OTTAWA — A brewing battle between the House of Commons and the federal public service over documents linked to the so-called “green slush fund” came to a head Monday, with Conservatives accusing the government of disobeying an order from MPs to provide unredacted records.
The fall parliamentary session started with a procedural bang when Conservative MP Andrew Scheer told Speaker Greg Fergus that the government was violating MPs’ parliamentary privilege and argued that it was in contempt of the wide-ranging powers of the House of Commons.
“The government has disobeyed a lawful order of this House. It has failed to provide all of the papers which were formally required by this House and, in so responding, many papers were altered or outright suppressed through the redaction process,” Scheer said Monday afternoon.
The battle stems from a June 10 Conservative motion adopted by the House of Commons ordering the government and Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) — rebranded as the “green slush fund” by Conservatives — to provide a trove of unredacted documents on the troubled fund to the House of Commons law clerk, Michel Bédard.
The motion then called for Bédard to submit those records to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
But in the following months, over a dozen government departments and agencies either provided redacted documents or simply refused to comply with the order and withheld some or all their records.
Parliamentary privilege grants the House of Commons tremendous power when it comes to fulfilling its duties. In a letter to Fergus this summer, Bédard said that its “power to send for documents is absolute and unfettered. It is a constitutional parliamentary privilege not limited by statute.”
And yet, Scheer told Fergus, at least 16 government institutions provided redacted documents to Bédard over the summer. A handful of others, such as the Department of Justice, the Office of the Auditor General and the Communications Security Establishment, withheld many or all records.
“The Justice Department brazenly put the House on notice that some 10,772 pages of relevant documents were (quote) ‘completely withheld”,” Scheer said.
“There is clear and convincing evidence before the House today that a contempt was committed by the government’s flagrant and systematic disobedience to the House’s June 10 Order,” he added.
Scheer, a former Speaker, asked Fergus to determine if the government appeared to be in contempt of the House of Commons.
If the Speaker finds there is potentially contempt, the MP promised to table a motion ordering that each infringing department and agency “get their act together” and provide all relevant unredacted documents within one week.
“For good measure, the motion would also express the House’s view to urge the Prime Minister, consistent with the spirit of the principles of responsible government, to make his view clear and known to those delinquent government departments that he expects the House’s order to be complied with this time.
Fergus said he was taking the decision in reserve and asked the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois to make submissions as well.
Last month, the National Post reported that the battle between the House of Commons and government institutions, namely Auditor General Karen Hogan, was brewing over access to SDTC documents.
In a report published in the spring, Hogan concluded that one out of six projects funded by STDC that she audited were ineligible and that the organization had serious governance issues. On the day her audit was published, the government announced it was abolishing the fund and folding it into the National Research Council.
In a July letter to the House of Commons clerk, Hogan said she would not comply with the order because it risked compromising her office’s independence.
Separately, the RCMP wrote the Commons law clerk to quietly express his consternation about the June 10 motion and the trove of documents coming his way because it was “highly unlikely” he could use them to support potential criminal investigations.
“There is significant risk that the Motion could be interpreted as a circumvention of normal investigative processes and Charter protections,” RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme warned.
To date, both the RCMP and Auditor General Karen Hogan have said they’ve found no evidence of criminal activity at SDTC.
National Post
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