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Laurie Holding Government Accountable

Point of Privilege – Mel Knight lying in the House

The Speaker: Hon. members, earlier today during the Routine under Notices of Motions the hon. Member for Edmonton-Centre rose to give notice about a point of privilege she wanted to raise. There was no need under that part of the Routine, and no motion is required in terms of a member rising on a point of privilege. The member advised my office on Friday that she was going to be doing this, and that’s perfectly acceptable. The document has been circulated. That can just be put in the storage container beside your desk. Unless there is a prima facie case of privilege arrived at by determination, there is no motion that can proceed.

At the moment the hon. Member for Edmonton-Centre is being recognized if she rises on a point of privilege.

Misleading the House

Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. This point of privilege arises out of a series of events that took place in this Assembly and subsequent to that on April 30, 2007. The direct exchange is found in Hansard on page 694. At that time the Member for Edmonton-Gold Bar asked a question of the Minister of Energy regarding a tabling that had happened earlier specific to the content of the 2005-2006 internal royalty review. Significant portions had not been tabled or had been censored from what was tabled.

In his response the Member for Grande Prairie-Smoky, who is also, of course, the Minister of Energy, indicated, “ Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in any of those documents that would indicate to anybody that we have not collected a fair share of royalties for Albertans.” In fact, there were a number of references in the documents that were tabled, censored as they were, that did indicate that. Mr. Speaker, the member made misleading statements. In doing so, he defied the dignity of the Assembly and interfered with the Member for Edmonton-Gold Bar’s ability to discharge his duties as the Official Opposition shadow minister of Energy. I would also add that because of the minister’s statements that day, the Member for Edmonton-Riverview was also impeded in the fulfillment of his duties as opposition leader in holding the government accountable.

Mr. Speaker, there are several tests that I need to meet today. First of all, notification, which you noted and as outlined in Standing Order 15( 2). Written notice was provided to you. We also provided a copy to the affected member, the Minister of Energy and Member for Grande Prairie-Smoky, and, as a courtesy, to the Government House Leader. All of this was on Friday, November 2, 2007. I attempted to give oral notice today during Routine, which was not necessary.

A second test that must be met in these cases is that the point is raised at the earliest possible opportunity. The statements were made on April 30, and we believed them to be misleading at the time, but with the release of the Auditor General’s report on Tuesday, October 2, this confirmed the fact that the Assembly had been misled in the member’s statements of April 30.

There are two examples I will give you, Mr. Speaker, that address situations where misleading statements from a member were verified as incorrect and became known at a later date. All of these were as a result of the report of an Auditor General or another public inquiry. In Manitoba on April 6, 1999, the then Premier was accused of deliberately misleading the Assembly regarding the Interlake vote splitting scandal, and the subsequent Monnin inquiry illuminated that the information was indeed misleading. These issues were a result of the Manitoba provincial election in 1995, and the Manitoba Speaker agreed that the point of privilege had been lodged at the earliest opportunity, that being as soon as it was verified through the report some four years later.

Likewise, allegations that the Manitoba Assembly had been deliberately misled because of statements relative to the Crocus superfund scandal did not surface until several years afterwards. Then a quote from the hon. Jon Gerrard. He says: I raise this issue now because until we had the Cabinet document of November 27, 2000, we did not know in this Legislature that we . . . and the people of Manitoba generally have been so badly misled by the Minister of Finance.

Again, in this situation the Speaker found that the elapsed time was not a bar to the matter.

Clearly, the Minister of Energy made statements that misled this Assembly. The content of his department’s own review offers evidence that the opposite was the case.

Now, specifically the intentions of the minister. As we have noted, his only intention could have been to mislead this Assembly because his own review showed that for many years the royalty structure was not, as he said, building a stronger Alberta.

What privilege has been breached? Looking at Marleau and Montpetit on page 51, I quote: “The House has the authority to invoke privilege where its ability has been obstructed in the execution of its functions or where Members have been obstructed in the performance of their duties.” The essential role of the Official Opposition is holding the government accountable for its actions. In that role question period is one of our most important tools for calling the government to account, and as Beauchesne’s Parliamen-tary Rules and Forms, sixth edition, states at 410( 5), our ability to call the government to account for the loss of billions of dollars was hindered to a degree that was shameful.

Now, Mr. Speaker, it would be naďve to suggest that every question in this Assembly will receive an answer, but I do note in Beauchesne’s 97, quoting Speaker Sauvé, that while it is correct to say that the government is not required by our rules to answer written or oral questions, it would be bold to suggest that no circumstances could ever exist for a prima facie question of privilege to be made where there was a deliberate attempt to deny answers to an Hon. Member, if it could be shown that such action amounted to improper interference with the Hon. Member’s parliamentary work.

Indeed, I believe that happened in the case specifically for the members for Edmonton-Gold Bar and Edmonton-Riverview. The statements of the Member for Grande Prairie-Smoky have prevented these key functions. It greatly affected the ability of the Member for Edmonton-Gold Bar to perform his role as Energy critic. Had the information collected by the Department of Energy been accurately reported before this Assembly, then the Member for Edmonton-Gold Bar would have conducted further inquiries and handled his duties differently. At the time of the utterance made on April 30, there were still 23 sitting days remaining in the session. Those are days the Member for Edmonton-Gold Bar could have used differently had he not been misled.

The disrespect for the Assembly also greatly affected the conduct of the Member for Edmonton-Riverview in his role as Leader of the Official Opposition. For two months our own members but also those of other opposition parties were prevented from the effective conduct of their duties in this House and outside of it.

This is not a case where the information was not available, where facts were uncertain, or where the member was not informed of proceedings. All the information was in this minister’s possession. His own department had passed on their conclusion, and the report of the Auditor General states this point with absolute clarity. In the annual report of the Auditor General of Alberta, volume 1, pages 91 and 92, the Auditor General states that the Department of Energy knew at least three years ago that Alberta’s share had fallen below the target range. Without a doubt, in the period preceding the incident in question the member had been advised that this royalty structure was neither building a stronger Alberta, nor had the government collected a fair share of royalties for Albertans, as he stated in his responses on the 30th of April.

We hold these misleading statements to be a grave breach of privilege. The authorities I use, Mr. Speaker, include Marleau and Montpetit, providing explicit guidance on the concepts of contempt and privilege, pages 51 to 53 and 66 to 67. Also, those basic privileges are expanded in Joseph Maingot’s Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, second edition, page 193. I have also given a number of examples of Beauchesne’s parliamentary rules at 410 and 97.

In order to represent the people of this province, it is clear that the integrity of this House and its individual members be treated with respect. How can we command any measure of public respect when members act in such a fashion?

I have already spoken of the importance of the role of the Official Opposition in ensuring accountability of the government, which we were precluded from doing because the statements we were given were false or misleading.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a situation that involves a misstatement or a misunderstanding of the use of language. It is not an issue that could have given rise to a subjective difference of opinion. What we are dealing with here is a deliberate attempt to frustrate the operation of this Assembly. This situation constitutes more than a mere allegation of misleading this House. The time has come for the government to accept absolute responsibility for the comments of this member before this Assembly.

I am guided by previous rulings from this Speaker, specifically May 4 of 2000 in Hansard, appearing on page 1339: “Members have to be responsible for what they say in this House, absolutely responsible, and there’s no shirking of that responsibility.” When referring to a purported matter of privilege on March 12, 2002, Hansard, page 267, the Speaker outlined this valuable guidance. In this case the allegation made by the member at that time for Edmonton-Highlands focused on a certain subjective interpretation.

“Such an allegation is at best a disagreement between members and hardly meets the test of a point of order.” But, Mr. Speaker, in this situation we clearly have a minister who provided information that either he knew to be false or, alternatively, should have known through the exercise of due diligence that the information was misleading.

Information cannot be subjectively misleading. The minister was confronted with the full and unedited text of the report and chose to contradict it. This behaviour is without doubt deliberately misleading. How can contradictory information which is known to the member be subjectively interpreted? If an individual offers information before a court of law that they know is false, that person is guilty of contempt, Mr. Speaker. What you have before you is just such a situation. I ask the Speaker to rule that a prima facie case of breach of privilege has been established.Thank you.