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House Hansard - 336

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 16, 2024 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 336 - Sep/16/24
Hon. Andrew Scheer (Regina—Qu'Appelle, CPC)
  • Sep/16/24 12:27:02 p.m.
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As you recall, in the 2010 case of Afghanistan documents, the House ordered some 40,000 pages of records to be produced in the original and uncensored form forthwith, even though the complete disclosure of them could have prejudiced Canada and her NATO allies' interest in a conflict zone. That prompted Mr. Speaker Milliken to suspend the effect of his ruling to allow a critical gap to be filled. In 2021, we were dealing with about 600 pages involving professional and counter-espionage investigations while the motion had embedded a series of safeguards, like having the records vetted by the top-secret-cleared law clerk. That gave your predecessor, Mr. Speaker, the comfort to allow a motion to proceed immediately from his ruling. In the present case, the House adopted the motion for the purpose of making these documents available to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's national law enforcement agency. To ensure adequate confidentiality for information that might be sensitive in any potential criminal investigation, the June 10 order established a procedure whereby institutions would directly deposit the records with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, who, in turn, would transmit them to the RCMP. The documents were not tabled nor were they meant to be tabled. Instead, the law clerk was directed to prepare a report to the House to be tabled by you. In other words, the documents in question are not open to public inspection. Privacy interests are protected. The documents are, literally, simply being transferred within the federal government from one institution to another institution, the RCMP, through the good offices of our own law clerk. It is incumbent upon us to act, and act now, in the face of this disregard for the House's authority. To quote page 239 of Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, second edition: Disobedience to rules or orders represents an affront to the dignity of the House, and accordingly the House could take action, not simply for satisfaction but to ensure that the House of Commons is held in the respect necessary for its authority to be vindicated. Without proper respect, the House of Commons could not function. I recognize that the government will undoubtedly try to lay the blame at the feet of the public servants who prepared the documents and applied the redactions. However, it is not the public service but the cabinet that is accountable here on the floor of the House of Commons. On September 15, 2021, in preparation for this Parliament, the Privy Council Office provided a briefing note to Paul MacKinnon, then the deputy secretary to the cabinet and a former Chrétien PMO staffer, a former senior staffer for the current Minister of Agriculture and, if I am not mistaken, a brother of the Minister of Labour, to advise that “in the event that parliamentarians press for the release of confidential information, the appropriate minister or ministers should take responsibility for the decision to provide or withhold the information.” Mr. MacKinnon, in turn, on November 24, 2021, immediately following a question of privilege being raised concerning the Winnipeg lab documents, sent a briefing note to the then government House leader, stating, “Consistent with the principles of responsible government, the ultimate accountability for deciding what information to withhold from or release to parliamentarians resides with the responsible minister. Public servants do not share in ministers' constitutional accountability to the Houses of Parliament but support ministers in this accountability, including by collecting and transmitting documents to Parliament.” Those are the words of the Prime Minister's own department. We think that it is only fair that the Prime Minister should heed the words of his own officials. The Prime Minister needs to take responsibility for a whole-of-government failure to respect the will of the House of Commons. That is why the motion I intend to put forward, should you agree that this is a prime facie contempt, would reiterate the House's June 10 order and direct all government institutions that failed to comply with the original order to get their act together and deposit with the law clerk all of the documents we originally ordered, without any redactions this time, and to do so within one week. For good measure, the motion would also express the House's view to urge the Prime Minister, consistent with the spirit of the principles of responsible government, to make his view clear and known to those delinquent government departments that he expects the House's order to be complied with this time. In the interim, you have an important decision. The House of Commons, Canadians and hundreds of years of constitutional parliamentary government are looking to you to allow us to stand up for the ancient rights of the people's elected representatives. I know it is customary to reflect and ponder on arguments made on these types of questions of privilege, but this is a very easy decision. We just have to ask ourselves the following questions. Did the House adopt a production order? Yes, it did. That is not a matter of opinion. That is in the Journals and you know that, Mr. Speaker. Was the order complied with? No. Some provided partial responses. A few withheld documents. Most of them redacted them. Again, it is not my opinion. It is not a subjective analysis. That is in a report tabled by you, Mr. Speaker, and written by the law clerk on how the government complied with the order.
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