Access to Information  Mr. Speaker, I think that member would have a lot to teach all of the opposition about the issue of free votes. In fact, he was not allowed to express the will of his constituents on the subject of the long gun registry. Similarly, the Liberal Party banned its members from having

Access to Information  Mr. Speaker, they will actually have to come a day early to rehearse how to practise a free vote. The NDP never has free votes. In fact, The Globe and Mail did an extensive study behind the nearly 162,000 votes cast in this place. It found that not a single member of the NDP cast

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, as this letter from the independent, non-partisan Privy Council Office indicates, the Prime Minister's Office just learned of the continued existence of these emails. As soon as it did so, the Prime Minister said that the information should be shared with the RCMP an

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, I have here the letter that was provided by the Privy Council. I have quoted from it, and I will do so again: We regret that we previously failed, even if inadvertently, to accurately inform you and the PMO about the availability of Mr. Perrin's emails. We apologize

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, no.

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, let me quote from the letter the Privy Council Office wrote to Assistant Commissioner Michaud: In September 2013, in connection with your investigation, the PMO asked the PCO to make available to the RCMP the emails of certain individuals requested by the RCMP. That

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, I am neither a litigator nor a litigant, so I cannot answer that question. What I can tell him is that the Prime Minister's Office had indicated to the PCO that it should transmit all emails requested by the national police force. In this letter, the chronicle of t

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, the hon. member would have the explanation he is looking for if he had merely read the letter the PCO published. It says here: It is the operating protocol of the [Privy Council Office] to close and delete email accounts of departing employees of the PCO and the P

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, the member's question is, once again, counter-factual. Allow me to quote directly from the RCMP's “Information to Obtain” document, which said that: ...[the] legal representative for the PMO, advised my office that he had clear orders from the Prime Minister to prov

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, the operative word is “read”. That is the verb the member should employ with regard to this letter, which says: On November 28, 2013, the PMO relayed the request to the PCO to confirm our prior advice on the availability of Mr. Perrin's emails. In response to this i

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, it has been great to have been missed by my friends across the floor, but I am not sure it will last more than 30 seconds. The Prime Minister is the most democratic in Canadian history. Let me state the facts. This is the first prime minister to reinstate the pract

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, first, I congratulate both Premier Wall and that member for raising a very important issue. Canadians have waited almost a century and a half for the Senate to change. Unfortunately, it has been frozen in time since Confederation. We continue to believe that the pre

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, the NDP does not want to abolish the Senate. The reason we know it does not want to abolish the Senate is that we will be arguing for reform or abolition before the Supreme Court in just a couple of weeks. Does the House know who is not even showing up to make any ar

Elections Canada  Investigate, Mr. Speaker. Under the present law, the Commissioner of Canada Elections has the power to investigate whether anyone has used loans to circumvent donation limits, a clear offence under section 497 of the existing Canada Elections Act. Elections Canada is right to po

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, our position on the Senate is clear. Not only must Senate expenses be made responsible through 12 tough new rules, not only must the Auditor General have access to all the information on those expenses and a wide-ranging investigation, but the Senate itself must be r