Thank you to both of you for coming in.
The issue in terms of debate doesn't seem to be the one that is captivating this committee. To be honest, I think there's a general sense that the Speaker has the ability through the Standing Orders to control debate in the House of Commons and request that a member apologize, and in some cases, sanction members if they are not willing to apologize for offending comments. So I think we're generally comfortable with that.
It really goes outside of the context of the House or the committee where really privilege doesn't exist between members to the extent it does in this setting so that's really where we're spending a fair bit of time. To be honest, increasingly I think committee members understand there are provisions through the Human Rights Tribunal, or different things, to address our debates or what we might call each other outside of that context.
We really are concerned I think to a larger extent about the ability for an employer, or for us as an institution, to control the activities as it relates to sexual harassment, oftentimes even outside the places of our employment. We haven't defined what our employment jurisdiction is here. We as MPs often think we never leave the role we're playing.
Have either of you some suggestions as to how we might better address issues of sexual harassment to ensure we protect the identities of those people who might feel uncomfortable coming forward if they do feel there is a chance their identities would be exposed, but also to ensure there's fairness within the system?
Then in a legal context, can you comment on what jurisdiction this House or this entity might have regarding people's personal lives?
We do have a group of people who are essentially executives. We aren't one another's employers. We do have provisions to deal with employee-employer sexual harassment, but in terms of colleagues we don't. That's really where we're at. We're trying to put all the pieces together to care for all the things I described, but it really is between peers that we need some kind of protocol.
Is there any suggestion or insight either of you can give us on that front?