When we last left this drama, you'll recall, the Speaker of the House of Commons had ruled that there was a prima facie case that the Harper Government™ and one of its cabinet ministers, Bev Oda, were in contempt of Parliament. But, as per House of Commons rules, Speaker Peter Milliken may not actually make a finding of contempt. Only the House of Commons as a whole can find someone or something in contempt of it. But before the House of Commons debates and votes on this prima facie case, “the normal practice”, as Speaker Milliken put it, is to have these matters referred to a Standing Committee of the House of Commons to hash it out ahead of time; hear from some witnesses; and see if there is any horse trading to be done that might resolve the issue.
The group charged with this weighty work is the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, often a bit of a sleeper when it comes to committees. Its permanent meeting room is 112-N, a tiny albeit cozy committee room buried in the basement of the Centre Block at the back of the building. But tomorrow — as it begins three full days of testimony and debate into these matters of privilege, it has relocated to Centre Block's main floor and to one of the Parliamentary precinct's more majesterial committee rooms – 253-D, a room watched over by the Fathers of Confederation and capable of accommodating the great number of journalists and other visitors who will, no doubt, want to sit through every minute of these proceedings. The room is also wired for television which means you'll be able to watch it wherever you are in Canada.
The procedure and house affairs committee (or PROC for short and pronounced to rhyme with crock) is seized with these matters stemming from the Speaker's rulings because the House of Commons itself directed it to be seized with this matter, specifically with this motion from Liberal MP Scott Brison:
That, given your finding that a prima facie breach of the privileges of Parliament has been committed by the government for failing to fully provide the documents as ordered by the House, the matter be hereby referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for a final determination on the government's compliance, or lack thereof, and that the committee report back its findings and recommendations no later than March 21, 2011.
and with this motion from Liberal MP John McKay:
That the matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and that the committee report back no later than March 25, 2011.
“The matter” that McKay refers to is all about Oda, the minister for international development. Speaker Milliken summed up the issue at hand in his ruling on March 9:
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 [Oda] 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 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 [McKay] 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”.
[As a result] .. the Chair is of the view that sufficient doubt exists to warrant a finding of prima facie privilege in this case.
So now it is up to PROC to consider the Speaker's rulings and, as per those two motions, report back to the House on Monday on the Brison motion and on Thursday, March 25 on the McKay motion. (In between we will be treated to a federal budget on Tuesday, March 22).
At 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Conservative MP and PROC chairman Joe Preston (left) will bring down his gavel in 253-D and the committee will begin considering the Brison motion. The witnesses off the top will include some procedural and legal scene setting from Rob Walsh, the law clerk and Parliamentary counsel for the House of Commons. Then Suzanne Legault, Parliament's information commissioner will make a presentation followed by a break for lunch.
Then, after lunch, beginning at 1:30 p.m., the government is offering two ministers: Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. This makes sense because the government is accused of contempt in failing to provide another committee of the House of Commons with detailed costing estimates of its “law-and-order” legislative package.
“The Conservatives have been saying that they would cooperate. But at tomorrow’s committee, they’re jamming 2 ministers and 10 officials in a single hour,” Brison complained Tuesday evening. “Looks like they’re still playing games to avoid giving Parliament and Canadians straight answer, as well they still refuse to provide Parliament and Canadian taxpayers with the real cost of their U.S. style prison agenda.”