There are two parts to the question, Mr. Chairman. One is the link between the allegation of breach of privilege and the need to establish there was an impairment or impediment in the member's ability to do his function.
Certainly, if you look at O'Brien and Bosc, starting on page 108, where they talk about this matter, and you go to page 110, where they're talking about physical obstruction, assault or molestation, obviously the facts will speak for themselves, whether in fact what took place was of a kind that would impair the member's ability to do his function.
But then, as I mentioned earlier, they also allow that non-physical means could be used to cause an obstruction or interference. It would appear from reading the text and the rulings that I've seen—we don't have a lot in this regard—there's a presumption that a sufficient assault on the reputation of a member would impair their ability to do their duty as a member of Parliament.
As I said earlier, I suppose that's acceptable in a scenario where the allegation or the comment made about the member goes to the moral character or person of the member of a kind that he or she would find themself unable to carry on his or her duties, if shunned in their community, shunned in the House and committees, and so on. That's an obvious example where, clearly, the member is not able to communicate freely with their colleagues because of the declaration or comment made about him or her.
Is there something short of this that would be sufficient? Well, it's for the committee to decide what constitutes an impediment.
When you talk about something like defamation or, in this context, a misrepresentation or an assault on the character of a member, it's very hard, whether in a parliamentary context or the legal context, always to get hard evidence to show that in fact it really is causing an impediment to the member's ability to do his or her duty as a parliamentarian, or the individual plaintiff citizen's ability to carry on their life normally in the community. It's kind of hard to.... Sometimes the evidence is there, but sometimes it may not be. Yet what was said was defamatory, and a plaintiff will win the action. They may not get much in the way of damages, because, as I said earlier, part of the objective is to get the court to say that what was said was defamatory, and that's important.