Tories want senior PMO staff, or PM, at committee

The federal Liberals say the Conservatives are abusing their powers in the House of Commons in their efforts to force senior Liberal staffers to testify before committees.

Liberal House leader Pablo Rodriguez says it has long been a practice of Parliament for the buck to stop with cabinet ministers when it comes to who is held responsible and questioned at committee.

He called the Conservatives' attempt to use "heavy handed" procedural tactics to summon political staff and civil servants to testify about the WE Charity affair and how the government handled a sexual-misconduct allegation against the country's top soldier a form of partisan intimidation.

"Members of this House are protected from intimidation through our parliamentary privilege. It is irresponsible for members to turn this protection into weapons against those who are not covered by these protections," Rodriguez said in the House of Commons Thursday morning.

"Not only is it irresponsible, it is a clear abuse of power."

The Conservatives' motion, which is being debated today, is aimed at getting three members of the prime minister's staff before the ethics committee to provide more information on the WE Charity affair.

They also want the former chief of staff to the defence minister, who now works for another minister, to appear at the defence committee to shed more light on sexual misconduct issues in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett accused the Liberals of trying to hide the truth.

"All of these individuals have direct knowledge of the issues the committees have been studying and they must testify so that Canadians can have the truth," Barrett said.

He dismissed any notion that Canadians are not as engaged on these issues as they are on the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We think it's very important to Canadians that when the government is spending hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, that it's done in an effective way. "

The motion says that if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were to show up instead for at least three hours, the staffers wouldn't have to.

The Conservatives have been trying to get those witnesses to committees but have been thwarted by the Liberals either talking out the clock or using procedural moves to avert votes.

So the Tories now want to end-run that by putting the issue to a vote on the floor of the House of Commons itself, where the opposition can more easily outmanoeuvre the minority Liberals.