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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 316

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 23, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 316 - May/23/24
Mr. Jean-Denis Garon
  • May/23/24 4:55:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to highlight one thing. There may be heated debates, and that is perfectly fine, but a modicum of decorum must be maintained in the House. I want to point out that, throughout my speech, I was utterly incapable of hearing myself. The member for Mégantic—L'Érable showed a lack of respect, consideration and decorum. I think that should be noted.
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Context: House Hansard - 316 - May/23/24
Hon. Andrew Scheer (Regina—Qu'Appelle, CPC)
  • May/23/24 5:16:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising to contribute to the point of order raised by the NDP House leader on April 30 and May 1, to which the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader made a significant addition on May 8. At its heart, the point of order is, I believe, an effort to censor and silence the fallout from the controversial events that happened during question period on April 30, an event none of us will forget any time soon. The hon. member for Lethbridge was called to order about comments concerning the Chair. She withdrew those comments, yet was named by the Chair and kicked out for the day. The member's withdrawal of her comments, which was recorded in the blues, never made it into the day's Debates. That is an important distinction, because the blues are the temporary recording and transcript of what happened in the House, but what actually gets published and permanently put up on the parliamentary website, and indeed printed, are the Debates. The withdrawal was in the blues but somehow never made it into the into the permanent record. The Chair is currently seized with a question of privilege concerning that alarming editing of our records to align with the Speaker's conduct. Then, the Prime Minister referred to the Leader of the Opposition as having “spineless leadership”. Though the Speaker may have chided the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister was neither sanctioned nor disciplined. Immediately after, however, the Leader of the Opposition's next question also offered strong language, yet the Speaker applied a different standard to the Conservative Party's leader than he did to the Liberal Party's leader. As a result, the Leader of the Opposition was also named and banished from the House for the day. Conservatives left the House for the balance of question period, as you might understand, after our leader had been, incredibly, ordered to stop questioning the Prime Minister about British Columbia's disastrous drug decriminalization experience and to leave the chamber. Nonetheless, I am not here to litigate that matter. The main substance of the point of order now before the Chair lies in tweets many members of the Conservative caucus published in the minutes immediately following the shocking decision to name the Leader of the Opposition and expel him from the House in the middle of question period. The NDP-Liberal coalition spokespersons on this matter have each suggested that various Conservative MPs must “withdraw their tweets”, which I assume means deleting the tweets, and apologize before returning to the House. In other words, they would prefer Conservatives just stay silent and not draw any public attention to how the House is operating during these days of an NDP-Liberal coalition government in Canada. As I mentioned, those members raised this as a point of order. As you would know, points of order concern House proceedings and irregularity in procedures. It is also well established that statements made outside the House do not fall within the Speaker's purview to maintain order here, under points of order, within the chamber in ensuring that House proceedings run smoothly. I would refer the Chair to page 620 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, which says quite clearly, “The Speaker has no authority to rule on statements made outside the House by one Member against another.” In fact, this point was made by the Assistant Deputy Speaker on April 30, when the NDP House leader first raised the point of order, saying, at page 22816 of the Debates, “The other [aspect] that was brought to the attention of the Speaker was the fact that statements are being made outside of the House by a member. The Speaker has no authority to rule on that, as the hon. member has indicated.” Several of your predecessors have been invited to weigh in on statements made by members outside the walls of the chamber. In one of the earliest rulings concerning tweets, Speaker Milliken held, at page 1284 of the Debates for April 1, 2010: It is clearly impossible for the Chair to police the use of personal digital devices by members, for example, by trying to distinguish whether certain texting has originated from the Chamber or not. Nor would the Chair want to change its longstanding practice of refraining from comment on statements made outside the House. In any event, as you will recall, Conservative MPs exited the chamber after the Leader of the Opposition was named, so they had tweeted from outside the House. Moreover, since the leader and the hon. member for Lethbridge had been named, their subsequent tweets, which were among those of concern in the point of order, simply could not have been published from inside the chamber. Turning back to the precedents on point, one of your more recent predecessors, Speaker Regan, said on November 20, 2017, at page 15303 of the Debates, “the Chair's role is very limited to the review of the statements made in a proceeding of Parliament. In other words, the Chair cannot comment on what transpires outside of the deliberations of the House or its committees.” Speaker Regan expanded upon this point in his October 30, 2018, ruling, at page 23033 of the Debates, stating, “As a result...the Speaker cannot be officially apprised of anything said to have transpired outside the walls of this place”. Another of your predecessors explained the underlying principle for this approach on February 9, 2012, at page 5096 of the Debates: We know that outside the chamber, when a member or anyone may say something that would offend or call into question someone's character, there are remedies that are not available inside the chamber. That is usually why the authority of the Speaker does not extend outside the chamber for things that are said. In sum, Mr. Speaker, I would urge you to heed the well-trodden ground of your predecessors and find that the member's comments made outside the House, including tweets, simply do not come within your jurisdiction to maintain order within the chamber. A point of order raised on this very question simply is not under the Speaker's purview. Before concluding, there is one final point I would like to add, because I know the Chair is seized with a couple of different aspects of the events of April 30. In a May 1 Canadian Press article on the opposition leader's naming, one might read this passage: A spokesman for [the Speaker] said Wednesday that the Speaker didn't just single out [the leader of the opposition], noting he also asked [the Prime Minister] to reframe one of his questions after he called [the member for Carleton] a “spineless leader”. “The prime minister reframed his answer,” Mathieu Gravel said. Mathieu Gravel is the spokesman for the Speaker. That is a direct quote: “The Prime Minister reframed his answer”. The quote goes on: “The Speaker offered [the Leader of the Opposition] four opportunities to withdraw his comment and reframe his question. [The Conservative Leader] did not avail himself of those opportunities.” That is the Speaker's spokesman speaking on behalf of the Speaker publicly to the media on events that happened in the chamber. Let me read Hansard from that day. There is the first interaction with the Speaker, saying, “I am going to ask two things. The first is that the hon. Leader of the Opposition withdraw that term, which is not considered parliamentary.” The opposition leader then said, “Mr. Speaker, I replace ‘wacko’ with ‘extremist’.” The Speaker got up again and said, “I am going to ask the Leader of the Opposition once again to simply withdraw that comment, please.” The Leader of the Opposition said, “Mr. Speaker, I will replace it with ‘radical’.” The Speaker then goes on to say, “I am going to ask the hon. Leader of the Opposition one last time to simply withdraw that comment, please.” Here is the key phrase that comes next; the Leader of the Opposition said, “Mr. Speaker, I simply withdraw it and replace it with the aforementioned adjective.” Here we have the spokesman for the Speaker saying that the Prime Minister reframed his answer, as an excuse for why the Prime Minister did not face any sanction. The spokesman for the Speaker said that the Speaker offered four opportunities to withdraw his comments and reframe his question, and that the Leader of the Opposition did not avail himself of those opportunities. As I just said, the Leader of the Opposition absolutely did withdraw it and reframe it, exactly as the Speaker's spokesman said publicly in the media but in a way to suggest that it did not happen. It actually happened, if we look at the video of that day's events and Hansard, which is printed. If it is fair game for the Speaker, through his spokesman, to comment outside the chamber on House proceedings with what, I would submit, is an incorrect and inaccurate spin, then it can only be equally fair for other members to make their own comments outside the chamber about what happened during this unprecedented sequence of events. I trust that any ruling on this current point of order from the NDP-Liberal coalition would not result in double standards being created or extended.
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