QUESTION PERIOD — Public Safety
Ministerial Responsibility
June 15, 2023
Senator Gold, the default setting of the members of your cabinet, including the Prime Minister, is always to claim that they weren’t briefed, they didn’t receive an email or they just weren’t told. Are these familiar lines? Mr. Trudeau said it about MP Han Dong when he claimed ignorance — we now know that’s not true. Mr. Blair said it about the threats against MP Chong’s family. Ms. Joly said it about her staffers going to a garden party at the Russian embassy. Mr. Sajjan said it about the fall of Kabul, claiming he had too many emails, and he couldn’t possibly read all of those emails. Of course, that isn’t fitting on the part of that minister; that is complete incompetence.
Mr. Mendicino has said it on numerous occasions — most recently about the non-existent closure of illegal police stations being operated in Canada by Beijing, and now about the transfer of Paul Bernardo out of a maximum-security prison.
We have two options in front of us, government leader, and there is not a third option. Either the minister knew that the information he was giving to the House and the Canadian public was wrong, and he was intentionally misleading everyone, or he has absolutely no handle on his office, and his staff is running completely amok because of zero leadership on behalf of the minister.
Either way, this is my question for you: Where is the ministerial responsibility? If he won’t do the right thing and resign, why won’t the Prime Minister — your leader and the leader of this country — do the right thing and hold the minister to account?
Thank you for your question. Let me begin more broadly: We know that there is a problem with information flow from various sources, such as the intelligence sources, into the government and to ministers. This was underlined and made clear in the report of the Special Rapporteur, the Honourable David Johnston. Indeed, this is also a problem that Minister Mendicino has acknowledged with regard to the Paul Bernardo affair. It was an error made in the Office of the Minister of Public Safety. As the minister said yesterday, he has taken steps to address this mistake internally.
With regard to your statement about Minister Blair, he has said clearly that he was not aware of the information regarding Member of Parliament Chong, and that he found out about it for the first time in The Globe and Mail. The minister has stated that clearly and unequivocally.
Witnesses have pointed out the shortcomings that exist in the structure of how we share intelligence — it’s clear that this needs to be reviewed. I fully expect that this will be one of the items that the next step of the public process will address once all parties agree on both a mandate and a way forward. This is important and is being taken seriously — I hope — by all members of Parliament, as it should. Canadians deserve to be kept safe, and we deserve to fix the problems that may exist in the way information is transmitted.
Government leader, thank you for highlighting the problem with your government. You just highlighted — in your talking points — exactly what I’m complaining about. It’s never the fault of the minister or the Prime Minister — it’s the employees in their office, it’s the bureaucrats who didn’t brief them or it’s their email that is too blocked up. That is the problem with your government. This government always has its homework being eaten by the dog before it arrives at school, and it has to stop. Do you know what the concept of ministerial responsibility means? I think, in this Trudeau government, there isn’t anyone left who understands how Parliament works.
I will ask you two simple questions: Can you define for this chamber what ministerial responsibility means as it applies to Parliament? And is the Prime Minister unwilling to apply ministerial responsibility to Minister Mendicino because no one has applied ministerial responsibility to him?
The ministers in this government are responsible, and they have taken responsibility. With all due respect, Senator Housakos, I do not tell you what questions to ask, and I don’t need you to feed me the answers. Thank you.
