Parliamentary Privilege / Rights of the House

Contempt of the House: Government advertising allegedly used to influence deliberations of Parliament and public opinion

November 25, 2002

Debates, pp. 1822-3

On November 25, 2002, Joe Clark (Calgary Centre) rose on a question of privilege regarding televised advertising about climate change which aired just days after the Government had given notice of a resolution asking the House to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, a matter on which Parliament had not yet come to a decision. Mr. Clark argued that Parliament’s policy decisions cannot be advertised until after they have been adopted and that the use of public money to influence a decision of Parliament constituted a contempt of the House. Geoff Regan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons) noted that the advertising in question did not claim that the Protocol had been approved by Parliament, and that the motion before the House was advisory in nature as the ratification of international treaties did not require resolutions of the House. Another Member also spoke to the matter.^[1]

The Speaker ruled immediately. He observed that the contested advertisement had not indicated that a decision had already been made, but only that the matter was before Parliament. He added that similar advertising had been allowed in the past, provided it did not suggest that Parliament had made a decision that it had not yet made, or suggest that Parliament would make no changes to a given proposal before it. Accordingly, the Speaker concluded that it was not a prima facie question of privilege.

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: Once again, I am prepared to deal with this matter, having heard the submissions from the Rt. Hon. Member for Calgary Centre, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader and the hon. Member for West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast.

When the Rt. Hon. Member for Calgary Centre started his remarks I immediately recalled the ruling of Mr. Speaker Fraser to which he alluded so extensively in his comments. It was one of the early rulings in the House after I was first a Member of this place and I certainly remember the day it happened. I remember the ruling with some considerable clarity and I certainly remember the words at the end of the ruling that the Rt. Hon. Member quoted.

I certainly agreed with them, but in this case I think the matter is quite clear. I might go back to the earlier part of the ruling where he quoted the then Leader of the Opposition.^[2] He read part of the notice, the advertisement, that was complained of. It read as follows:

On January 1, 1991, Canada’s Federal Sales Tax System will change. Please save this notice. It explains the changes and the reasons for them.

Then Mr. Speaker Fraser said:

I point out that this ad was a full-page ad and the letters were very large indeed.

Then he repeated those particular words in French. The suggestion was that these changes were in fact already passed, and the tenor of the advertisement was extremely important in this regard and very important in regard to Mr. Speaker Fraser’s ruling, as he said, first of all, that the date was fixed as to when these changes would come in when in fact the Act had not been passed by Parliament, and second, that it said to save the notice because there would be no changes, that this was the way the tax would be, that “you can save this notice now knowing that this is the way it is going to be on January 1, 1991”.

It was those two points that were made by Mr. Turner as objections to this particular advertising campaign and with which Mr. Speaker Fraser expressed his grave reservations at the end because of those two particular points.

I can go back to another decision of Madam Speaker Sauvé.

On October 17, 1980 a point of privilege like the one raised today by the Rt. Hon. Member for Calgary Centre was raised.

She dealt with an objection to a Government advertising campaign at that time, where there was the suggestion that advertising on behalf of a partisan policy or opinion before such policy or opinion had been approved by the House was a contempt of the House. She found it was not.

Generally advertising has been permitted, but what has been criticized and was criticized by Mr. Speaker Fraser, and where he had his reservations concerning the advertising campaign, was where the advertisement itself stated that there would be an implementation date and that the material in the ad was the final product. That was the objection. That, in my understanding, was the basis of the objection taken by the then Leader of the Opposition. It was found not to be a sound objection, but Mr. Speaker Fraser did indicate that if it happened again he might rule quite differently.

Nothing in the words that the Rt. Hon. Member quoted to the Chair concerning the advertisements this weekend indicated that this was a fait accompli or that the matter was decided in a particular way. As I understand it, they indicated that the matter was before Parliament. Advertising for or against is something that has been allowed in the past, as long as the suggestion in the ad, as in this case of the goods and services tax advertisements, did not indicate that the decision had in fact been made and that no change would be made by Parliament.

That was the point of the alleged contempt which Mr. Speaker Fraser found so objectionable, and I cannot find anything in the evidence I have heard today respecting these advertisements that would indicate that this is in fact the case in these ads. While I am sure there will be differences of opinion in the House as to whether or not public funds should be spent advertising some matter that is before the House, my predecessors in this chair have consistently ruled that it is not for the Chair to interfere in that unless those advertisements themselves somehow suggest that Parliament has no say in the matter or that the whole issue is one that has been decided in advance and Parliament will decide this way on or before a certain date.

I cannot find that in the circumstances before us, and accordingly I do not find that there is valid question of privilege at this time, but obviously the content of ads sometimes changes and I am sure that the Rt. Hon. Member will continue to be vigilant and if there are advertisements that he feels are objectionable he will raise them with the Chair at a later date and of course receive a hearing.