Parliamentary Privilege / Rights of the House

Contempt of the House: misleading statements by Minister; prima facie

March 9, 2011

Debates, pp. 8842-3

On December 13, 2010, John McKay (Scarborough–Guildwood) rose on a question of privilege with respect to what he alleged were deliberately misleading statements made by Bev Oda (Minister of International Cooperation) and Jim Abbott (Kootenay–Columbia), the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister, on the subject of a funding application to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) by international development organization KAIROS. In response, Mr. Abbott apologized for any misleading statements that he may have made. After hearing from other Members that day and on December 14 and 15, 2010, the Speaker took the matter under advisement.^[1] On February 10, 2011, the Speaker delivered his decision. He accepted that Mr. Abbott had not intended to mislead the House and ruled that part of the matter closed. He then noted that as some of the statements attributed to the Minister had been made before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, he could not take them into consideration for, without a committee report on the matter, anything said before the Committee was not properly before the House. The Speaker did recognize the full body of material, originating from both House and Committee proceedings, gave rise to very troubling questions, which to any reasonable person would be of concern, if not shocking. However, based on the documents and information that were properly before the House, the Speaker concluded that there was no evidence that the Minister’s statements to the House had been deliberately misleading, and he accordingly ruled that there was no prima facie question of privilege.^[2]

On February 14, 2011, the Minister rose on a point of order to clarify that the decision not to fund KAIROS had been hers, and she reaffirmed that she had not intended to imply either before the House or before the Standing Committee that her decision or opinion was shared by her department. After hearing from other Members, the Speaker urged Members who continued to have questions for the Minister to raise them in committee or during Oral Questions.^[3]

On February 17, 2011, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development presented its Sixth Report (Committee Business—Question of Privilege), the purpose of which was to place the proceedings of the December 9, 2010 Committee meeting on the subject of KAIROS officially before the House.^[4] Later in the sitting, Mr. McKay and Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre) rose on questions of privilege based on the Report, arguing that the evidence presented to the Committee demonstrated that the Minister had intentionally misled the Committee and the House. They stated that they were, accordingly, prepared to move a motion finding the Minister in contempt. The Speaker took the matter under advisement.^[5] On February 18, 2011, several Members spoke to the matter. Tom Lukiwski (Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader) noted that the Committee Report did not contain any accusations, specific allegations that the rights or dignity of the House had been breached, or any suggestion or evidence that the Committee had been misled.^[6] After further interventions that day and on March 3, 2011, the Speaker again took the matter under advisement.^[7]

On March 9, 2011, the Speaker delivered his ruling. Noting that the Sixth Report of the Standing Committee had made available material not previously before the House, he explained that he had taken its findings into consideration, and measured them against other material, including statements in the House and answers to oral and written questions. He also pointed out that statements made by the Minister had at the very least caused confusion. He then declared that, in keeping with recent precedent and mindful of a ruling by Mr. Speaker Jerome to the effect that in the case of doubt on a question the Speaker should leave it to the House to decide, sufficient doubt existed to warrant a finding of a prima facie question of privilege. Having ruled another matter raised by Scott Brison (Kings–Hants) as a prima facie question of privilege earlier in the sitting, he stated that he would return to Mr. McKay to move his motion in due course. Following the debate on and adoption of Mr. Brison’s motion, the Speaker recognized Mr. McKay to move his motion.^[8]

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: I am now prepared to rule on the question of privilege raised on February 17, 2011, by the hon. Member for Scarborough–Guildwood, stemming from the presentation of the Sixth Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, and the allegedly misleading statements made by the Minister of International Cooperation.

I would like to thank the Member for Scarborough–Guildwood, as well as the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader, and the Members for Ottawa Centre, Joliette, Scarborough–Rouge River, Vancouver East, Guelph, Eglinton–Lawrence, Beaches–East York, Yukon and Winnipeg North for their contributions on this important matter.

As Members will know, this matter was first raised by the Member for Scarborough–Guildwood on December 13, 2010. In my ruling of February 10, 2011, I explained that I was unable to “find evidence in documents properly before the House to suggest that the Minister’s statements to the House were deliberately misleading”. Accordingly, I declined to find that a prima facie question of privilege existed.

On February 14, 2011, the Minister of International Cooperation made a statement in the House to clarify matters related to the funding application for KAIROS. While acknowledging that the way in which this case has been handled was unfortunate, she asserted that she had neither intentionally nor knowingly misled the House or the Committee. She also stated that:

If some were led to conclude that my language implied that the department and I were of one mind on this application, then I apologize.

On February 17, 2011, the Sixth Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development was presented to the House. It is a short report which focuses primarily on testimony by the Minister and her officials on December 9, 2010, in relation to the process that led to the rejection of a funding application by KAIROS.

In particular, much attention is given to determining how the word “not” made its way into the assessment of the KAIROS funding application submitted to the Minister for approval. The last part of the Report links this testimony with “other information before the House” and draws “attention to what appears to be a possible breach of privilege”.

The Member for Scarborough–Guildwood and other Members have argued that the Minister has made statements in committee that are different from those made in the House or provided to the House in written form. Indeed, these Members have argued that the material available shows that contradictory information has been provided. As a result, they argue, this demonstrates that the Minister has deliberately misled the House and that as such, a prima facie case of privilege exists.

For his part, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons argued that the Sixth Report of the Standing Committee contained no accusations or other suggestions that the rights or dignity of the House had been compromised or that the Committee had been misled, either unintentionally or deliberately. Claiming that in fact no direct accusation had been made, he asked, “What charge is there to be answered?” He suggested that it was improper for a committee to report that “an undescribed and undefined breach of privilege may have occurred”, and emphasized that the Minister had given clear, accurate and honest answers. He also stated that it was not contradictory for the Minister to state that while she did not know who inserted the word “not”, it had indeed been done on her instructions.

Now that the Standing Committee, in its Sixth Report, has made available to the House material not previously before us, I must take its findings into consideration, measuring them against other material, including statements in the House and answers to oral and written questions.

But I caution that the Speaker has a very particular and limited role in the conclusions to be drawn. In a ruling given on March 21, 1978, at page 3975 of Debates, which is also referred to in Maingot’s Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, 2nd edition, at page 227, Mr. Speaker Jerome quoted a British procedure committee report of 1967, which states in part:

—the Speaker should ask himself, when he has to decide whether to grant precedence over other public business to a motion which a Member who has complained of some act or conduct as constituting a breach of privilege desires to move, should be not—do I consider that, assuming that the facts are as stated, the act or conduct constitutes a breach of privilege, but could it reasonably be held to be a breach of privilege, or to put it shortly, has the Member an arguable point? If the Speaker feels any doubt on the question, he should, in my view, leave it to the House.

It is with this principle in mind that I have taken great care to study the evidence in view of the very serious allegations regarding the conduct of a Minister, who as a result has been subjected to harsh and public criticism which has been potentially damaging to her reputation.

The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is this: as the Committee has reported, when asked who inserted the word “not” in the assessment of the KAIROS funding application, in testimony the Minister twice replied that she did not know. In a February 14 statement to the House, while she did not indicate that she knew who inserted the word “not”, the Minister addressed this matter by stating that the “not” was inserted at her direction. At the very least, it can be said that this has caused confusion. The Minister has acknowledged this, and has characterized her own handling of the matter as “unfortunate”. Yet as is evident from hearing the various interventions that have been made since then, the confusion persists. As the Member for Scarborough–Rouge River told the House, this “has confused me. It has confused Parliament. It has confused us in our exercise of holding the Government to account, whether it is the Privy Council, whether it is the Minister, whether it is public officials; we cannot do our job when there is that type of confusion”.

The Chair has faced a somewhat analogous situation before. In January 2002 the Minister of National Defence had made statements in the House regarding Afghan detainees that ultimately also caused confusion and led to a question of privilege being raised. In that case, two versions of events had been presented to the House. In that case, as in this one, the Minister assured the House that there was no intention to mislead. At that time, in finding a prima facie case, I stated at page 8581 of the Debates of February 1, 2002, that I was “prepared as I must be to accept the Minister’s assertion that he had no intention to mislead the House. Nevertheless this remains a very difficult situation”. I then went on to conclude that “the situation before us where the House is left with two versions of events is one that merits further consideration by an appropriate committee, if only to clear the air”.

In keeping with this fairly recent precedent, and mindful of the ruling by Mr. Speaker Jerome cited earlier, the Chair is of the view that sufficient doubt exists to warrant a finding of prima facie privilege in this case. Accordingly, I will invite the Member for Scarborough–Guildwood to move his motion in due course, but at the moment I will return to the hon. Member for Kings–Hants to move his motion on the earlier case.

Having been recognized by the Speaker to move his motion, Mr. McKay expressed the view that the House already had before it all the evidence that might be obtained by referring the matter to a committee, and inquired as to whether the House might immediately be seized of a motion that the Minister of International Cooperation be suspended from its service until such time as she should appear at the Bar of the House to apologize in a manner satisfactory to the Speaker. The Speaker replied that the proper course of action would be to refer the matter to a committee for consideration. Accordingly, Mr. McKay moved that the matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and that the Committee report back to the House no later than March 25, 2011. Following a brief debate, the motion was agreed to.^[9]

The Standing Committee did not report back to the House by the deadline. On March 25, 2011, the Government was defeated on a motion of non-confidence.^[10] On March 26, 2011, the Fortieth Parliament was dissolved.