit the requisition, sign it and sign the contract. Why does the Prime Minister act more swiftly on his personal comfort than he does to help a city devastated by the SARS outbreak?

[Points of Order, April 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, this matter keeps getting complicated.

Like all other members here, I have great respect for Canada's Official Languages Act.

I would hope that the government House leader, if not others, would encourage his junior colleague in the cabinet not to pretend that this was a statement made in French and not to make fun of a second official language in the country, but to stand up, admit that he made a mistake last night and have the honour to withdraw his remarks.

[Points of Order, April 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will take it as your ruling that to read and quote from Hansard is to bandy about. On page 5618, the member of Parliament for Labrador stated:

I am absolutely furious and devastated at what I have witnessed over the last 24 hours in bringing forward the plight here to DFO, the PMO and everybody else. To hear the kind of insults that were slurred at me tonight by the Minister of Fisheries is unreal. I just asked the Minister of Fisheries tonight that if he were from Labrador would he have made that decision. I do not want to repeat in public what he said back to me.

Mr. Speaker, I was here with Mr. Trudeau when he uttered words that were passed off as fuddle duddle. Again last night members of the House who were defending the legitimate interests of the people of Atlantic Canada were subjected to abuse, apparently by a minister of the Crown. What is more troubling is that once again the Chair did not intervene to preserve the dignity of the House and the rights of the members, no matter what their views or where they sit, to represent their constituents, free from insults and from intimidation.

No doubt the leader of the government will wring his hands with unctuous regret in his response, but I think, Sir, that the House last night saw the true face of the government, and the fact that the Chair did not intervene is a source of real regret to me and, I would hope, Sir, to you.

[Points of Order, April 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, with regret I rise to draw your attention again to language that I believe should not be permitted in the House. Perhaps, Sir, because of your acceptance of language from the Minister of Health two days ago that accused me of fabricating, inventing or concocting evidence, I am interested in how widely the door has been opened.

I draw your attention, Sir, to two exchanges that stand on the pages of Hansard from last night. The first is at page 5609. I quote:

Hon. Gerry Byrne (Minister of State (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I will begin by saying that this is an extremely difficult issue with which everyone is involved.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: Did you hear what he said to me? He told me to f-off.

An hon. member: I did not.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: Yes you did.

Then at--

[Health, April 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the minister of international development whether during her visit to China in January she had heard information leading her to believe that there might be an outbreak in China of a new contagious disease and whether she had discussed that with colleagues or officials here. She replied categorically no.

I have submitted a question asking for the production of relevant papers. I wonder if on reflection the minister would like to reconsider her answer.

[Health, April 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the government is a house of cards and what is clear is that Canadian safety depends on cards handed out in Beijing.

My supplementary is to the man responsible for all of this, the Prime Minister. Before or during his vacation in the Dominican Republic, did he see the letter which Ontario sent on April 4? During his belated personal conversation with the World Health Organization did Gro Brundtland tell the Prime Minister directly of her concern about Canada's screening procedures? If the Prime Minister knew these concerns why did he not act?