Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to speak to this very important issue. A few of my colleagues have already spoken about it, but I wanted to add a few interesting facts and mention a few resources I checked before rising to speak, with the little time I had to prepare.
The suspension of a member, one of our colleagues, is an extremely important matter, because we all work together and we all do the same job. We will have to decide on the suspension of the member for Peterborough, something that is not to be taken lightly. Nor should we demonstrate blind partisanship, as they seem to have done on the other side by asking us questions that seemed inclined towards partisanship. If we were in the position of the member for Peterborough, I do not think we would like to see our colleagues engaging in hyper-partisanship when deciding on a member’s future.
Let us review the precedents, because members have been expelled in the past, and elections have been contested. We have to know how that happened, what powers the House has, and what are the various provisions of the Canada Elections Act that give us specific powers.
Four members have been expelled since Confederation. Louis Riel was expelled twice, in 1874 and 1875. At the time, no judge had passed judgment on him, and he was expelled. Following his expulsion, he ran again in a by-election, and won. He was then expelled a second time. There was also Mr. Rose, in 1947, and Mr. McGreevy, the member for Quebec West, in 1991.
It is only since 1873 that the courts have been responsible for considering issues surrounding offences under the Canada Elections Act, and handing down decisions.
Before 1873, it was the House of Commons, through various committees, that debated the evidence in order to determine whether a member had or had not contravened the Elections Act.
In 1873 the courts became responsible for deciding whether a member has breached the Canada Elections Act. Since then, it is the House that considers the issue, and has to take action through various mechanisms once a court has convicted a member of an offence under the Canada Elections Act.
In support of what I am saying, I would like to mention a book that is most helpful: O'Brien and Bosc. The expulsion of members is discussed on page 244:
Once a person is elected to the House of Commons, there are no constitutional provisions and few statutory provisions for removal of that Member from office. The statutory provisions rendering a Member ineligible to sit or vote do not automatically cause the seat of that Member to become vacant.
I would now like to quote the second edition of Maingot, which clarifies the question that my Liberal colleague has had since this sitting began and which pertains to subsection 503(3) of the Canada Elections Act. It reads as follows:
...the Canada Elections Act...stipulates that a person who has been found guilty of an illegal or corrupt practice cannot be elected to or sit and vote in the House of Commons. Similarly, the Criminal Code...provides that a Member convicted of an indictable offence, for which the sentence is two or more years of imprisonment, may not be elected to or sit or vote in the House.
The last sentence is the most important. It says:
Nonetheless, neither statute contains provisions declaring the Member’s seat vacant.
The following can be found on page 245 of O'Brien and Bosc:
By virtue of parliamentary privilege, only the House has the inherent right to decide matters affecting its own membership. Indeed, the House decides for itself if a Member should be permitted to sit on committees, receive a salary or even be allowed to keep his or her seat...The power of the House to expel one of its Members is derived from its traditional authority to determine whether a Member is qualified to sit. A criminal conviction is not necessary for the House to expel a Member; the House may judge a Member unworthy to sit in the Chamber for any conduct unbecoming the character of a Member.
It is not necessary for the individual to be convicted. The House of Commons is fully responsible for determining the future of members and sanctions in the case of misconduct.
I want to get back to Speaker Lamoureux's ruling on March 1, 1966. He confirmed that the House was responsible for ruling on these issues. The validity of the votes cast by Mr. Berger, from Montmagny—L'Islet, had been called into question on three occasions, because they had taken place before the date on which his election expenses were due to be submitted. After having heard from members, the Chair reserved his decision, since the matter at issue was to determine whether it was up to the Chair to rule on a member's right to sit and to vote. The Chair ruled that it was up to the House to rule on the member's rights.
He confirmed that it was up to the House to decide whether a member had the right to sit and vote in the House, and said that the votes in which the member voted when he was not eligible would be struck off the journals, which is not the case here. However, it is important to consider and review what happened when these types of issues came up in the past. This is not the first time this has happened. It is important to put the precedents in context.
I would also like to quote an important passage I found in Maingot, second edition, on pages 187 and 188 of the English version. It is a few paragraphs long, but they are important. I quote:
This right...also includes the right to determine whether Members of the House of Commons are qualified to sit and vote...though not the right to determine whether they are duly elected. In 1950, the U.K. House referred the case of MacManaway, a priest of the Church of Ireland, to committee to determine whether he was disqualified by the House of Commons (Clergy Disqualification Act, 1801). The committee was unable to reach a decision, and the matter was referred to the Judicial Committee....The House agreed with this report on October 19, 1950, and on November 8, 1950, thereupon ordered a warrant to be addressed to issue a new writ.
This was at a time when the U.K. House of Commons, and not the courts, were still responsible for ruling on cases of election fraud. The passage continues:
The Canada Elections Act provides for the election of the Member, but when duly elected, the House alone is the body to determine whether a Member shall remain a Member. Thus, although a Member may be convicted of something as serious as a treason-related offence, or even sentenced to five years or more upon conviction of any indictable offence, a formal resolution of the House is still required to formally unseat him, at which moment the Speaker may not yet address his warrant for the issue of a writ for the election of a Member to fill the vacancy without an order of the House of Commons to that effect.
All of that is about expulsion, although today's motion talks about a suspension. We are not quite at that point yet. In this case, the Speaker would have to address his warrant for the issue of a writ for the election of a member, but that is not the subject of this motion. As a few members have already pointed out, the legal proceedings involving the member for Peterborough are not over. I therefore support the motion, because we believe that suspending him is the appropriate action to take at this stage of our deliberations.
This continues in the second edition of the work by Maingot:
A fortiori, conviction for a less serious offence is not an assurance that the Member will be unseated. It still remains the decision of the House itself and it is probable that, before the House expels a Member, all avenues of appeal will have been exhausted and the crime of which the Member was convicted will be one involving serious moral turpitude.
This goes to show, once again, that texts, resources or precedents have already been produced or established on these issues.
As parliamentarians, it is important to talk about our responsibility and to weigh these matters, given their importance.
In O'Brien and Bosc, page 193, we find the following:
An election may be contested if there are allegations that irregularities affected the outcome of the election in a particular riding or if there are grounds to believe a candidate was not eligible to seek election.
O'Brien and Bosc also states:
In 1873, the House transferred to the provincial courts exclusive jurisdiction over matters relating to the election of its Members.
I may be repeating myself. I did not have a lot of time to prepare.
I just wanted to share all these precedents, given the important decision we are being asked to make today, one that will have consequences on the future of one of our colleagues.
I will be pleased to answer any questions my colleagues might have.
