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Edited Hansard • Number 058
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Hon. Martin Cauchon (Minister of Justice, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the HLB report entitled “Canadian Firearms Program Review”.
The Speaker: The Chair has received notice of a question of privilege from the hon. member for Sarnia--Lambton and we will hear that now.
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Firearms Program
Mr. Roger Gallaway (Sarnia—Lambton, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege arising from the justice minister's response to the question posed by the member for Huron--Bruce during yesterday's question period. I will be brief, as others may feel as I do that this is a matter of extreme importance to the House's overview and approval of public moneys, that is, the public purse.
The minister stated:
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--up until the approval of the supplementary estimates, we were moving with what we call cash management.... The program is running at minimum cost but we are able to fulfill our duty. |
That raises, I submit, an important question of privilege.
On Thursday, December 5 of last year, on a motion by the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, the House reduced by an amount of approximately $72 million the supplementary estimates on votes 1a and 5a. The House agreed and voted on that reduction. The government has attempted to manipulate the public perception of this act by spinning the myth that it was the justice minister who withdrew those supplementary estimates.
That $72 million had been dedicated to the national firearms program. That motion of reduction carried in the House. That motion was the unequivocally clear expression of this chamber to disallow those moneys to the minister. To state otherwise would be patently false and misleading. The record is clear.
There is an unequivocal principle in our House that the estimates are the financial expressions of government policy. In brief, the approval of the estimates is the signal to bring on the adoption and consideration of the appropriation bill. In fact, Beauchesne's sixth edition, paragraph 968(1) states:
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The concurrence by the House in the Estimates is an Order of the House to bring in a bill, known as the Appropriation Bill, based thereon. |
By that December motion to reduce the Minister of Justice's estimates for the firearms program, the House laid down two principles. First, it ordered that no moneys for the national firearms program be included in the appropriation bill. Second, it clearly stated its disapproval, this chamber's disapproval, of the national firearms program. It repudiated the program by ordering no more money for it.
Furthermore it must again be emphasized that the estimates are the financial expression of the minister's policy contained in the national firearms program. The minister's usage of the phrase yesterday in his response of “up until the approval of the supplementary estimates” reveals his failure to accept that the House reduced to zero his estimates on December 5 just passed.
It was 112 years ago that the great commoner, Liberal William Gladstone, delivered a speech concerning public finance, specifically the financing of government by Parliament. That speech is printed in the 1892 book The Speeches and Public Addresses of the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone, MP. Mr. Gladstone embodied the Liberal concern for Parliament's control of public expenditure, known as parliamentary control of the public purse. I am sure that hon. members opposite will want to hear what Mr. Gladstone had to say.
Remembering that the House denied the Minister of Justice $72 million on December 5, I draw attention to Mr. Gladstone's remarks as set out on page 343:
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I must remind you of that which is apt to pass away from recollection, for the finance of the country is intimately associated with the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which...liberty has been gradually acquired.... If the House of Commons can by any possibility lose the power of the control of grants of public money, depend upon it, your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison. |
Mr. Gladstone continued a few paragraphs later:
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No; if these powers of the House of Commons come to be encroached upon, it will be by tacit and insidious methods, and, therefore, I say that public attention should be called to this. |
(1515)
Yesterday in question period the Minister of Justice stated that the national firearms program was working. He has said that a lot recently. The minister does not seem to understand that the order, as contained in the December 5 motion to reduce the estimates, binds him. In short, he is obligated to obey that order. He maintains that the national firearms program is running at minimum cost and that he is fulfilling his duty. He fails to recognize that his duty is to the House and its orders.
For the minister to assert that it is a good policy, clearly is not consistent with the position the House adopted by motion, the most recent position of the House.
Again I say that the minister does not accept the very clear fact that the House repudiated his estimates. Again I say that the House repudiated his estimates, which are the financial expression of the policy embedded in the firearms program. The House did not say anything about cash management when he asked more than two months ago for further funds. It said that the relevant estimates for the national firearms program were reduced to zero.
As a member of the House I voted on that motion. I, as did the House, indicated that such order of the House reducing the estimates would suspend the minister's ability to spend any more money for the national firearms program. That $72 million, which the House removed, was the total appropriation in support for that program.
That the minister stated yesterday that the registry was working, that it was operating and that it was taking registrations, is contrary to the order of the House. On December 5 the House ordered no more money.
It is clear that order means nothing to the minister. He is simply not obeying the order.
In the nineteenth edition of Erskine May on The law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, it states:
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Every question, when agreed to, assumes a form of either an order or of a resolution by the House. |
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By its orders the House directs its committees, its members, its officers, the order of its own proceedings and the acts of all persons whom they concern... |
It has been more than two months since the House vetoed the appropriation for the firearms program. In parliamentary terms, such a denial to a minister of the crown is momentous.
The minister's response is a breach of my privilege and particularly the collective privilege of the House to control the public expenditure. The minister is breaching our privilege because of his disobedience to the order of the House and his refusal to comply with the Commons wish to deny him money.
I submit, based on the foregoing, that there is a prima facie case of privilege.
(1520)