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If PHAC President Iain Stewart nods, he will become the first private citizen to be called to the bar by the House of Commons to receive a formal reprimand since 1913.
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Christopher Nardi Although it has remained unused for over 100 years until this week, the power of the House of Commons to call someone to the stand for questioning, warning or reprimand has been used for about a dozen times before 1913. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press / File Article content
OTTAWA On February 20, 1913, a provocateur RJ Miller, a private citizen and former president of the Diamond Light and Heating Company, was escorted to the House of Commons by the Sergeant-at-Arms to face parliamentarians and respond to a single question about an alleged bribe.
To whom did you pay the sum of forty-one thousand and twenty-six dollars for the purpose of obtaining contracts from the Government of the Dominion of Canada, amounting to one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars or so, the House of Commons asked Miller, as recorded at the time by the Parliamentary Journal.
Miller would once again decline to answer the question, as he had done two days before and a year earlier before the public accounts committee. In doing so, he was found in contempt of the House of Commons and ordered to be imprisoned by the Sergeant-at-Arms in the Carleton County Common Jail until he agreed to answer. He ultimately remained in prison until the end of the parliamentary session four months later.
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Miller was the last recorded case of a private citizen called to the bar, literally a long copper bar near the entrance to the House of Commons that can only be passed by MPs or people invited by the Crown and then jailed by Sergeant-at- Coat of arms of the House of Commons.
But last Thursday, a majority in the House of Commons voted to find the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) in contempt of Parliament for withholding documents that could explain why two scientists were fired from the main lab. Canadian Infectious Disease this year.
In doing so, the House also voted to order Iain Stewart, the president of PHAC, to be called to the bar to receive a formal reprimand within two sitting days. If he nods, he will become the first private citizen to do so since Miller.
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The summons of an individual to appear at the Bar is an extraordinary event that places the Member or individual under the authority of the House vested with full disciplinary powers, explains the House of Commons procedure and practice book.
The head of the health agency finds himself in an “extraordinary situation” after an opposition motion put him in contempt of Parliament.
Although it remained unused for over a century, the power of the House to call someone to the stand for questioning, reprimand or reprimand was used about a dozen times before 1913.
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The first incident recorded by the House of Commons took place in 1873, when returning officer Richard James Bell was accused of acting in a way that could have influenced the outcome of a much contested election in Muskoka, in Ontario, according to parliamentary newspapers.
After answering questions in three separate hearings, he was called back to the House on March 28 and told it he had acted illegally in failing to name Alexander Peter Cockburn as the legitimate election winner and returning MP for Muskoka. He was then removed from his post as returning officer.
That same year, parliamentarians also admitted to the bar a member of the media who was also a casual employee of the House: Elie Tass, editor-in-chief of Courrier d’Outaouais, a French-language newspaper published in Ottawa.
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In an article entitled Le Masque est lev (The mask is lifted), the newspaper accuses the member for Charlevoix Pierre-Alexis Tremblay of flattering his electorate during the elections and of voting systematically with the opposition thereafter. But this game is played, and the riding of Charlevoix will show him that it is so, because it is a cry of shame to the traitors and the rascals, we read in the article, quoted by deputies in the Parliamentary Journals. .
The article also accused the deputy for Deux Montagnes Wilfrid Prvost of being a traitor who inspired us with the greatest disgust.
Iain Stewart, President of the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2018. Photo by Tony Caldwell / Postmedia / File
In the end, Tass was asked half a dozen questions about the owner of the newspaper before being allowed to step down without incurring penalties.
MPs were also called to the stand to be reprimanded by the President as recently as 2002, when Keith Martin seized the ceremonial mace in the House after the Liberals overturned his bill. parliamentary initiative that decriminalizes marijuana.
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Days after his protest gesture, the House voted to suspend Martin until he came to the bar and officially apologized, which he did soon after and was allowed to resume his seat. .
In other cases, the House of Commons has issued a warrant allowing the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest an individual to compel him to appear before Parliament, but without necessarily calling him to the bar.
This power was last used in 2007 to force lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber to appear before the Federal Ethics Committee in the Airbus affair involving former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
Email: [email protected] | Twitter: ChrisGNardi
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