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RULING ON THE QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE

RAISED ON DECEMBER 13, 2010,

BY THE MEMBER FOR SCARBOROUGH—GUILDWOOD

(MR. MCKAY)

CONCERNING ALLEGEDLY MISLEADING STATEMENTS

BY THE MINISTER OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

(MS. ODA) AND THE FORMER PARLIAMENTARY

SECRETARY TO THE MINISTER OF INTERNATIONAL

COOPERATION (MR. ABBOTT)

February 10, 2011

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I am now prepared to rule on a question of privilege

raised on December 13, 2010, by the hon. Member for

Scarborough—Guildwood (Mr. McKay) concerning allegedly

misleading statements by the Minister of International Cooperation

(Ms. Oda) and the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister

of International Cooperation, the Member for Kootenay—Columbia

(Mr. Abbott).

I would like to thank the hon. Member for

Scarborough—Guildwood for having raised this matter, as well as

the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House

Leader (Mr. Lukiwski), and the Members for Kootenay—Columbia

(Mr. Abbott), Guelph (Mr. Valeriote), Laurentides—Labelle

(Ms. Deschamps), Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher (Mr. Dorion),

Toronto Centre (Mr. Rae), Ottawa Centre (Mr. Dewar) and

Scarborough—Rouge River (Mr. Lee) for their interventions.

The Member for Scarborough—Guildwood charged that the

Minister of International Cooperation and her former Parliamentary

Secretary made statements in the House that were deliberately

misleading with regard to who had been responsible for a

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government decision to reject a funding proposal for the Canadian

Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, known as KAIROS.

He measured those statements against a response to a

written question, testimony in the Standing Committee on Foreign

Affairs and International Development, and an internal CIDA

document obtained through an Access to Information request.

Guided by Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand, Third Edition at

pages 653-4, the Member for Scarborough—Guildwood stated at

page 7144 of Debates:

“In order to establish a prima facie finding that a breach of

privilege and contempt has occurred, three elements must

be present: one, it must be proven that the statements were

misleading; two, it must be established that the member at

the time knew the statement was incorrect; and three, in the

making of the statement, the minister intended to mislead the

House.”

In response, the Member for Kootenay—Columbia

apologised for his statement, made to the House on

March 15, 2010, that “CIDA thoroughly analysed KAIROS’

program proposal and determined, with regret, that it did not meet
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the agency’s current priorities.” He characterised his statement as

a mistake, said that he had not known that it was misleading and

concluded that he had not intended to mislead the House. I thank

him for his timely apology, and consider any allegations against

him to have been satisfactorily addressed.

For his part, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government

House Leader maintained that the matter was not one of privilege

but rather of debate as to facts. As to the proceedings of the

Standing Committee referred to, the Parliamentary Secretary

emphasised that, as no report had been made to the House on this

matter, it would be inappropriate for the Chair to take note of those

proceedings.

In a ruling I gave on January 31, 2008, I stated at page 2435

of Debates:

“...before finding a prima facie breach of privilege in

situations such as these, the Speaker must be convinced

that deliberately misleading statements were made to the

House.”
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For the question of privilege now before us, the Chair is, in

essence, being asked to assess the accuracy of the Minister’s

answers to questions in the House. In any such circumstance, it

has been well established over time that the Speaker has a limited

authority. House of Commons Procedure and Practice on page

510 clearly explains it by stating:

“The Speaker ensures that replies adhere to the dictates of

order, decorum and parliamentary language. The Speaker,

however, is not responsible for the quality or content of

replies to questions. In most instances, when a point of order

or a question of privilege has been raised in regard to a

response to an oral question, the Speaker has ruled that the

matter is a disagreement among Members over the facts

surrounding the issue. As such, these matters are more a

question of debate and do not constitute a breach of the

rules or of privilege.”

It was based on this practice of ours that, on January 31, 2008,

on page 2435 of Debates, I stated:

“...any dispute regarding the accuracy or appropriateness of a

Minister’s response to an oral question is a matter of debate; it

is not for the Speaker to judge.”

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This is not to say, however, that there are not circumstances

when the Chair could determine, given the proper evidence, that

statements made to the House have indeed breached

the privileges of the House. In fact, the Member for Scarborough

—Guildwood neatly laid out the standard of proof that would be

required to demonstrate that the House has been deliberately

misled.

It was with these principles in mind and, ultimately the need to

determine that there was intent to mislead, that I undertook to

review all of the evidence that could be taken into consideration in

this case. Again, however, the Chair was limited in its ability to act

on the full range of that review since much of the proceedings

referred to in Members’ submissions were never officially placed in

the hands of the House. The Parliamentary Secretary to the

Government House Leader was not mistaken in his assertion that

any and all statements made in committee, even when those have

been repeated verbatim in the House, remain the business of the

committee until such time as it elects to report them officially to the

House. This is a longstanding practice and I would refer Members

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to a ruling I made on June 14, 2010, at page 3778 of Debates,

where I stated:

“...if there are issues about the proceedings in the committee,

it is incumbent upon the committee itself to deal with them

and, should it deem it necessary, to report to the House on

the matter.”

Furthermore, while a copy of an internal CIDA document

obtained through an Access to Information request was provided

to me, it was not tabled in the House, and thus is not officially

before it.

As a result, in this particular circumstance, the Chair has

been left in a delicate position. As noted earlier, the Chair

reviewed all of the documents available. In doing so, to fully grasp

the allegations being made, particular attention was paid to the

committee testimony of the Minister and senior CIDA officials, and

to the internal CIDA document obtained through an Access to

Information request made available to me by the Member for

Scarborough – Guildwood. The full body of material gives rise to

very troubling questions. Any reasonable person confronted with

what appears to have transpired would necessarily be extremely

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concerned, if not shocked, and might well begin to doubt the

integrity of certain decision-making processes. In particular, the

senior CIDA officials concerned must be deeply disturbed by the

doctored document they have been made to appear to have

signed.

However, despite the obvious frustration expressed by many

of the Members who have intervened in this case, and the

profoundly disturbing questions that evidently remain unanswered

in the view of these same Members, the Chair is bound by very

narrow parameters in situations such as this one. It may sound

overly technical, but the reality is that when adjudicating cases of

this kind, the Chair is obliged to reference material fully and

properly before the House. With regard to statements made by the

Minister, this material is limited to a few answers to oral questions

and one answer to a written question, not to any comments in

committee.

In the circumstances, with this key limitation in mind, and in

the absence of a committee report on the matter, the Chair cannot

find evidence in documents properly before the House to suggest

that the Minister’s statements to the House were deliberately

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misleading, that she believed them to be misleading, or that she

had intended for them to be misleading. Accordingly,

I cannot rule that the Minister deliberately misled the House, and

therefore I cannot find that there is a prima facie question of

privilege.

I thank hon. Members for their attention.