Scott Reid

[Privilege, March 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a matter of privilege regarding something that has been in the news the last little while.

Two members of this House, the hon. member for Ajax—Pickering and the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, two days ago took several boxes of documents that they purport to have found in drawers and filing cabinets in what were formerly the Conservative offices, then the opposition offices, and have gone through them and have found and retained what they say are documents that may be of interest to the public for future release. I can quote from their press release as to exactly what they call these documents.

At any rate, they returned a number of the documents, including personnel files. With regard to retaining them, the hon. member for Ajax—Pickering said that “the Liberal caucus is retaining possession of some of the documents to determine whether or not they contain other issues that are in the public interest”. This is implying that they have gone through these files in sufficient detail to set aside some for further examination.

In addition, the hon. member for Ajax—Pickering said:

Today we're returning five years worth of personal performance appraisals of Conservative staffers that this government negligently left behind.

These are confidential documents on their own staff. Such gross ineptitude makes me nervous about how this government handles other issues of a private nature.

The documents then were boxed up and shipped down the street to the Langevin Building and the Prime Minister's Office.

The reason I rise on this is that, first of all, one of the members of the staff--and I believe there were about 30 members of the then opposition leader's staff whose personnel files were taken--of the then leader of the opposition, and before that of what was then the third party, the Reform Party, was myself. It seems reasonable to assume that further assurance is needed, more than simply the word of these two MPs, that these files have been returned unopened, unexamined and were not looked at and that none of them have been distributed or shown in any way.

I mention this in particular because some of what has been said by these hon. members in connection with this case appears, perhaps, to be at variance with the truth. I draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, a number of indications of this.

First of all, there are the boxes. One of them contained an address label and this is clearly visible on TV footage of the boxes being transported down Wellington Street. The address label contains in the “from” area, “145 Well”, or in other words, Room 145 or Suite 145, Wellington. I remember this well, of course, because I worked there for a period of time. Second, visible is “320-3”, with no building indicated. That is the address of the Conservative research group on the third floor of the Wellington Building, not the building to which they were being transported.

Therefore, it is highly improbable that this sticker was attached by Liberal researchers or staff. Rather, it was probably a pre-existing label. That suggests that these documents were not in fact found in locked or unlocked drawers, cabinets and so on, but rather were actually in these boxes from the very start. That is one thing.

The second thing is that I have consulted with the individual at the Prime Minister's Office who now has possession of the boxes. It is reported to me that on the sides of the boxes, or at least on one of the boxes or perhaps several of them, are the words “Conservative files for Kev”. This is a possible reference to Kevin Bosch, the lead opposition researcher who has devoted many years of his career to doing opposition research with the intention of digging up documentation that might be damaging to the parties he is opposed to. So that certainly, particularly for the Conservative Party, is a matter for concern.

This puts into question the assertion that there was gross negligence on the part of the government in leaving these documents behind. It suggests, rather, that the documents were in fact boxed up to be shipped. We do not know why they were not shipped but presumably they fell into the hands of the opposition leader's office and staff a little more than a year ago at the time that the offices were being changed.

This means that if there is negligence, in that nobody noticed they were there, then that negligence would actually fall on the Leader of the Opposition and his staff. On the other hand, there is another possibility that these documents were retained with the intention of pulling out documents that were found to be potentially embarrassing and leaking them over a period of time as we get close to an election, or even in a writ campaign, and that would seem to be a robust hypothesis given the fact that certain documents were leaked and we were told that others are being saved for future consideration.

My concern in this matter of privilege is that it is difficult for me as a member of Parliament to carry out my functions as a member of Parliament when the only assurance I have that my documentation has not been treated in such a manner is the assurance of a member of Parliament whose recount of what has happened appears on some particulars to be at variance with the facts. This as well may constitute a contempt of Parliament on the part of that member.

At the very least, I would think it would be necessary to have proactive statements confirming that the personnel documents, and my personal document in particular, were treated with extreme respect and some demonstration be made of that from the hon. member for Ajax—Pickering and the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine who certainly were the ones who showed the folders to the press two days ago, as well as from the hon. Leader of the Opposition and his predecessor, the interim opposition leader in whose office these documents were kept and whose staff must have had them in their possession prior to the time at which these two hon. members drew them to the attention of the media, first selectively, and then as they returned the documents.

I note in this regard that Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada on page 163 states:

That any act within the precincts of Parliament could constitute a matter of privilege.

He defines the precinct as the various parliamentary buildings, including the building,

--that was known, formerly the Metropolitan Life building which is now referred to as the Wellington building.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, the Wellington building is the building in which the events I have described took place and where the Leader of the Opposition's office is found and where my file was.

Maingot also points out on page 229,

Contempt is whatever a House finds as contempt

He cites Erskine May's definition:

Any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his “parliamentary” duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly to produce such results may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence.

An example of a ruling on a new contempt of Parliament, can be found on March 12, 1996, when the Speaker found a prima facie question of privilege when it was found that a member acted inappropriately after he sent out a press release inviting Quebeckers still serving in the Canadian Forces to integrate into a Quebec armed forces in the event of a yes outcome following the Quebec referendum.

While it is certainly true that the case of the members I mentioned are not identical to the 1996 case, one could argue that their actions are just inappropriate, that they destroy the atmosphere of trust and honour that are necessary to act effectively as a House and that they, therefore, are in contempt of Parliament, that it certainly is a breach of my privileges and is worthy of examination by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, if you find that there is a prima facie case of privilege, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion.

[Zimbabwe, March 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, Zimbabwe's opposition MPs face the constant threat of physical abuse, beatings or even death at the hands of the police and the gangs used by Robert Mugabe's regime to carry out its dirty work. To protect these MPs, many have been twinned with legislators from other countries.

Sometimes twinning works and sometimes it does not. Several years ago I was twinned with an opposition MP named David Mpala. He was beaten to death by thugs who were never prosecuted.

So I was paired again with a brave young opposition spokesman named Nelson Chamisa. Two weeks ago, he and dozens of others were attacked by police while conducting a peaceful demonstration. And then last Saturday, as Nelson was preparing to fly to Brussels to report on this latest round of abuse, he was beaten by eight thugs in the parking lot of Harare airport.

Today Nelson is hospitalized with a fractured skull, a detached retina and possible kidney damage. As usual, the assailants have vanished without a trace. It is time for the entire civilized world to hold Robert Mugabe personally accountable for his regime's reign of terror.

[Hershey Company, February 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Hershey Company announced that it would be closing its plant in Smiths Falls.

It is hard to overstate the impact of this decision. Five hundred factory jobs will be lost. A market for 1,000 litres of Ontario milk every day will vanish. The Hershey chocolate shop, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, will no longer draw tourists.

But these are not the only reasons why I today call on Hershey to reverse its decision.

The decision is a spinoff of what the company calls a global supply chain transformation, a process which, by its nature, tends to miss out on local profit centres. While no one can deny that wages in Mexico may be lower than in Smiths Falls, it is equally clear that some things cannot be globalized.

The decision makers in Pennsylvania may simply be overlooking the high quality of Canadian milk, which will be difficult to duplicate abroad. And shutting down the hugely profitable chocolate shop makes no sense, since it caters to a domestic market.

In years past, Milton Hershey understood the link between community and profit. I call upon his successors to live up to his example.

[Electoral Reform, February 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the gist of my presentation today will be to point out that in view of the very aggressive set of initiatives already introduced by the government on the subject of electoral democratic reform, both in this chamber and for application to the upper House, the motion by the hon. member for Vancouver Island North is effectively redundant.

I want to start my comments by pointing out that the government in its throne speech indicated that it was going to focus intensively on the challenges faced by Canada's electoral and democratic systems. This was done in part in response to the 43rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in the last Parliament.

Seeing as the New Democrats are talking about the report of this committee as if it is holy writ or, indeed, brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses, I note that in fact it was not; it was brought down by a group of us, including me.

Let me just read for members what the report said, because it does not say quite what the New Democrats represent it as saying. It states that a “citizens' consultation group”, along with the parliamentary committee, should:

--make recommendations on the values and principles Canadians would like to see in their democratic and electoral systems...[this] would take into account an examination of the role of Members of Parliament and political parties; citizen engagement and rates of voter participation, including youth and aboriginal communities; civic literacy; how to foster a more representative House of Commons, including, but not limited to, increased representation of women and minorities, and questions of proportionality, community of interest and representation;....

Some of this is being taken care of through the citizens' consultation process that is currently under way, as the government has announced, and which has a much broader mandate than what the hon. member is proposing in her motion, but it is a mandate that reflects accurately what was proposed by this committee when it made its report in June 2005.

Indeed, we have made sure that the consultation group reflects what the committee wanted. At the time when I sat on that committee, I was not a fan of that process, but Ed Broadbent, who is constantly cited in the NDP's arguments, spoke in favour of that particular type of process. I said that we would have the usual suspects showing up at this process, and he said, “Sure, it will be the usual suspects, but they have a lot to say, and it is a good process”. The committee voted for it and the government is following through on the recommendations of the committee.

Now the New Democrats have discovered that they really favour another proposal, the citizens' assembly proposal, which Mr. Broadbent fought against vigorously when it was brought up by the Conservatives and which is why the Conservatives put a dissenting report advocating that proposal into the 43rd report of the procedure and House affairs committee. Thus, when the NDP members refer back to this through a revisionist version of history, we must recall that it is a little bit different from the way it actually worked when it happened.

I now want to list some of the legislative initiatives that the government has moved forward with on the subject of democratic reform, because this is really an extraordinary push forward. We are doing more on this issue than any previous government has ever done.

I will start by pointing to the Federal Accountability Act, which changed the rules for financing. It made them much more restrictive, eliminating corporate and union donations and reducing individual donations to $1,000 per capita, ensuring, in other words, that money and affluence are not the determining factors in financing political parties, and therefore ensuring that parties can operate on a level playing field.

We have moved forward on a number of items that deal with making the electoral system fairer, such as Bill C-31 to get rid of electoral fraud, a bill that the NDP opposes although all other parties in the House support it. It is a bill that will do a great deal to make the system much fairer and will ensure that no Canadian is disenfranchised, because electoral fraud disenfranchises everyone who is affected by a vote outcome that can be determined fraudulently, and that is a real problem.

The increased electoral fairness through Bill C-16, which is now in the Senate, having been passed by the House, will ensure that elections occur once every four years, not when the Prime Minister chooses to call them based upon whether his or her party is high in the polls. That was a terrible wrong. It was abused by the previous government repeatedly. This initiative will ensure that it is not abused again. This follows, of course, a series of legislative initiatives adopted at the provincial level, first in British Columbia and then in Ontario, to ensure that provincial elections are also on fixed four year dates.

We have also moved forward on Senate reform. Bill S-4 limits the tenure of senators to eight years. We are having a tremendous problem getting that bill through the Liberal controlled Senate. The government has initiated this bill. It makes sense. It is going to ensure that senators are not effectively appointed for life. Frankly, this is the first time we have seen any serious attempt at Senate reform in the history of this country.

Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate, would allow for elections of senators. They are called consultative elections because we have to respect the constitutional prerogative of the Governor General to appoint senators.

That bill is interesting not only because it would allow for democracy to finally reach into the Senate and elections to occur within the Senate, but elections under this legislation would not be by means of the first past the post system. Rather elections would be by a single transferable vote system, in short, a proportional system that attempts to ensure that broader preferences come forward and are represented in choosing a senator. It would have the same effect in the Senate as what occurs in the Australian senate, for example, which uses a similar system where a broader range of preferences is expressed. This is a tremendous step forward.

I find it interesting that when talking about proportional representation the New Democrats always take great pains to avoid talking about the one piece of electoral reform legislation that is actually before the House right now, the attempt to introduce proportional representation in the upper house of Canada. In listening to the New Democrats talk about this, one would think there is nothing going on there at all and that it is not worth discussing.

Focusing on something that can happen right now in this Parliament is very important. The issue came up when the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London introduced a motion in the procedure and House affairs committee last week asking that the committee consider a variety of democratic and electoral reform issues, including the issue of proportional representation in the upper house. The New Democrats on the committee voted against it. They ensured that the motion would be defeated.

I do not detect a pattern of behaviour that is logical and actually beneficial toward moving forward on the democratic reform file. The New Democrats are trying to focus on a single hobby horse in a way that suits their interests best.

I find it interesting that Ed Broadbent advocated the idea of electoral reform. During the election campaign when the New Democrats released their election platform, that party moved from favouring more proportional representation as a general theme and letting Canadians look for the best solution, to directly choosing the solution that would be given to Canadians, the multi-member proportional system.

That system has some merits. That system is used in Germany and New Zealand, both of which are respectable democracies, but it not the only available proportional system. For example, it is not the system used in Australia's upper house, which is proportional. It is not used in Malta or Ireland. All of those countries have a single transferable vote system. It is also not the system used in Australia's lower house which uses the alternative vote system. It is not the only proportional system, but it was the only one that the NDP wanted to advocate.

The New Democrats were actually advocating it. They were saying it was essential to move from our system to that system when the MMP system, the multi-member proportional system, had just been defeated in P.E.I., where it received less than 40% of the vote, and an alternative system, the single transferable vote proportional system, had been adopted by almost 60% of British Columbians in another referendum.

We have to be careful. When we look at what the New Democrats are proposing we have to ask ourselves, do they favour proportional representation? Do they favour changing the electoral system in a way that reflects what Canadians want, which means maybe not choosing that system up front, or do they favour the system that is likely to produce the best result in terms of numbers of seats for New Democrats if their vote total does not change? In other words, the NDP is saying, “Without actually changing our appeal to the Canadian people, how can we get more seats in the House of Commons?”

That is not a beneficial approach. We have to work on allowing Canadians to make these decisions themselves.

[Electoral Reform, February 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in her motion, the hon. member for Vancouver Island North states that there would be “a maximum length for speeches by members of the special committee of 10 minutes on any single item”. It may make sense, but I am puzzled by it is. I am not sure what that means, given that the special committee will be needing nationwide reporting back in more than a year from now. What is the point of this particular item that just seems out of place in this motion?

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, we could dispute the prominence of this particular amendment. It came out of questions I asked to the Chief Electoral Officer. I asked him specifically to point these things out. We all agreed on it and that is the main thing. I will deal with homeless people in a second.

The member raised the point about aboriginal people and I did deal with their ability to vote. In response to an earlier question, I pointed out that Liberal members proposed, and we all accepted, an amendment which would ensure that a wider variety of identification could be used for aboriginal people in order to ensure they are able to identify themselves while still ensuring the proper security is in place and people know their franchise is secure.

The questions dealing with people presenting themselves on election day is one that is best dealt with by a non-legislative means. The Chief Electoral Officer could put extra effort into ensuring that greater enumeration is done in these areas and more resources be devoted to the areas that have a high turnover in population. That would be true both during the period of enumeration during the election and I would think on election day itself. That would have a profound impact. That is an administrative nature and was raised in committee. A number of members asked the Chief Electoral Officer and he indicated his good will.

When the new candidate for Chief Electoral Officer is before committee next week I think we will have the opportunity to ask him what he would do to ensure that maximum coverage takes place and as many Canadians are fully enfranchised on the list, and the voting process is made as smooth as possible.

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, Gladstone said that if he was asked to give a speech on a week's notice he could do a 10 minute speech; if he was given a day's notice it would take him an hour.

I have had lots of time to prepare my answer to this question, so I can be brief. The member asked me specifically about problems relating to homeless people and their ability to vote under the new law. I think he is right to have concerns about it.

That is why at committee I proposed an amendment to the bill which was accepted by the committee and is now in the context of the law. It will ensure greater access to voting and to being on the voters list for people who are potentially unable themselves to put themselves on the voters list.

This is of course of great importance not only to homeless people but also to people who may be off at work when the enumerators come by to record who is living at a new address, perhaps in a new subdivision where no one lived a year before.

We have amended subsection 101(1) of the act. That subsection deals with who can be placed on the list by a revising agent coming to the door. Subsection 101(1) as amended will read as follows:

The returning officer or assistant returning officer may add the name of any elector to the preliminary list of electors if--

And this is the part we have added:

--the elector, or another elector who lives at the same residence as the elector, at their residence and in the presence of the revising agents completes the prescribed registration form and takes the prescribed oath.

That means individuals can get onto the list without having to have ID themselves or even being present, as long as another person residing at the same residence is there at the residence when the revising agents come by.

I should mention in this context that this was something the Chief Electoral Officer actually asked for in order to ensure that we had cast it as widely as possible. I think it was a very positive change. I am sure now that we have refreshed his memory, that the hon. member will recall that important change which will enfranchise so many Canadians in a way that does not exist at present.

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I would like to ask about how much time I had initially now that we are continuing on as if I had the full amount. Was it 10 minutes or is it 20?

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by restructuring my arguments in the right sort of way.

I want to begin by dealing with the very last comment the hon. member for Vancouver Island North made regarding aboriginal people and concerns about the identification they would be able to use at the polls. This issue came up in committee and I felt it was dealt with very effectively. It was in a spirit of multi-partisan cooperation that we dealt with this.

The committee amended the bill as it is before the House. It was actually a Liberal proposal submitted to committee. I spoke to it and we adopted the proposal dealing with identification.

Under the provisions of Bill C-31, we need to have either one piece of identification with our photograph, name and address in order to vote, or we need two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer. I am reading from the bill, “each of which establish the elector’s name and at least one of which establishes the elector’s address”.

This was an amendment I had proposed going from two pieces of ID with an address and name to just one with an address. It ensures that a number of commonly used pieces of identification that do not have the address but that have a very high degree of certainty such as passports, bus passes, student cards, and items that are out there in great number and not likely to be fraudulently produced because the issuing authorities have very strong incentives for reasons of their own to prevent people from coming up with fraudulent bus passes, for example.

This allows a wider range of people to vote, particularly those with a lower income and who do not have drivers licenses or students who move frequently and therefore unlikely to have identification with their address.

The amendment that had been moved by one of the Liberal members on committee says:

--a document issued by the Government of Canada that certifies that a person is registered as an Indian under the Indian Act constitutes an authorized piece of identification.

This would be one of those two pieces of identification required to be produced at the polls.

A special effort was made to ensure that aboriginal people who have some particular difficulties, given the fact that many of them live on reserve and do not have some of the ID other people would often have such as passports, bus passes, student cards, or driver's licences, would still be able to have an ID and go to the polls to vote.

I have a great deal that I would like to talk about, but I am going to have difficulty doing it in the allowed time. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 26.(1), I move:

That the House continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the purpose of considering Bill C-31.

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering about my time.