Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege concerning a deliberate attempt by the government to deny me information I requested through Order Paper Question No. 1316. This question read as follows:

With regard to the tweet by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change on November 7, 2017, which stated that “Canada salutes Nicaragua and Syria for joining on to the Paris Agreement”: what are the titles of all individuals who approved the tweet?

The answer states:

We have been clear: the murderous Assad regime must end the indiscriminate violence against its own people.

The people of Syria deserve a life free from violence. Canada will continue to support the Syrian people in reaching this goal and in achieving a long-term political solution.

Clearly the tweet was a mistake for which the Minister of Environment and Climate Change took full responsibility both through online communications and in the House of Commons.

In addition to this being a non-answer, and the subject of my question of privilege, I believe, Mr. Speaker, that you will find that the response actually breaches the Standing Orders as well, and that is a point I will get to later.

I was contacted last week by Dean Beeby, of the CBC, about an access to information request he had received an answer to. It is in reference to the tweet I referenced in my question. He suggested that his ATIP had turned up the actual document that shows the names and titles of those who were involved in approving the tweet. Mr. Beeby went on to publish this article on Thursday, October 25, 2018, and the article confirms that Mr. Beeby had indeed obtained information from the government through an ATIP that I could not obtain through a legitimate proceeding of Parliament. The article says:

CBC News has obtained documents under the Access to Information Act showing the minister's office gave a final thumbs-up to the tweet 51 minutes before it popped up on [the Minister of the Environment]'s official ministerial Twitter feed last Nov. 7....

The minister noted repeatedly that the social-media misstep occurred on the departmental Twitter account, rather than on her personal Twitter account, suggesting public servants were to blame.

Mr. Speaker, I did suspect all along that this was true as well. Because the government held back these details from me, I could not present the evidence to the House in my role as an opposition member. The article went on to report:

“The tweet in question was approved by the MO [minister's office] at 2:09 p.m. today and issued at 3:00 PM," says an assessment....

The package shows the names of at least 31 public servants involved in the ill-advised tweet. The released documents show the pre-publication vetting was carried out in advance by the department's “social media” and “home” teams, as well as by [the Minister of the Environment]'s office staff, whose names have been removed from the file.

Finally, the article points out that the government also violated the timelines set out in the Access to Information Act. Now, that is not your problem, Mr. Speaker, but it does provide you with more evidence of the government's intent to avoid this issue by withholding information from me and delaying information to the media.

I would make one final point. Nowhere in the Access to Information Act does it permit a minister to refuse the names of ministerial staff when providing a response to an access to information request.

I do not begrudge Mr. Beeby the fact that he received an answer, but when a journalist and a member of Parliament ask the same question, one would expect the government to at least give the same respect to the member of Parliament as it gave to the journalist, or put another way, treat a proceeding in Parliament with the same respect as an ATIP.

In this case, I was given debate and an argument for an answer, whereas the journalist was actually given the answer. Not only is this an affront to the House, in so committing this offence, the government also breached the standing order I mentioned earlier. It is Standing Order 39(1), which says, in part:

in putting any such question or in replying to the same no argument or opinion is to be offered, nor any facts stated, except so far as may be necessary to explain the same; and in answering any such question the matter to which the same refers shall not be debated.

On December 16, 1980, at page 5797 of Hansard, the Speaker ruled:

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 circumstance 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.

Omitting the information I was seeking in the government's response to my question and providing exactly what I was seeking to Mr. Beeby demonstrates that the government deliberately withheld information from the House.

On page 251 of the 24th edition of Erskin May, it described the contempt as follows:

Generally speaking, any action or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results, may be treated as contempt even though there is no precedence of the offence.

The government keeps repeating the same offence over and over again. After numerous questions of privilege and warnings from the Chair, it continues to deny members information while providing the same or more accurate information to the media.

I think it is important at this time to present to the House a few select examples of when you, Mr. Speaker, took notice of this pattern and heeded a warning.

On April 16, 2016, the Speaker found a prima facie question of privilege after the Leader of the Opposition pointed out that specific and detailed information contained in Bill C-14 was given to the media ahead of this House and members of Parliament. During that discussion, Speaker Milliken was referenced, from his ruling of March 19, 2001, when he said:

To deny to Members information concerning business that is about to come before the House, while at the same time providing such information to media that will likely be questioning Members about that business, is a situation that the Chair cannot condone.

That is exactly the situation I was facing when Mr. Beeby approached me to comment on information he was given and I was not. While he was not impeded in the performance of his function as a journalist, clearly I was impeded in the performance of my function as a member in this place, which breaches my privileges and constitutes a contempt of this House, as outlined in our procedural authorities.

Lisa Raitt

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