Inside Politics

ContemptWatch: "The Committee wishes to draw the attention of the House on what appears to be a breach of privilege ..."

by Kady O'Malley Posted: June 10, 2010 4:18 PM Last Updated: June 10, 2010 5:03 PM
As predicted by your humble committee chronicler earlier this week, the gang at the government committee has reported back to the House of Commons on a possible breach of privilege by Sun & Partners, which apparently failed to comply with an order to produce documents related to its alleged relationship with Liberal MP Derek Lee within the alloted time:

On Wednesday, May 19, 2010,  one of the entities subject to this order for the production of papers,  the firm Sun & Partners, electronically transmitted to the Committee a letter informing the members that a response to the order had been  prepared and that it would eventually be delivered by hand by the member for Scarborough--Rouge River.

The  latter participated in the Committee meeting of Thursday, May 27, 2010,  in which he quoted from the response from Sun & Partners. He did not however formally submit the response to the Committee at this time.

Through a letter by the firm itself, this response was finally received by the  Committee on Tuesday, June 1, 2010. The letter was dated Wednesday, May  19, 2010. No relevant documentation was attached to this response in  which the firm says there is no employment agreement between  it and the member for Scarborough--Rouge River.

The Committee believes that its order for the production of papers of  Wednesday, May 12, 2010, has not been fully respected by the firm Sun  & Partners, for three reasons: (1) the firm did not intend to  provide the answer directly Committee as required by the order, (2) the  response was finally received by the Committee well after the expiry of  the deadline set by the same order, and (3) with the exception of  response letters, no relevant documentation was provided to the  Committee.

The right to institute inquiries and to call witnesses and demand papers is one of the  privileges of the House of Commons as a collectivity.

Accordingly, the Committee wishes to draw the attention of the House on what appears to  be a breach of privilege and recommend to take measures the House deems  appropriate.

In an unusual move, shortly after the original report was tabled by Government Operations chair Yasmin Ratansi -- like Lee, an Ontario Liberal -- yet another Liberal MP -- Paul Szabo, who also chairs the Ethics committee -- rose in Lee's defence, arguing that the report may well be inadmissible, since the motion that initiated the investigation into Lee's conduct was out of order -- and that it was also incomplete, as it did not include the dissenting opinion that Lee had filed with the clerk. 

"I find it very disturbing and distressing that this has transpired, notwithstanding all of the clear evidence that this matter, which is being handled by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, is not within its mandate and should never have been approved or undertaken by the committee," he told the speaker. Backing him up? Yet another Yet Another Ontario Liberal MP(tm): Joe Volpe, who seconded Szabo's call for the speaker to review the report to determine whether it was, indeed, receivable, or whether the chair had erred when she allowed the investigation to proceed in the first place. 

So, will Milliken break from his traditional stance, which is that committees, however mercurially chaired, are the undisputed masters of their own destinies? Or will he rule that the Lee inquiry was so far outside the bounds of Government Operations that the report should be rejected? Stay tuned. 




 

Tags: battle of the opposition committee chairs, blackberry jungle, contemptwatch 2.0, derek lee, just a little meta, power to the parliament