Point of Order
Speaker’s Ruling Reserved
September 17, 2024
Honourable senators, I’m rising on a point of order as well today, and I’m going to share some facts. It’s a point of order about events that happened during the summer break. Let me just summarize some of what happened, Your Honour.
This summer, I was approached by The Hill Times, asking if I would submit an op-ed on the “new Trudeau Senate.” I was asked to do this as the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and the leader of the Conservative caucus.
On August 21, 2024, The Hill Times published my opinion piece under the title “Trudeau’s experimental Senate changes are turning out to be a dud.”
On August 26, Alison Korn, Issues Management and Media Relations Advisor for the Senate, sent an internal memo to 32 people, saying:
For your awareness, an edit has been made to an opinion piece in The Hill Times that incorrectly compared actual expenditures vs. budgets.
The email provided a link to my op-ed. At no point before contacting The Hill Times did Ms. Korn contact me or my office to discuss the content of the op-ed. Contact with The Hill Times was made without my authorization or even my knowledge. It was done secretly and behind my back.
Learning that my op-ed had been changed, Karine Leroux, the Communications Director in my office, contacted The Hill Times to inquire why they made a change to the text without the author’s authorization. Representatives of The Hill Times said they thought Ms. Korn had coordinated the changes with me and presumed she was acting on my behalf.
After learning that they had been duped in making the change, The Hill Times apologized to me and reinstated the original text of the op-ed on its website. When asked why she had made the request to change the text of my op-ed, Ms. Korn said it was the Chair of Internal Economy Committee, Senator Moncion, who had instructed her to call The Hill Times.
Neither Senator Moncion nor her office ever communicated with me or my office before or after ordering Ms. Korn to secretly change the op-ed. Senator Moncion did not even ask Ms. Korn to communicate with me before making the change.
As Issues Management and Media Relations Advisor to the Senate, Ms. Korn officially reports to the Chief Corporate Services Officer and Clerk of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration. At this juncture, I cannot say if Ms. Pascale Legault was involved in the decision to ask for changes to the op-ed without my knowledge. It seems Ms. Korn took her orders directly from Senator Moncion.
In her capacity as Issues Management and Media Relations Advisor for the Senate, Alison Korn often sends emails to a select group regarding news article corrections. As a matter of fact, my office was able to locate 75 of those emails going back to 2017. Until this particular situation, the subject line for those emails was always “MEDIA CORRECTION.” The email that addressed the change to my op-ed is the only email out of all of the ones that we found that had the words “MEDIA EDIT” as the subject line. The change in subject line reflects that Ms. Korn wanted to make a distinction between this unique situation and her usual practice. It shows that there was a change in practice and demonstrates that the changes to the op-ed were made with intention and purpose.
What did Ms. Korn change?
My op-ed said that the Senate expenditures were $85.4 million in 2014-15. She ordered the text to be changed to say that the Senate budget in the Main Estimates was $91.5 million in 2014-15. Both numbers are correct, Your Honour. What Ms. Korn and Senator Moncion did not like was the fact that I used the lower number for the 2014-15 year — the actual expenses. They did not correct the mistake I made. They wanted to change the meaning of the text, trying to minimize the increase in the Senate expenses since Justin Trudeau took power.
Your Honour and colleagues, this is outrageous. We now have a Senate communications police that will not only fact-check what senators say or write outside the chamber, but they will also — in secret — change how you present your thoughts. This situation has opened the door to a dangerously slippery slope.
Imagine, Your Honour, if, in a few years, a Conservative is the chair of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, and such chair orders the Issues Management and Media Relations Advisor to rewrite Senator Moncion’s op-ed in which she said that Justin Trudeau was a good Prime Minister. The Conservative chair of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration could easily argue that is factually incorrect; I would argue that. I don’t think Senator Moncion would be very happy about that correction.
No one in this chamber should experience changes made to their opinion pieces, and no one should have to experience what I had to endure here.
Even if I had used incorrect numbers, Senator Moncion and Ms. Korn had absolutely no business changing the text of my op‑ed behind my back. Again, the proper way to ask for a change would have been to contact me or to write a rebuttal in The Hill Times.
Before I go any further, I’d like to go over what an op-ed is. An op-ed is not a news article. It is an opinion piece written by a specific author. As a matter of fact, newspapers and news outlets will clearly make the distinction between news articles and opinion pieces in addition to indicating the name of the author. An op-ed is a short newspaper column that represents an opinion put together by the author. It represents someone’s views, values, expertise, political opinion, et cetera. Op-eds provide the opportunity for the author to bring forward nuances, vision and insight. And, last but not least, newspapers and news outlets will typically offer other authors the opportunity to provide a response and different perspective to an opinion piece that they have published, allowing for public discussion.
What Ms. Korn changed, under the orders of Senator Moncion, was my text, my opinion, that I submitted as an individual senator — the Leader of the Opposition — not as a representative of the Senate or of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration.
Like any other Canadian, I enjoy the rights and freedoms recognized by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically the freedoms listed in section 2(b): “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication . . . .”
Ms. Korn and Senator Moncion’s actions were, plain and simple, equivalent to censorship. They did not like or agree with what I wrote, and, using subterfuge, they managed to change my text. It is clear that they wilfully restricted my rights and freedoms.
In a paper commissioned by the Public Order Emergency Commission, Professor Richard Moon of the University of Windsor summarized what freedom of expression is:
A commitment to freedom of expression means that an individual must be free to speak to others and to hear what others may say, without interference from the state. It is said that the answer to bad or erroneous speech is not censorship, but rather more and better speech. . . .
There are several court decisions that deal with freedom of expression. I will not delve into the details, but allow me to use Professor Moon’s paper to highlight some of the Supreme Court decisions.
The Supreme Court has said that protection is given to expression “. . . irrespective of the particular meaning or message sought to be conveyed.” It has also said:
. . . in a free, pluralistic and democratic society we prize a diversity of ideas and opinions for their inherent value both to the community and to the individual . . . .
And finally:
The court has said that it will not exclude an act of expression from the scope of the freedom simply because the act is thought to be without value.
I submit that the Senate, its Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration Committee and its administration do not have the power to restrict any Canadian’s rights under the Charter or those of a senator.
Even if one could argue that the Senate can indeed restrict the rights and freedoms of Canadian citizens, including a senator, it is clear to me that the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, its chair, an individual senator or an employee of the Senate cannot do so on their own outside of the law and the Rules of the Senate.
Allow me, again, to quote Professor Moon:
To be prescribed by law, the restriction must have the form of law, such as a statute, regulation, or binding policy, and it must not be vague, although it is sufficient if the restrictive rule provides “an intelligible legal standard” for determining when conduct is caught by the ban . . . .
There is no statute, regulation or rule that allows the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, an individual senator or an employee of the Senate to restrict a senator’s freedom of expression. Nowhere in rule 12-7 of the Rules of the Senate or in section 19 of the Parliament of Canada Act — which both set out the powers of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration — is there the right to censor what a senator may say outside the chamber.
What Ms. Korn and Senator Moncion did was, therefore, clearly outside of their powers.
I think senators will agree that the normal procedure for a senator who wishes to correct what another senator is saying in an op-ed is to either contact the author to point out the error or write — themselves — a rebuttal to the opinion piece that they disagree with. Senator Moncion had every right to disagree with me. She had every right to think that the facts I presented were incorrect; although, in the present case, they were indeed correct. But she did not have the right to go behind my back and order Ms. Korn to ask The Hill Times to change my text, and Ms. Korn had no right to let The Hill Times believe that she had the power to change my text or that, in doing so, she was representing the Senate.
Senator Moncion, as the chair of the committee — especially the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration which is so important for all of us — should act professionally, fairly and equitably.
Ms. Korn, as a member of the Senate Administration, should also act professionally and remain, at all times, non-partisan. By doing what they did, Senator Moncion and Ms. Korn were not only acting ultra vires of their powers under our Rules, but they also failed to act professionally and fairly. They failed their duties to me and to the Senate.
Let me quote Speaker Furey in his decision of June 13, 2019:
We have the enormous privilege of being members of the Upper House of the Parliament of Canada. With this enormous privilege comes enormous responsibility. Together, we all work for the good of our country. We can certainly disagree with each other. Indeed the exchange of conflicting ideas is vital to the health of our parliamentary system of government. We should, however, always approach one another with civility and respect, valuing the range of experiences and diverging views that we bring to Parliament. All of us are responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of this institution, and we must avoid undermining it, or undermining each other.
It is obvious that when she ordered Ms. Korn to change my op‑ed without my knowledge, Senator Moncion wanted to undermine me. I must say I cannot imagine in which circumstances a senator would feel empowered to simply order a rewrite of a letter published under the name of another senator, unless, of course, this senator feels a dangerous sense of superiority, as if they owned the truth, and that any dissenting opinion must not be debated; it must be erased.
What Senator Moncion and Ms. Korn did is part of a larger pattern with this Liberal government of doing anything to silence dissent and opposition. This event came only weeks after the Trudeau-appointed senators adopted under time allocation a package of rule changes designed to reduce the powers of the Conservative opposition, and of course, Senator Moncion sided with the Trudeau government and voted to reduce the opposition powers.
Senator Moncion is a staunch supporter of the Liberal government that adopted Bill C-11, which gave two government bodies the ability to regulate user-generated content. She voted in favour of that bill. The Liberal government tabled Bill C-63, another bill that would give the government the power to control what is said on the internet. I have no doubt that if the bill comes to the Senate, Senator Moncion will support it.
The Liberals voted at their last national convention for a policy that calls for online news to only use sources the government can verify. Again, we see this pattern of wanting only the Liberal side of a story to be published, and the media has found out about several requests from the Liberal government to social media companies to take down comments that paint the government in a bad light. What Senator Moncion and Ms. Korn did is, apparently, done through ministerial offices.
With all that in mind, it is no wonder Senator Moncion thought it would be okay to suppress the thoughts of a Conservative senator. Those Liberals own the truth and can’t stand having an opposition.
In a Leger poll this spring, Canadians were asked about the current state of free speech in our country. Shockingly, 57% of the people surveyed felt that free speech is somewhat or seriously under threat in Canada. They have good reason to think that. What happened to me this summer proves it.
In conclusion, Your Honour, I think that you will find the actions of Senator Moncion and Ms. Korn clearly violated my Charter rights and freedoms that I enjoy as a Canadian. You may also find that such actions were done outside of Senator Moncion’s and Ms. Korn’s power as the Chair of the Internal Economy Committee and a member of Senate administration, respectively.
Finally, I think you will find that Senator Moncion acted improperly toward a fellow senator by not respecting the usual courtesy that is necessary for the Senate to function properly. Some people, including senators, may ask themselves why I did not raise a question of privilege instead, considering my rights have been clearly flouted. Your Honour, parliamentary privilege is very narrowly defined, and the free speech of a senator is privileged only in debate inside the Senate.
A few months ago, when a question of privilege was raised, I supported the argument that privilege should be narrowly defined. However, Your Honour, you decided last December to go beyond the jurisprudence to give an increased reach to parliamentary privilege. Your argument was that the Senate is evolving and is not the same institution it was a few years ago.
The composition and culture of the Senate have changed, as you rightfully said, so you may want to use the same argument in the present case and decide what Senator Moncion and Ms. Korn did was, indeed, a breach of privilege. I would be happy to raise the matter on a substantive motion following notice as contemplated by section 13-2 of our Rules.
You may also find, Your Honour, that Senator Moncion’s and Ms. Korn’s actions were so egregious that they constitute an act of contempt of the Senate. We would then be able to debate the following steps.
Finally, I invite all senators to reflect on how they would feel if, in the future, the same thing happened to them. As I said, the Chair of the Internal Economy Committee will be a Conservative someday. The Speaker of the Senate will be a Conservative within the next year or so. Do you want a Speaker’s ruling that says the Speaker or the Chair of the Internal Economy Committee has the power to change your op-ed because he or she does not like how you present the facts? Should the Senate of Canada engage in this dangerous and irreversible course of action? Is this the new Senate you want?
I thank you for your attention.
I have two senators rising. I see Senator Batters was standing first. Then I will go to Senator Moncion.
Thank you, Your Honour.
Your Honour, I was the Deputy Chair of the Senate Internal Economy Committee for about two and a half years — from the fall of 2017 until the spring of 2020 — so I was quite alarmed as Senator Plett laid out this point of order today and to hear him say that the chair, Senator Moncion, instructed Ms. Korn to call The Hill Times to make this media correction.
That is not the proper role of the chair. It is the proper role of the steering committee of the Internal Economy Committee — the chair, the deputy chairs and steering members, generally consisting of four members — and not merely the chair to give those instructions. The Chair of the Internal Economy Committee is not the king or queen to dictate those types of instructions.
When I was the Deputy Chair of the Internal Economy Committee, Ms. Alison Korn was in the same role in the Internal Economy Committee and routinely sent emails about media requests and comments to those senators on the Internal Economy Committee steering committee. As a deputy chair, I took that role seriously, diligently reviewing the emails and asking for changes to comments if needed or approving them if changes were not needed. As such, Ms. Korn certainly operated under that system for years when I was a deputy chair.
I have no idea why the current chair, Senator Moncion, instructed Ms. Korn to bypass the Internal Economy Committee steering committee and instead demand a media correction based only on the dictate of one member of steering, not all four, and to not ask for the consent of — or even inform — the Conservative Deputy Chair of the Internal Economy Committee. As such, and given this background, I support Senator Plett’s point of order in this matter. Thank you.
Honourable senators, with all due respect, this point of order is unfounded. For the purpose of deliberation, my comments will focus on the role and the mandate of the steering committee of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration with regard to media relations, and I will ignore all of the comments that were made about my political choices and preferences. I will stick to the facts.
The mandate of the steering committee of Internal Economy involves providing factual information to the media and, ultimately, to Canadians. In a democracy, it is essential to ensure that the information that is disseminated about our institutions is true in order to avoid contributing, even passively, to the spread of the misinformation and disinformation that characterize our media landscape. The Internal Economy Committee has adopted a decision-making process to empower the steering committee to provide factual information to the media by creating the position of Issues Management and Media Relations Advisor. Through this process, we can let media outlets know when an article or editorial contains misinformation by providing them with the correct information when applicable.
During the summer, we had to remain vigilant about providing certain media with factual information about the Senate’s finances. Once a newspaper has the facts, it is free to change an article, remove it or leave it as is. I repeat: The newspaper is free to make corrections. Obviously, the steering committee of the Internal Economy Committee or the advisor don’t have the authority to compel the newspaper to do anything. Freedom of the press allows the newspaper to make changes or not. Our current media relations process goes back to 2015, when the staff of the chair and deputy chair of the Subcommittee on Communications took care of media relations and spokesperson duties on behalf of the Internal Economy Committee. At the time, Senator Housakos, chair, and Senator Cordy, deputy chair, were at the head of the steering committee and the Subcommittee on Communications.
The issues management and media relations advisor role was created following the thirteenth report of the Internal Economy Committee and the 2015 Blueprint report. The recommendations/principles in the Blueprint report that pertain to this position are that a modern issues management media relations function be implemented, that a spokesperson be identified/implemented and that parliamentarians answer on behalf of parliamentarians. This role fulfills the aforementioned Blueprint principles, perhaps most importantly that parliamentarians answer on behalf of parliamentarians.
In 2017, the Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration Committee, or CIBA, approved the creation of the Issues Management and Media Relations Advisor and the position was filled. The job description was reviewed and updated in 2021 and approved by the steering committee. The Issues Management and Media Relations Advisor is responsible for ensuring the media receive timely, accurate responses to all inquiries regarding matters that fall under the purview of the Internal Economy Committee. Where necessary, this also includes corrections. With respect to media coverage of matters under the purview of CIBA, the role is accountable to CIBA steering committee and fulfills the important principle that parliamentarians answer on behalf of parliamentarians.
Now, throughout the summer, senator, we’ve had more than one article that was published and more than one correction. You mentioned over the past few years maybe 75 corrections have been sent to journalists. We’ve sent corrections — in any case, I did not interrupt you and you should not interrupt me either.
The information and any correction were provided to the steering committee, to your comment, Senator Batters. So every time there was a correction issued, the steering committee had to agree to the corrections.
I’d now like to take the opportunity to provide some fact-based information about the budget. In an era of disinformation and misinformation, we have to be especially careful and discerning about the information we receive. As chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, I consider it imperative and my duty to give you a reliable and trustworthy reference point regarding this institution’s budgetary matters. The information I’m giving you today is therefore fact-based, and was diligently recorded and checked by the Senate Finance and Procurement Directorate.
Let me start by saying it is important to compare actual expenditures with actual expenditures or a budget with a budget. A budget is different from actual expenditures that are only known after the fiscal year ends. Therefore, to analyze the increase over the years, one cannot draw conclusions by comparing, for example, the expenditures for one year and the budget from another year. Undoubtedly, the percentages increase would be significant given that we consistently allocate a financial cushion to ensure prudent financial management.
In the fiscal year of 2014-15, the expenditures of the Senate were $85.4 million, and for the fiscal year 2022-23, they were $104.9 million. Therefore, the Senate’s actual spending between 2014-15 and 2022-23 increased by 22.8% over eight years. That increase is well in line with inflation of 21% during the same period.
As for fiscal year 2023-24, actual expenditures will be published in the Public Accounts of Canada this fall. I will make sure to provide this chamber with the information at the earliest opportunity.
As for the budgets, the increase in the last 10 years has been an average of 4.2% per year. The Senate regularly comes in under budget with 10% unspent each year and returned to the central funds. The Senate has never gone over its budget.
In 2014-15, the Senate budget was $91.5 million, and for 2024-25, it was $134.9 million, which is an overall increase of 47% over 10 years. Again, I would like to remind everyone that one cannot compare an increase in expenditures with an increase in budgets. It would be like comparing apples and oranges.
In conclusion, I reiterate that the point of order is unfounded, and I hope that my remarks will be useful to you, Your Honour, to form an opinion on this matter. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Your Honour. Thank you, Senator Plett, for bringing to our attention actions that are often kept secret in the Senate. Having been here now for eight years, I continue to be astounded by how much this chamber loves secrecy. I really appreciate the opportunity to respond to this point, as I also appreciate the information shared with us by Senator Moncion.
In any consideration of the points that have been raised with you today, I would ask you to make sure that you go back to the conduct of CIBA as documented in several court cases related to retired senator Michael Duffy, and if you would also please pay attention to commentary by Justice Vaillancourt in the decision, which exonerated the retired Senator Duffy on all 31 charges.
When one reads that decision, one sees very clearly that the concerns the judge noted about conduct were concerns about the Senate and concerns about the Prime Minister’s Office in completely exonerating Senator Duffy.
I would ask that attention be paid to the fact that there are very clear court decisions, including the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada not to hear further appeal by Senator Duffy, where the core of Senator Duffy’s argument was about his seeming Charter rights. The truth of the matter as I read those court decisions — and I ask you to please have that reviewed as well as responding to these points — the very sad and shocking truth is that senators actually cannot rely on their Charter rights as senators because it is self-governance. It is a closed circuit endorsed by recent court decisions governed by a certain interpretation of parliamentary privilege, which means that the power of CIBA as the top of the ruling class of this chamber is almost unlimited, and it is certainly not constrained by individual senators’ Charter rights.
I would ask that this be given consideration along with the matters raised under the current conditions that we face. Thank you very much.
Your Honour, I’d like to say a few words to give you some context. Senator Moncion spoke about the media relations process in place since 2015 that we also used for managing certain issues. Now and then, the steering committee issues corrections, but always with respect to external reports about the Senate, never a senator’s personal remarks. I think this is the first time I have seen a senator’s remarks corrected since the process was introduced. I suggested that we create another procedure. There may be some process that could be put in place. That’s what I suggested to the communications people. Before a senator is corrected, he or she should be asked the following questions: “Were you mistaken? Were your numbers right?” “Is that what you meant, because that’s not really what was expressed.” If the person says, “Yes, that’s what I meant, that’s my opinion,” then the Senate or communications can’t come back and correct an opinion piece or an op-ed released by a senator. The way to go would be for the committee to then say, “We’ll be releasing our own piece challenging this.”
There may be competing interests, as we saw when there were suspensions and in Senator Beyak’s case, but this needs to happen through separate communications, not by interfering in a senator’s letter or opinion and correcting it. I think that’s the distinction to make. As soon as I saw this, yes, I thought it breached the senator’s privilege. That’s a serious issue. There are ways of doing things differently to respect everyone’s rights. That is my suggestion.
Honourable senators, this is a critical point of order. This touches on our rights, the way the Senate functions and basic democracy. With all due respect, Senator Moncion, during your rebuttal of this point of order, you articulated substantive issues of debate, but those had to do with core issues of budget and whether this institution has been fiscally responsible over the past ten years — more so or less so — and it had nothing to do with the point of order. It had to do with Senator Plett’s op-ed. You were free to rise on debate and discuss that op-ed and write a rebuttal on behalf of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, conveying your opinion that, over the past ten years, this place has been a picture of fiscal responsibility and transparency, and that it’s better today than it was ten years ago. You have that right.
But as Chair of the Internal Economy Committee, you don’t have the right — nor does anybody in this place, whether it is the Speaker, the government leader or the Leader of the Opposition — to speak on behalf of senators and correct what you think is disinformation or misinformation. It’s not incumbent on you to make that decision. What is incumbent on you is to rebut, to refute as part of debate — nothing more, nothing less.
On this point of order, it’s important for me to point out that during the Blueprint review of the Senate’s communications department, there were few of us who were actually there. I happened to be the chair of the committee that led that review, along with Senator Dawson and, I believe, Senator Wells and a small number of us who are still here.
Let me clarify the facts: Our objective at the time was to make sure that the administration, HR and communications stopped speaking on your behalf — each and every one of you. We’re an independently functioning parliamentary body. Internal Economy is not the administrative boss of this body; each of us is. Ultimately, we’re responsible for our own behaviour and for the administration of this institution. We appoint the chair, the steering and the committee at Internal Economy to do the day-to-day and month-to-month functioning, but they’re ultimately accountable to us.
At the time, we thought it was incumbent on Internal Economy to have a spokesperson who could speak on behalf of the chair and the committee. I hired Alison Korn with our committee, and the instructions at the time — unless Internal Economy changed those instructions — were that she would speak according to the will of the steering committee and respond to corrections that needed to be made in public opinion and the media about misinformation in articles, news stories, et cetera, of which we are victims on a constant basis. But she never had the right — even I didn’t have that right as chair — to correct the opinion of a senator.
Senator Plett engaged in an op-ed piece. It was not an interview where he stated something about the current administration of the Internal Economy Committee, and then a journalist approached the committee, asking if they agreed with the statement of Senator Plett. In such a case, the committee would be free to rebut, refute and engage in debate. But to go to a news outlet on behalf of a senator — and the way that Ms. Korn, according to my understanding, presented this to The Hill Times was that she was making a correction to Senator Plett’s op-ed. She was editing it.
The truth of the matter — according to the information I have from The Hill Times — is that the only reason they acquiesced was because they thought she was speaking on behalf of Senator Plett, representing him. That’s the only reason they accepted such a ludicrous act on behalf of a colleague. This goes beyond a simple point of order. This should concern each and every one of us: Another colleague thinks that her position, which we have bestowed upon her, gives her the right to manage a senator’s opinion. We can disagree about whether you’re doing a good job or not with the Senate Administration on the Senate floor. We can even disagree in terms of public opinion, public interviews, exchanges and op-eds, but I don’t have the right to instruct my staff to call any news outlet in the country to edit anything you say, senator, and nobody should have the right to do that to Senator Plett or anybody else.
Your Honour, I think this is a critical point of order. I think this is a line that the Internal Economy Committee has crossed. It’s unacceptable. Further, I would like to highlight the fact that when we put into place the changes and hired the spokesperson, Alison Korn and her predecessor, we made a decision at Internal Economy to the effect that when we received media inquiries — without even considering this case as an example — about something that concerned a senator in this chamber, the committee would never comment without first offering an opportunity to the senator to respond to that question. That is how far we went to create respect and maintain the authority of all 105 senators. So for the Internal Economy Committee to go and proactively do what has been done to Senator Plett without even advising him should be unacceptable to all of us. Thank you, Your Honour.
Honourable senators, we’ve heard a lot of things around the point of order. We’ve heard about the budgets and whether the budgets were fair or whether we went over budget in our expenditures. The fact that a senator believes that something was presented in a way that they themselves wouldn’t have presented is beside the point. The fact that Senator Plett may have had incorrect information — and he didn’t — also is beside the point. The fact that another senator didn’t agree with the way it was presented also is beside the point. Senator Moncion clearly used her position as Chair of the Internal Economy Committee to direct staff to interfere in a process entirely outside her remit. I could not have called Ms. Korn and made that directive. Senator Quinn could not have made that directive to Ms. Korn. Senator Plett couldn’t have made that directive to Ms. Korn. The only person who could make that directive to Ms. Korn was the Chair of the Internal Economy Committee. If it happened to me, I would be absolutely furious.
The Chair of the Internal Economy Committee was clearly outside her remit to do this. I think we can all agree that if you don’t agree with something someone writes, you don’t go and change it. You can offer a response; you can write your own op‑ed. You can make a reply. That’s the correct path, and it’s not okay to use the Senate resources that are solely at her disposal to do that.
Honourable senators, I would like to say a few words. Much of what needs to be said has already been said. Too easily in this political environment do we toss around the terms “misinformation” and “disinformation.” They’ve become politicized. Misinformation and disinformation are in the eye of the beholder or the user. If you disagree with me, and I don’t like your point of view, then I declare that that is misinformation. Or if there’s an argument about facts, whether it’s a budget or a fiscal allocation, then I will say that is misinformation or disinformation.
The basic concept here is free speech — the right to say what you believe. That is fundamentally expressed in an op-ed, in an opinion piece. That is where people can say what they believe, what they feel. It may be right or wrong. It may contain factual errors. It may be completely different from what you or others believe or even what you yourself used to believe. Changes happen. But an opinion piece is just that.
I know the lines have become very blurred in our public media, in our newspapers and certainly on our television screens. The difference between opinion and fact-based reporting — it’s increasingly hard to tell. But I think this is why it’s so fundamentally important that we put the brakes on this at a very early stage in this discussion in this place.
I hesitate to use the American example, but we have an opportunity to look at what is happening and try to prevent ourselves as a country — and certainly in this body — from going down the same road. I’ve expressed my views often in this place and in committee about censorship and some of the legislation that I have seen that I find very troubling.
This is at that line. We cannot correct another’s point of view except in the ways that other senators have suggested, which is to offer a rebuttal, write your own op-ed or take to the airwaves. There are many things you can do to rebut an opinion that you disagree with, but you can’t change the other person’s mind, you most certainly cannot change their words and you fundamentally cannot do that without engaging with that person directly. This is a very important question. Thank you.
Your Honour, I’d like to give you the information so you can verify it. An email was sent to me on August 21 about the proposed correction. When I asked Alison to forward the information to the steering committee, she asked the following question in her email:
Please let me know if you want me to ask the steering committee to correct this.
She identified the sentence in question. I replied to Alison that same day. I wrote, “Hi Alison. Yes, please.” The steering committee was duly informed.
Inaccurate information was presented. Alison did her job. She asked my permission to go to the steering committee. The Internal Economy steering committee approved the request. Everything was done by the book.
The other comment I want to make is this: If the procedure is no longer working, the question must be put to the Internal Economy Committee and the matter must be studied. This matter is on the list of matters that the Internal Economy steering committee will study.
Thank you, Your Honour.
I just want to clarify something. Senator Moncion said the steering committee approved the request. I’m a member of the steering committee, but I was out of the country in a different time zone in a little corner of paradise. I didn’t get the email in time, and I didn’t agree to the correction. I wanted that to be very clear. Thank you.
I will correct you, honourable senator, because we spoke with your assistant and we exchanged emails about this issue. I don’t necessarily agree with you that this information can be released.
My assistant was affected by the flooding. He didn’t give his approval.
Your Honour, do I have the right to —
Could it be short?
It will be short. I just have a few points to make. I apologize, Your Honour, but it is my point of order.
Quite frankly, Your Honour, I thought that we would hear at least something somewhere along the line that we made a mistake, we overstepped our bounds and this would have been ended very easily. Senator Moncion obviously was aware that I was going to bring this forward. She had well-prepared remarks, so she was aware I was bringing this forward. She never called. She is now doubling down, which is what frightens me the most, Your Honour. There’s no question that what she did was wrong. Whether or not you’re going to rule in favour of the point of order remains to be seen.
But there is no question, to change somebody’s opinion, to write to somebody and say, “Don Plett changed his opinion; he doesn’t believe that anymore,” because that’s what was done here. They said to The Hill Times, “Don Plett has changed his opinion on this.” Then she doubles down and says steering did. Then we have a member of steering here saying he was out of the country. Then she changes it to, “Well, we talked to your staff.”
That’s the problem. She had staff doing what she did in the first place. She should have called me and said, “Don, your $85 million is incorrect; it’s $91 million.” We could have debated it.
She should never have done it, period.
But the fact of the matter is it’s an opinion. It was my opinion, which was a correct one.
What I’m afraid of here, Your Honour, is that the chair believes that she has the right to change people’s opinions; that’s what she believes. This entire Senate — she says she went to steering. She could have contacted 99 senators and got 98 of you to agree with her. All 98 of you would have had no right to change that opinion. Only one person’s opinion mattered and that was mine because it was my opinion piece. Senator Moncion believes that if she asks enough people, then she can make this change.
Your Honour, this is about one thing: somebody changed something that I thought. That is wrong. It doesn’t matter how many people she asked. If this had been a news article that — if this had been an interview, she could have gone and done a number of things. She could have sent me an email. She could have copied the whole Senate and said, “Senator Plett is giving false information.” The one thing she could not do is call The Hill Times and say, “Don Plett changed his mind.”
Your Honour, I stand on that. I know you will do the right thing, and I will await your response. Thank you.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those who participated in the debate. This point of order raised an important issue, which I will take under advisement. Thank you very much.
