QUESTION PERIOD — Question of Privilege
May 27, 2019
Honourable senators, I rise on a question of privilege.
Your Honour, it has been suggested that I made certain commitments and agreements with Senator Plett to require cabinet ministers to appear at the Aboriginal Peoples Committee. Senator Plett should know better than to say that I would be able to do that because I could not and I did not. The most that can be said was that I undertook to ensure that they would be invited to appear. I spoke to Senator Dyck. She has invited them. They’ve declined to appear. That’s the most that can be said of that.
The accusation that we entered into an agreement and somehow I breached it is an unfair representation, and I ask Senator Plett to withdraw that accusation.
Honourable senators, I absolutely agree with Senator Sinclair that he does not have the authority to get ministers to come here. This happened well before the bill went to committee. Senator Sinclair and I were in one of the small rooms in the back here. He asked me when this bill would go to committee. I don’t have a calendar in front of me, so I will not give you the dates. I cannot do that off the top of my head.
Senator Sinclair asked, “When will you allow this bill to go?” I said, “Number one, I want to speak to it,” which of course I did. I said, “There may be others but, nevertheless, I will assure you that by a certain date we will allow the bill to go to committee; but the conditions are thus.” I didn’t have the ministers’ names at that point. The terminology I used referred to the two ministers who wrote to the Senate demanding that private member’s Bill C-262 would be moved forward. One of my conditions was that I wanted assurance that they would come.
Senator Sinclair assured me he would try. I said, “That’s fine but that is the deal, so you better try beforehand.”
We shook on that deal. I expected that to be Senator Sinclair’s word that he would assure that either they would come or he would let me know and we would discuss further whether this bill would go to —
Just withdraw. He said he would try.
He assured me that he would try and we would discuss it further if he couldn’t do that.
After the bill went to committee, I asked Senator Sinclair whether he had done that. He said yes, he had tried, but there was no guarantee. I again said to Senator Sinclair, “However, senator, you know that was our agreement.”
He assured me that he would continue trying and I am sure he has done that. I never accused Senator Sinclair of not trying to get the ministers to come. All I said was that was the agreement. Senator Sinclair I’m sure did his job short of making sure the committee would not start their hearings until those ministers came.
So no, Your Honour, I will not withdraw those comments.
Honourable senators will recall that in a recent ruling on a question of privilege pertaining to agreements, I ruled that agreements reached outside of parliamentary proceedings are not covered by privilege. However, at the time I also stated that it is very important to the proper, efficient and effective running of the Senate that agreements that are entered into between parties or between senators should be taken very seriously. On this matter, I would suggest strongly to the parties involved that the matter be taken up in the committee for further consideration and, hopefully, resolution.
Honourable senators, pursuant to rule 9-6 I must now interrupt proceedings in order that we proceed to a deferred vote on an amendment to Bill C-71. There will be a 15-minute bell and the vote will take place at 6:57.
Call in the senators.
