Speaker says Kenney didn’t mislead Commons with error
Defence Minister Jason Kenney did not mislead the House of Commons when he made erroneous claims about Canada’s military mission in Syria, the Speaker has ruled.
Andrew Scheer said Wednesday that as Commons Speaker, he is required to take all members of Parliament at their word, adding that Kenney said he did not intend to mislead the Commons.
“To do otherwise, to take it upon myself to assess the truthfulness or accuracy of members’ statements is not a role which has been conferred on me, nor that the House has indicated that it would somehow wish the Chair to assume, with all of its implications,” Scheer noted.
Kenney’s problems began in late March when, in explaining Canada’s entry into the war in Syria, he told a number of news outlets that Canada and the U.S. were the only members of the anti-ISIL coalition who had smart bombs.
Kenney’s erroneous claim was highlighted in the Ottawa Citizen, which pointed out that both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, part of the current five-country U.S.-led coalition bombing targets in Syria, have smart weapons and had already used them against Islamic extremists.
Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson then released a statement claiming Kenney was indeed correct in making his claims. The minister also took to Twitter to denounce what he called a “misleading ” Citizen article, citing the claims made in Lawson’s letter. In the Commons, the NDP challenged Kenney about the truthfulness of his statements; he repeated his claims about the smart bombs.
But a short time later, Lawson issued a new statement, conceding that other nations in the coalition possessed and had used such weapons.
Kenney apologized in the Commons, blaming senior military officials for providing him with wrong information.
But NDP defence critic Jack Harris asked the Speaker to rule on whether Kenney had misled the Commons.
Harris pointed out Kenney had a “sacred duty to ensure the accuracy of statements, particularly when it informs members’ decisions on such critical issues as whether or not to send Canadians off to war.” He contended that Kenney’s statements constituted a serious breach of privilege.
But Scheer pointed out that Kenney later acknowledged in the Commons that the information was wrong and apologized.
“The chair would like to remind the House that first, the statement needs to be misleading,” he said. “Second, the member making the statement has to know that the statement was incorrect when it was made. Finally, it needs to be proven that the member intended to mislead the House by making the statement.
“Based on a thorough assessment of the information brought forward, in my view there is no clear evidence that would lead me to conclude that the necessary conditions concerning misleading statements have been met,” Scheer noted.