| Historical Information |
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| This post is about a previous Session of Parliament. Any legislation here that did not receive Royal Assent has been terminated. |
Happy Wednesday everyone!
Light week last week, the House was off on Monday and things have been pretty heavily tied up with the debate over those documents the Liberals were supposed to hand over to the RCMP.
Motions
Confidence Motion – Luc Berthold (Conservative, Quebec, Mégantic—L’Érable)
First up we have another Conservative Confidence Motion. This one reads:
That, given that, after nine years, the government has doubled housing costs, taxed food, punished work, unleashed crime, and is the most centralizing government in Canadian history, the House has lost confidence in the government and offers Canadians the option to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
So another pile of slogans here. Much to the surprise of nobody, the Conservatives failed to get more support to bring down the government over the course of the previous week and the Motion failed.
| Party | For | Against | Paired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 0 | 150 | 0 |
| Conservative | 119 | 0 | 0 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 0 | 32 | 0 |
| NDP | 0 | 21 | 0 |
| Green | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Independent | 2 | 2 | 0 |
Issues of Privilege
Conflict of Interest – Michael Barrett (Conservative, Ontario, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes)
Michael, acting as a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy, and Ethics (ETHI) calls for Stephen Anderson to be found in contempt of Parliament. As part of an investigation into conflict of interest of Randy Boissonnault (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development, and Official Languages, Alberta, Edmonton Centre) the Committee asked Stephen to hand over all communications (phone records, text messages, etc) for September 8, 2022. Stephen refused to hand them over, did not answer the questions the Committee asked him during an interview, and refused to hand over all the documents they asked for then as well. (Randy was also required to hand over his communications for Sept 8, but I don’t see him in the complaint so it looks like he did). The Speaker found that Stephen was in contempt, so it’s up to the House to decide what to do about it.
Michael calls for Stephen to appear before the House to:
- Receive an admonishment from the Speaker
- Deliver the records ETHI asked for
- Answer the questions ETHI had asked
- Respond to any additional questions raised from these answers
This also requires that the documents he produces be handed over to ETHI and that his testimony before the House be considered by them as well.
No votes have been held on this issue yet.
Failure to Produce Documents – Andrew Scheer (Conservative, Saskatchewan, Regina—Qu’Appelle)
So as I’m sure everyone’s heard by now the biggest thing that’s been happening is debate over whether or not the Liberals are in contempt of Parliament for failing to hand over documents to the RCMP regarding spending on a green energy fund. The primary Motion here is to hand the issue over to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) so they can look into it. Debate around this has gone on for a while and is frankly embarrassing to read. It’s hours of each party repeating the same lines. Just looking at Wednesday there’s 3 hours of debate that is repeats of:
The Conservatives calling out how many scandals the Liberals have been involved in and clearly stating that as the next government of Canada they want this looked at, and the other parties should just call an election to get the whole thing over with. (This actually really concerns me, I don’t like the idea of any party referring to themselves as the next government when we’re this far out from an election. That’s an extremely bad look.)
The Bloc Québécois questioning the motives behind the Conservatives pushing so hard on this, calling out that the 14 days they’re demanding to have the documents produced by won’t be long enough to follow the French-language laws that require it be translated as well as questioning why the Conservatives have no interest in changing the rules to prevent the amount of conflict of interest we’ve seen from the fund.
The NDP calling out the Conservatives on hypocrisy for doing exactly what the Liberals are doing now.
The Liberals calling out that the House can’t force the government to hand documents directly to a third party, that the RCMP have channels for getting those documents, and that the RCMP are saying any documents they get through these measures could compromise their investigation.
Why this is demanding so much attention in the House and stopping everything else from proceeding is beyond me. Everyone agrees to sending the issue to committee for investigation, this is just wasting time now.
Instructions to the Committee – Luc Berthold (Conservative, Quebec, Mégantic—L’Érable)
Luc wants to amend the Motion to send the issue to PROC with specific instructions for the committee:
First, he wants the following people to appear before PROC for two hours each:
- The Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry
- The Clerk of the Privy Council
- The Auditor General of Canada
- The Commissioner of the RCMP
- The Deputy Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada
- The Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons
- The Acting President of Sustainable Development Technology Canada
- A panel consisting of the Board of Sustainable Development Technology Canada
Second, he wants PROC to report back to the House no later than November 22.
No votes have been held on this amendment yet, nor do I see a date for a vote, so this debate could continue for a while yet.
Bill Updates
C-319 – An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act (amount of full pension)
Yves-François Blanchet (Bloc Québécois Leader, Quebec, Beloeil—Chambly) proposed a Motion that the Liberals give C-319 a Royal Recommendation. It passed with most of the Liberals being the only ones opposed to it.
| Party | For | Against | Paired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 5 | 142 | 0 |
| Conservative | 117 | 0 | 0 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 31 | 0 | 0 |
| NDP | 23 | 0 | 0 |
| Green | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Independent | 3 | 1 | 0 |
Worth noting that René Arseneault (Liberal, New Brunswick, Madawaska—Restigouche), Serge Cormier (Liberal, New Brunswick, Acadie—Bathurst), Mike Kelloway (Liberal, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton—Canso), Wayne Long (Liberal, New Brunswick, Saint John—Rothesay), and Ken McDonald (Liberal, Newfoundland and Labrador, Avalon) voted against the rest of their party on this.
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