As this debate is petering out, I appreciate first of all the words of my two colleagues down the way, speaking on behalf of rights they're being told they're now given excellent privilege to, and that in disagreeing there's a smack of paternalism in this. I have three-year-old boys, and sometimes when I tell them to do something that I know is good for them, they may disagree. But from one member of Parliament to another, to tell an MP what's good for them and not listen to what they're actually saying, that speaks of a certain hubris and of the actual intention—the inconvenience of democracy from time to time, which disturbs the Conservatives and their backsides when we have to sit through a number of hours of votes.
I wonder what Elsie Wayne and Jean Charest would say about this, when they were thrust into the independent role and suddenly found themselves on the other side. Everything comes full circle in Parliament. It's a funny thing in politics sometimes: you think you're taking such great advantage of your situation and only find out later that you hurt yourself deeply.
With respect to the two tracks and the sub judice convention, I heard two things very specifically from Tom. It is going to be difficult for him now to argue a position that he won't be able to maintain. The one thing is respect for the Speaker's ruling. I believe him; we all respect the Speaker's ruling with respect to Mr. Bezan. The question is whether we can at least begin to have some sort of conversation about that serious ruling coming from the Speaker.
The second thing, which now runs counter to Tom's own argument, is that sub judice was refuted by the Speaker. That argument didn't hold weight for the Speaker in his ruling. The fact that this is before the courts did not stop him from finding a prima facie case of privilege. Sending that privilege to this committee to deal with doesn't hold. You can't have it both ways: you can't respect the Speaker's ruling and then ignore the Speaker's ruling.
So when we set out to say that we can have at least some initial hearings with witnesses who are already going to be in front of us, Chair, it doesn't cause any inconvenience for the witnesses or the members. It certainly allows Mr. Bezan and others to make the case with respect to a serious matter, which is whether he should be standing in the House of Commons and voting.
That is what the Speaker ruled on, and he had no qualms, although he mentioned it, about the fact that it is before a court. If he had serious concerns about this sub judice protocol that we have in Parliament, then he would have said so. He would have asked for a delay. He would have suggested that the courts needed to deal with the matter first before Parliament could. He did not say that; he said the opposite. He said that of course we can do this, and while it may be convention, there are times when members' privileges are in question that cannot wait on a court and a judge to decide whether those things are important or not.
To my friend across the way and his sincere belief that the Speaker should be respected, let's respect the Speaker and the ruling, the very wise ruling, that he made. Sub judice does not and should prevent us from looking into this matter. If that is the argument being used, one can only suspect there is some other reason. That is where we get into hot water. Exactly.
Finally, Mr. Chair, because we've spent perhaps more time on this today than we planned to, I think the suggestion by Madam May and Monsieur Fortin was meant in sincerity to the government. The fact that it has been so casually dismissed is interesting.
I can only say to my friends across the way that what goes around comes around. All of these shortcuts that they've been taking around democratic inconveniences over the last number of years seem to be coming home, gentlemen. It seems to me that the news of the day should remind us of that fact that cutting corners on democracy and pretending that promises made are no longer promises made—with nominating unelected senators, with going back on your word, with finding that the debate and the to and fro in Parliament, which I believe to be a healthy thing, are somehow against the will of the almighty Prime Minister—seems to have caught back up.
Here we are at another committee, trying to allow Independents to have their independent voice and one of the few privileges that a member from a non-recognized party has. They don't have many. New Democrats have been there. Conservatives have been there. Anybody in those mini-caucuses will know that there's a great disadvantage in not being in an officially recognized party. It's not just during question period and in terms of staffing and resources; there are many others, and lots of them. This was one of them.
It was used to some great effect to show that the omnibus legislation the government was ramming through undemocratically—oh, is there a pattern here that I detect?—was flawed and should be considered in its parts. Oh, lo and behold, they made mistakes with the EI system. They made mistakes with the environmental assessment system, some of them knowingly and some of them not. They made bad legislation, and they wanted to make it quickly because it was on their timeline rather on the timeline of the country. What a shame!
