Leona Alleslev

[National Defence Act, February 28th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, there is a very important conversation that we need to have today regarding the amendments to Bill C-77, which seeks to amend the National Defence Act.

The most important thing we have to talk about is why we have a National Defence Act and why people in uniform have a separate judicial system than those in the civilian world. The reason for that is very important. It is that people in uniform are the only people who are entrusted with the right to take a life in aggression, not in self-defence. They are entrusted with the responsibility and sacred reliability of taking a life.

Therefore, as elected officials in a liberal democracy, we must ensure that would never happen without the authority of the citizens, who have entrusted the people in uniform with that responsibility. That is why we have a National Defence Act that separates them from regular citizens, because they have a responsibility and authority that the average citizen does not have.

When we talk about amending the National Defence Act, we have to understand why we have it in the first place. A military is foreign policy by other means. Therefore, when, where, how and for what purpose would we use people in uniform to fight acts of aggression and take lives on behalf of the country? Our alliance in NATO and the Washington treaty, signed on April 4, 1949, after the Second World War, clearly outlines exactly why. It says:

The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.

They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.

Therefore, why do we have a military? We have a military to ensure we can safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of our peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. That is incredibly important to remember, particularly in light of the conversations that have gone on over the last couple of months and the testimony of the former attorney general yesterday.

Our foundation of democracy is based on the separation of the executive branch, the legislative branch, the judicial branch and the military under the National Defence Act. Those pillars are the checks and balances to ensure that individuals are not in a position to undermine the value of these institutions.

Individuals take responsibilities in each of those institutions, just like I did when I swore an oath to serve in the Canadian Forces. The oath I swore was not to a person but to the position of Queen and country. I swore an oath to serve and defend the values of the nation for which it stands. The Prime Minister, members of Parliament and cabinet ministers are also not individuals but people who have also been entrusted with the roles and responsibilities associated with their positions. If and when we forget that these are positions, not individuals, and that the role is bigger than the individuals themselves, the very nature of our democracy is under threat, because, as we can see, those individuals think they have the authority to wield the system in their favour.

We heard from the former attorney general that the Prime Minister had an unrelenting and coordinated attempt at influencing her decision as the Attorney General, the top prosecutor in the land, to do something that was actually illegal so that he could achieve political gain.

[National Defence Act, February 28th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be able to speak to this issue.

As a former member of the Canadian Forces, I am deeply concerned by the state of our military justice system in Canada. We are finding that military members do not have access to legal representation to the same extent that they had formerly. We are finding that operational commanders are recommending to proceed with disciplinary charges and only 50% of cases are actually going through, which undermines the good order and discipline of the military. We have also found that there is a lack of experience among the judges within the military justice system.

Bill C-77 does nothing to address any of those systemic challenges within the military justice system. I wonder if my hon. colleague could speak to that point. When will the government do something, and what, if anything, will it do to actually address the changes in the National Defence Act?

[Justice, February 27th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, former Ontario Liberal attorney general Michael Bryant stated that a crime may have been committed when the Prime Minister conspired to stop the criminal trial of a company charged with bribery. Legal experts, including a former judge, agree that a crime may have been committed and that the RCMP should investigate.

I have a simple question requiring a simple answer. Has the Prime Minister, any former or current cabinet minister, or anyone in his office been contacted by the RCMP?

[Justice, February 26th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, again it certainly feels like the Liberals are not in the business of answering the question. The question is quite simple and Canadians deserve to know. There is a crisis in the rule of law. This is not politics as usual. This is serious and Canadians know there is a deeper scandal.

Again, has any current or former cabinet minister or Liberal staffer been contacted by the RCMP over the SNC-Lavalin affair or anything else pertaining to the former attorney general's portfolio, yes or no?

[Business of Supply, February 25th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I am excited to answer that for the simple reason that it is a representation of the confusion around this issue. The Ethics Commissioner has responsibility for ethics, not for political interference, not whether the former attorney general was influenced in any way. We also have a food and drug administration, but we are not getting it involved in this issue either, because it is not its responsibility and authority to investigate something of this nature.

When the member speaks about the justice and human rights committee, that is a fundamentally different thing. Yes, that committee is reviewing this matter, but we are not going to hear from one of the key people if this opposition day motion is not passed. The Prime Minister is a key witness; how can an investigative committee do its real work if it does not get to hear from the people it needs to hear from to get the entire truth?

Absolutely, if Liberals are saying the justice committee is the place for this issue to be investigated, then we need to hear from all of the people implicated in this case.

[Business of Supply, February 25th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very important question, because ultimately we have to ask ourselves if the Clerk of the Privy Council is the keeper of the rules-based order in Canada, and therefore is he, in his capacity as Clerk, the authority to speak on that matter? I would argue that it is not the Clerk of the Privy Council's role or responsibility. He is there to support the government agenda, the Prime Minister, ministers and cabinet as the senior bureaucrat, the senior deliverer of the machinery of the executive branch. He is in no way the legal authority to determine whether there has been political interference in the rule of law and whether it has been carried out in its capacity.

[Business of Supply, February 25th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to have the opportunity to speak to such an important motion today. I would like to start by reading the motion the opposition is putting forward:

That, given the Prime Minister's comments of Wednesday, February 20, 2019, that the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is the appropriate place for Canadians to get answers on the SNC-Lavalin affair, and given his alleged direct involvement in a sustained effort to influence SNC-Lavalin's criminal prosecution, the House order the Prime Minister to appear, testify and answer questions at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, under oath, for a televised two-hour meeting, before Friday, March 15, 2019.

I held a town hall in my riding of Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill on Sunday on taxes, tariffs and trade. We had a good discussion on taxes, tariffs and trade, but what most of my constituents wanted to know was what the SNC-Lavalin affair was, and perhaps more importantly, why it mattered.

It is highly complicated and confusing, with a lot of different information surrounding it. Therefore, what exactly is it and why does it matter? First and foremost, it is not about SNC-Lavalin and it is not about jobs. It is specifically about the coordinated, unsolicited and sustained pressure on the former attorney general to politically interfere and overturn a decision by the director of public prosecutions to proceed with the prosecution of fraud and bribery charges against SNC-Lavalin.

That is quite complicated, but what it is more importantly about is the pattern of behaviour from the government, the Prime Minister, his staff, ministers and cabinet in general, undermining the democratic institutions at the very core of our rules-based order and who we are as Canadians.

Let us talk about that for a bit. The executive branch, the judicial branch and the legislative branch are critically important pillars of our democracy. They are structured in such a way as to be independent and somewhat separate from each other because they act as checks and balances on each other. Within the executive branch, there is cabinet and the Prime Minister. They have specific responsibilities as well, not the least of which is to not politically interfere in the judicial system and to protect and preserve the independence of that judicial system.

Why is that important? It is that ultimately our democracy and rules-based order is dependent on every citizen, company and organization being equal in the eyes of the law and justice being blind to their race, ethnicity, creed, vocation, language or whatever it is. Secondly, those decisions must be made with only the law in mind, not with political interference.

In this case, we are looking at a Prime Minister who had a pattern of inappropriate and possibly illegal behaviour. First of all, he said that the former attorney general has the authority to make these decisions on her own because they are her decisions and hers alone. There is an issue with that. As a mother, when I tell my son I want him to do the dishes, is it his decision whether he does them or not? It is actually not really his decision because I have a certain amount of authority over my son, or I like to think I do. If my daughter, who is younger than my son, were to ask him to help her with something, it truly would be his decision.

Therefore, when the Prime Minister asks the former attorney general to do something, it absolutely is pressure, because, as we can see, she decided not to take the course of action that he was recommending. As a result, he put even more pressure on her after that decision was made, and in the end she actually was removed from her position. One has to ask if someone else was put in her place to do what she would not.

The other key thing here is that the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice may physically be the same individual, but they are two separate and distinct responsibilities. Cabinet, the Clerk of the Privy Council and even the PMO under our rules, regulations and laws have the ability to advise and support the Minister of Justice, but they do not have that same privilege for the Attorney General, because the Attorney General is acting as a capacity of that judicial system, which is separate. Therefore, to confuse those two positions further undermines it.

One has to ask what the responsibility was of the PMO, Gerald Butts and others when they were having meetings with the former attorney general and applying pressure at the Château Laurier. One does also have to ask why the meetings were at the Château Laurier. It is not a normal operation of our business. We have offices here in the House of Commons and other government buildings around the town, so we should be having meetings there.

Of course, there is the Clerk of the Privy Council who has a responsibility to advise and support the execution of the machinery of the executive branch but not to advise the Attorney General on legal matters.

The three important aspects of democracy are truly what is at stake in this conversation. The rule of law and our democracy are incredibly important, and that is why we are here to talk about it today. To say that this motion for getting to the truth is for partisan political points absolutely grossly misrepresents the severity of this conversation. Each and every one of us, as members of Parliament or as ministers in the executive branch, has sworn an oath to this country and to the Queen to uphold democracy. If we cannot rely on members of Parliament to be above partisan policy when the very nature of our democracy is at stake, then what is the value of being in the House? If we will not stand up to protect, preserve and defend our democracy, and in so doing ensure that individuals holding important positions in the executive branch are held accountable in accordance with our laws, then who will?

That is why this motion is so incredibly important. We must get to the truth. We must ensure that the very nature of our democracy is preserved, and we must find a way to have the courage on both sides of the House to remember that we are serving Canadians first. We get paid by Canadians, not by a political party, and we are here to deliver for Canadians not only a government agenda but also the very nature and fabric of our democracy.

That is what is at stake in the SNC-Lavalin case. It is not about jobs and it is not about SNC-Lavalin. It is about whether or not the individuals in this institution are upholding their responsibilities, and this motion is critically important to be able to get to that.

I hope that all in this House will support this motion to protect, defend and preserve our democracy.

[Indigenous Languages Act, February 20th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, there are two very important things to ask of the minister in this scenario. First, he has reiterated repeatedly that this is a very important bill, so if this is an important bill then why does it not justify the full debate and conversation that the House is meant to deliver?

Second, this also represents a pattern of behaviour, because we are finding that on many very important bills we are seeing time allocation. Therefore, either there is a structural flaw in the way we have structured our process around debating bills in the House, or the government is fundamentally undermining the democracy by circumventing the very structural processes that we have put in place to ensure we have the opportunity to discuss these very important bills.

My question for the minister is this. If this is in fact an important bill, and he has already commented on that, then how does he argue that we do not rate the time to have the debate, and how is cutting the debate not undermining the very structure of our democracy?

[Petitions, February 20th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put forward this important petition with respect to the international trafficking of human organs that have been removed from victims without consent. The petitioners are concerned that there is no legal prohibition on Canadians travelling abroad to acquire or receive them. Currently, there are two bills before Parliament that propose to impede the trafficking of human organs obtained without consent or as a result of a financial transaction, Bill C-350 in the House of Commons and Bill S-240 in the Senate. The petitioners ask that this be addressed immediately.

[Justice, February 19th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. colleague may be forgetting that as a minister of the Crown, she swore an oath to faithfully execute the power entrusted to her, which includes protecting our judicial system from political interference. If a minister will not stand up and be counted to defend the principles of our democracy, who will?

The question is simple. Has any current or former cabinet minister or staff been contacted by the RCMP on this scandal?