I mean the rules of privilege and the process. I think what we've really been asked to do here is to look at the behaviour outside the House. That seems to be where the big gaps would be.
Maybe you can just let us know later if there's anything that needs to be tightened in terms of behaviour in the House in order to make people feel it's a safe workplace. Otherwise I think the work of this committee deals mainly with things outside the House, because of, as you've just demonstrated, what's going on there.
I think we've decided we will need some cases of normal politics, and we would love if you had any anonymous examples of cases that you think would be troubling under the normal process within the House, things that maybe would be referred to some third party. Maybe the behaviour in the House is related to something that's happening outside the House, or there's a context that needs to be confidential, or something like that.
We're really interested in finding some cases. We know tough cases make bad law, but somehow, in order for us to get it right, we do need to know what we're dealing with in terms of a code of conduct.
When we looked at the definition from the House of Commons policy, the abuse of authority section didn't seem to really apply, and there were a number of things in the sexual harassment definition that didn't seem to apply: “if there was an opportunity for training or promotion”, we couldn't quite see how that would apply to members of Parliament. I think the analysts are going to try to take out those bits that seem to be mainly about an employee-employer relationship rather than a member-to-member relationship.
If we struggle with the definitions, we then have to sort out training and enforcement. We're probably going to have to sort out process on our own.
In terms of training, it seems that the Speaker has no real power to tell members of Parliament, “You'd better get yourselves trained in terms of the way you deal with one another or deal with employees”. As I explained to committee members last week, in order for me to keep my privileges at the hospital, I have to do a 40-minute e-training, e-learning session on harassment. I have to pass that test and know where to go and what to do if I'm going to keep my privileges.
I'm not aware that there's any power the House of Commons or Speaker could have, unless they could withhold our monies or our budget. What happens if people just refuse to get trained once we design a training program? Again, what power does the House of Commons have to enforce whatever process it comes up with? Particularly, if confidentiality is so important, if somebody goes all the way through this process promising to be confidential and then it isn't, do we, as the House of Commons, have any power? We're not like the Senate, in which people are employees.
One other gap I was asking about is that when we finish our work here, there will still be a gap regarding any misdemeanours or accusations between the two chambers. If it's a senator and an MP, I don't think we know quite how we could finish this work without actually having that sorted out.