Peter Julian

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, of course on this side of the House we are always ready to work hard. The problem is that we have a government that does not really listen. When we look at what has happened in the past few weeks, we see that a number of bills have been rejected by the Supreme Court of Canada, precisely because the Conservatives did not do their job.

Of course it is important to have a debate in the House, but the government has to listen to the good advice it keeps getting from the NDP.

I am very interested in his comments about hard work, because the government House leader has been in his position for a number of years now. I am new in my position, so I referenced back to June last year. The government House leader, in good faith, is saying that the Conservatives are here to work.

The problem is, and people who are listening to us can go on the House of Commons website and find out for themselves, that last June, 90% of the speakers in the evening sessions were the New Democrats and opposition members. Less than 10% of the speakers were from the Conservative Party. We can see, if we go online, that there was usually only one Conservative MP who would show up to speak in the course of any evening session.

There are exceptions, which the member mentioned. The government House leader referenced the fact that the NDP tried to adjourn the House at one point. The reality was that no Conservatives had shown up to speak that night.

Therefore, my question for the government House leader is this. Will the Conservatives finally show up to work and speak in these evening sessions this year?

[Points of Order, May 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order, and it will not take up too much time. This is a matter that seems pretty straightforward to me, but I rise in the House to address some of the arguments the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons made on May 16, just before we adjourned.

The arguments made by the government House leader were made in response to the point of order I raised regarding the fact that the motion moved under Standing Order 56.1 on March 27 by the Minister of Labour should have been deemed inadmissible. The concerns I raised on May 16 were that with no framework around Standing Order 56.1, this could well mean open season on smaller parties in the House of Commons.

The first argument the government House leader put forward is that Standing Order 56.1 does indeed allow motions to be moved under this standing order to “establish the powers” of committees of the House. He is absolutely right in this regard, which is something I also mentioned during my initial intervention on this point.

However, where the government House leader is wrong is in his suggestion that establishing the powers means instructing a committee to undertake a study, as was the case of the March 27 motion. Giving an instruction to a committee in fact goes beyond the scope of Standing Order 56.1.

Standing Order 56.1, concerning the powers of committees, refers to very limited powers, including a committee's ability to travel.

In his response, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons quoted Speaker Milliken, who clearly stated the following in very relevant passage on page 461 of O'Brien and Bosc:

...this rule was meant to be used not to reach into the conduct of standing committee affairs to direct them, but rather in a routine manner, to provide them with powers they do not already possess, such as the power to travel.

We know that the Conservatives like to use quotations from experts out of context, so please allow me to put this one into context as it clearly demonstrates that Standing Order 56.1 cannot be used to instruct a committee. I would like to quote the footnote, also on page 461 of O'Brien and Bosc, that accompanies this quote from Speaker Milliken:

The government used this rule to dispose of a motion to apply closure to the debate at committee stage of Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act. In response to a point of order, the Speaker ruled that using this rule to direct the business of a committee was a new development in the House and one he found out of order.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this seems to me to be a pretty straightforward case, but for the sake of clarity, let me address the other arguments presented by the government House leader on May 16.

He mentioned that Standing Order 56.1 was used on November 8, 2012, to mandate the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to conduct a study required by section 533.1 of the Criminal Code. He said that this is the same type of motion as the one from March 27, which he therefore believes was also admissible.

The problem with this argument is that its premise is totally flawed. The motions from November 8, 2012, and from March 27, 2014, are two completely different motions achieving different aims, the first one being within the acceptable limits of Standing Order 56.1 but the second one reaching far beyond those limits.

Indeed, the motion from November 8, 2012, is different, because it concerned a mandatory statutory review of an act. Let me quote again from House of Commons Procedure and Practice, which governs us all. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, on page 1002, says:

A number of Canadian statutes contain provisions that require their review by a committee once they have come into effect. ... Depending on the legislation in question, such a review must normally be done by a committee of the House of Commons or of the Senate, or by a joint committee. It is up to the Houses of Parliament to choose the appropriate committee to carry out the review.

I may add that it often happens that acts do not specify which committee is to conduct the statutory review to avoid problems caused by name changes of the committees. Subsection 533.1(1) of the Criminal Code says:

Within three years after this section comes into force, a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this Part shall be undertaken by any committee of the Senate, of the House of Commons or of both Houses of Parliament that may be designated or established by the Senate or the House of Commons, or by both Houses of Parliament, as the case may be, for that purpose.

In the case of the motion moved under Standing Order 56.1 in November 2012, the law already provided for a statutory review from a House committee. The committee needed an order of the House to proceed, as set out in the Criminal Code. This was something the House had to do. It was a routine matter and it fell well within the limits of Standing Order 56.1, which is why we believe that it was right for the Speaker to deem this use of Standing Order 56.1 to be admissible at that time.

The same cannot be said about the motion that was adopted on March 27, which requested PROC, the procedure and House affairs committee, to launch a study without any statutory basis whatsoever. The motion to have PROC launch a study was not a routine matter, since it instructed a committee to launch a substantive new study. It fell well outside the limits of Standing Order 56.1.

In his response to my intervention, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons tried to support his arguments with a ruling made by Deputy Speaker Bill Blaikie on June 5, 2007. He argued that the March 27 ruling reflected Deputy Speaker Blaikie's ruling.

Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons did not read Deputy Speaker Blaikie's ruling in its entirety. If he had, he would know that the motion from March 27 should clearly have been deemed out of order. That is exactly how Deputy Speaker Blaikie ruled on June 5, 2007. He rejected a motion moved under Standing Order 56.1 because the motion went beyond the scope of the Standing Order. His ruling was very clear. I quoted from it when I raised the current point of order.

However, since it seems as though the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons did not understand, I will quote the key components of his ruling again:

A key element in my ruling today is the fundamental precept that standing committees are masters of their own procedure. Indeed, so entrenched is that precept that only in a select few Standing Orders does the House make provision for intervening directly into the conduct of standing committee affairs....

Interestingly, the only reference to committees in the Standing Order is one allowing motions for “the establishing of the powers of its committees”, suggesting that the rule was meant to be used not to reach into the conduct of standing committee affairs to direct them, but rather in a routine manner, to provide them powers they do not already possess. A review of the previous uses of Standing Order 56.1 appears to support this. The only examples dealing with standing committees or standing committee activity the Chair has been able to find have to do with granting standing committees the power to travel. The power to travel is, as all hon. members know, a power standing committees do not possess and so the use of Standing Order 56.1 in that regard falls squarely within the parameters of the rule.

Accordingly, to repeat the words I used when this matter was first raised, the use of Standing Order 56.1 to direct the business of the committee, of any committee, is a new development in the House and one that I find out of order.

I will repeat this last sentence in English so that the government House leader can hear it:

...the use of Standing Order 56.1 to direct the business of the committee, of any committee, is a new development in the House and one that I find out of order.

That is the end of the quote. It could not be more clear.

The government House leader then continued his remarks on this point of order by going to great lengths to point out that Standing Order 56.1 cannot be used for substantive matters, such as passing laws, but can be used for non-substantive affairs, and that the motion moved on March 27 did not concern a substantive matter.

This point may be interesting, but it is irrelevant to the question at hand. The point at hand is that the literature on this issue explicitly prevents the use of Standing Order 56.1 to instruct a committee to conduct a study. Let me quote again from page 672 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, the guide that guides us all. In discussing the use of Standing Order 56.1, it states:

...its use to give a direction to a standing committee of the House has been deemed contrary to the Standing Orders.

This is in line with Deputy Speaker Bill Blaikie's ruling, which I also just quoted.

Therefore, whether or not the motion from March 27 is considered to be a substantive one might be an interesting point, but it is one that is completely moot with regard to the point of order I raised on May 16, which is that the motion should have been deemed inadmissible because House of Commons Procedure and Practice expressly prohibits the use of Standing Order 56.1 to give a direction to a standing committee.

To sum up, with regard to committees, Standing Order 56.1 can be used to allow committees to travel. It can also be used to determine which committee will conduct a statutory review as mandated by an act, as this is a routine matter. Other uses are severely limited by the letter and spirit of Standing Order 56.1.

This is why Standing Order 56.1 cannot be used to give an instruction to a committee. This point is clearly stated in O'Brien and Bosc and was reiterated by Deputy Speaker Blaikie in 2007 when he deemed a motion to be inadmissible because it did just that.

The issue is that the motion of March 27 gave an instruction to a committee and should have been deemed inadmissible by the Chair. This is what I have asked you to rule on. I have also asked for the Chair to give guidance to the House as to how this provision should and should not be used in the future. Otherwise, it is open season on smaller parties in the House.

I look forward to your prompt reply, Mr. Speaker.

[Points of Order, May 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order regarding the usage of Standing Order 56.1. As you know, Mr. Speaker, on March 27, under Standing Order 56.1, the government passed a motion ordering the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to study allegations of inappropriate use of House of Commons resources, allegations that were found, after less than two hours of questions yesterday at the committee, to be baseless, as it turns out.

I believe that the motion in question was incorrectly accepted by the Chair in the heat of the moment as being in order. I will be asking that the Chair spell out the limits of Standing Order 56.1 for the sake of clarity in the future. The reason this is so important is to prevent the abuse of an extraordinarily powerful tool for the government, which it must be said already has a disproportionate number of procedural levers at its disposal.

To oppose such a tactic, 25 members must rise to prevent the motions from being imposed without notice or debate.

The number of 25 MPs may seem reasonable at first glance. However, when you consider that the third, fourth and fifth parties sometimes have 20, 15 or 10 members—or, as we saw this morning, 4 or 5 members—in the House, and that small political parties have just two, three or four members, if we leave Standing Order 56.1 as it is, the government can instruct the committees to do whatever it wants. We know that that could cause a lot of problems for the future in the House.

It is becoming ever more clear that following the next election, if the Conservative Party continues the way it is going, it may have difficulty getting the 25 members in the House in the next Parliament that would allow it to stop this procedural strategy.

Regardless of the specifics, I believe it is crucial to underline that this rule was always meant to be used for the more mundane daily routine business of the House and not as a way to circumvent the democratic process, which is meant to be followed by substantive matters. While the rules surrounding the use of Standing Order 56.1 have often been the subject of difficult rulings from the Chair, I believe the motion of March 27 should have been deemed to be out of order.

I will ask the Chair to clarify, with the obvious benefit of hindsight, whether or not this motion was admissible, and will also seek your guidance as to what should be done in the future when members of this place are faced with a similar situation. As the Chair knows, as part of the study the committee was ordered to conduct by the motion of March 27, the hon. Leader of the Opposition appeared as a witness before PROC yesterday for nearly two hours, until the chair basically said that all the questions had been answered and called a premature end to the committee.

As I am sure the Chair is also aware, the opposition leader clearly explained to the members of the Conservative Party and the Liberal members on PROC, that the NDP satellite offices were set up in consultation with and approval from the House of Commons and that the NDP was proud to be working outside of the Ottawa bubble to reach out to Canadians in the communities where they work and live.

My issue is not with the fact that PROC considered the matter of these satellite offices, which I actually believe provided the official opposition and the leader of the official opposition a wonderful opportunity to clarify the facts of the matter, not to mention it also provided a wonderful sneak preview of what it might look like to have a prime minister who actually would be willing to, and capable of, answering tough questions.

It is not the political issue I am talking about; my issue is procedural and concerns the use of Standing Order 56.1 on matters for which it was never intended.

Let me read what Standing Order 56.1 (1) says specifically, for your review, Mr. Speaker. It states:

(a) In relation to any routine motion for the presentation of which unanimous consent is required and has been denied, a Minister of the Crown may request during Routine Proceedings that the Speaker propose the said question to the House.

(b) For the purposes of this Standing Order, "routine motion" shall be understood to mean any motion, made upon Routine Proceedings, which may be required for the observance of the proprieties of the House, the maintenance of its authority, the management of its business, the arrangement of its proceedings, the establishing of the powers of its committees, the correctness of its records or the fixing of its sitting days or the times of its meeting or adjournment.

When Standing Order 56.1 was created, the members tried to set some limits, as set out above. Unfortunately, a lot of things were left unsaid in Standing Order 56.1, which explains how the kind of motion that could be acceptable under this Standing Order has been the subject of a point of order on a number of occasions.

Nevertheless, what is written in Standing Order 56.1 is very clear. I would like to draw the attention of the House to the only part of that Standing Order that has to do with committees. It clearly states that only motions to establish the powers of its committees are in order. This means that this Standing Order could be used to authorize committees to travel, for example, which has been done in the past.

However, Standing Order 56.1 makes it clear that giving an instruction to a committee does not fall within the limits of this Standing Order. Therefore, the Minister of Labour's motion must be ruled out of order by the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, on page 672, of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, by O'Brien and Bosc, which you know backward and forward, we can read the following, “...its use...to give a direction to a standing committee of the House has been deemed contrary to the Standing Orders”.

Indeed, there has been only one other time when Standing Order 56.1 was used in this matter, and the Speaker at the time ruled the motion to be out of order.

On May 31, 2007, the government House leader moved the following motion under Standing Order 56.1:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practices of the House, when the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development convenes a meeting, it shall not be adjourned or suspended until it completes the committee stage of Bill C-44, except pursuant to a motion by a parliamentary secretary and, provided the bill is adopted by the committee, agrees to report the bill to the House within two sitting days following the completion of the committee stage.

With less than 25 members having risen to oppose the motion, it was adopted. However, the member for Wascana, realizing the mistake of the Chair, then rose on a point of order asking that the Chair deem the motion to be inadmissible. The Chair immediately ruled the motion to be out of order and said:

I think that use of Standing Order 56.1 to direct the business of the committee, of any committee, is a new development in the House and one that I find out of order.

He added to his ruling, on June 5, 2007:

A key element in my ruling today is the fundamental precept that standing committees are masters of their own procedure. Indeed, so entrenched is that precept that only in a select few Standing Orders does the House make provision for intervening directly into the conduct of standing committee affairs.

He added at that time:

...the only reference to committees in the Standing Order is one allowing motions for “the establishing of the powers of its committees”, suggesting that the rule was meant to be used not to reach into the conduct of standing committee affairs to direct them, but rather in a routine manner, to provide them powers they do not already possess.[...] The only examples dealing with standing committees or standing committee activity the Chair has been able to find have to do with granting standing committees the power to travel. [...] the use of Standing Order 56.1 in that regard falls squarely within the parameters of the rule.

Outside of these very specific and very clear cases, Speakers of the House have occasionally had to rule on the use of Standing Order 56.1.

In 1991, in response to concerns raised when Standing Order 56.1 was adopted, Speaker Fraser provided the following clarification:

...this "over-ride" provision can operate, as the Chair understands it, only with respect to a certain very limited range of motions offered at a specific time in our daily agenda by a minister of the Crown....

On September 18, 2001, Speaker Milliken also pointed out that:

It should be emphasized that at the time of its adoption it was envisioned that the standing order would be used for only so-called routine motions as defined in Standing Order 56.1(1)(b).

I could provide more examples, but I do not want to go on about this any longer because I think that this case is very clear. With respect to committees, Standing Order 56.1 can be used only to give them powers they do not already have, such as the power to travel. The use of Standing Order 56.1 to direct a committee to study a particular subject or to hear certain witnesses is definitely outside the scope of Standing Order 56.1. Consequently, the Chair should have indicated that the motion was not in order.

The motion moved by the Minister of Status of Women on March 27 represents a new use of Standing Order 56.1, one that does not respect practice or rulings of previous Speakers on this order. The government had a normal mechanism for asking a committee for a study. The mechanism that we have for this is to table a motion and, following the normal notice period, call it for debate and a decision from the House. There was nothing preventing the government from proceeding in this way. There were no extraordinary circumstances justifying the use of the extreme measure of Standing Order 56.1 in a way for which it was never intended.

I must say that I worry. I am noticing a trend with the current government, which tends to completely disregard the spirit of the practices and procedures that guide our work here in the House of Commons. Of course, we would all like the procedure and House affairs committee to proactively review and clarify the standing order in question, but, as members know, the committee has been very busy fulfilling the order of the House as part of a kangaroo court routine.

This use of Standing Order 56.1 cannot be allowed to stand without clarification from the Chair. Our party will have 25 members from here to the election, but for the smaller parties in this Parliament that do not have 25 members who can stand, and for the Conservative Party in future Parliaments, which will not have 25 members to stand, the precedent would put all of those MPs at risk of further abuse by majority governments like this one that have lost all reverence for this institution and its foundational importance to our democracy.

In conclusion, I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to reflect on the Chair's decision to allow the government's motion of March 27 to be presented pursuant to Standing Order 56.1, and to also provide any further guidance to the House as to how this provision should and should not be used in the future.

[Privilege, May 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as you have ruled on a number of occasions, when we have had serious differences of opinion with the government's often flamboyant misuse of facts, the reality is you have judged in the past that the Conservative government has had the right to throw whatever facts they want out. Often they are unable to back them up.

In the case of The Hill Times article, the member for Kitchener Centre:

....had to repay the Commons for $326 worth of telephone and printing services he used for his own election campaign that year, Elections Canada records show.

That is what the article indicates, and nothing that the member for Scarborough Southwest has said contradicts those facts. There may be a difference of opinion, but the reality is the Elections Canada records are pretty clear. The member for Kitchener Centre is protesting just a bit too much.

[Privilege, May 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, The Hill Times article came out after the meeting yesterday. I am going to quote from that article. It stated that the Conservative member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre—

[Employment, May 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is quite clear that this program is in crisis because of Conservative mismanagement.

We have heard stories of temporary foreign workers whose wages are heavily docked or withheld altogether, like indentured servants in the 19th century. We have heard stories of temporary foreign workers facing egregious working conditions and even threatened with deportation.

This minister has shown gross incompetence. Will the minister agree to a complete audit? Will he work to include a formal path to citizenship for those brought in under this program?

[Employment, May 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, “some” complaints?

The reality is that Conservative changes have made this program worse and more open to abuse. That is the record of the government.

Too many Canadians are seeing their jobs taken away and too many temporary foreign workers are facing mistreatment and abuse. These issues are national and they are program-wide. The minister's failure to fix the program earlier has left it wide open to these abuses. Canadians know that they just cannot trust Conservatives.

Why will the minister not agree to an independent review of his gross mismanagement of this program?

[Business of the House, May 15th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we were able to see today how question period will unfold when we form the government in 2015. The question and answer period in committee lasted almost two hours with the leader of the official opposition answering the questions properly.

However, it did not last two full hours, because the Conservative chair shut down the committee saying that the leader of the official opposition had answered all the questions. I think Canadians would rather have a government that answers the questions and is ready for them.

This Thursday, I have two questions. For weeks, we have been asking the Prime Minister to come to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to explain his involvement in the controversial database and robocall scandals.

I now hope that the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons will say that the Prime Minister will finally come to answer the questions. He does not need to come for two hours. I know that the Conservatives get tired after 40 or 45 minutes. However, it would be nice if he at least came to answer the questions in committee.

I hope he will answer my last question in perfect French. Will he join the NDP caucus in wishing the Canadiens hockey team good luck in their next round of playoffs? Will he join us in saying, “Go Habs, go”?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 14th, 2014]

With regard to government studies of Canada's oil and gas sector and renewable energy: for each study from 2006 to the present, what is (i) the title, (ii) the date of release, (iii) the cost, (iv) name of outside firms hired, (v) names of consultants hired?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 14th, 2014]

With regard to the tax revenues that the government receives from the oil and gas industry (“the industry“), from 2006 to the most recent figures available: (a) broken down by fiscal year, what is the total amount of the government's corporate income tax revenue received from the industry; and (b) what is the total amount of the government's royalty tax revenues from the industry?