I hope colleagues will agree that, if nothing else, when you bring in the parliamentary law clerk, it's always fascinating.
Just help me make sure I have the horse in front of the cart. The matter before us right now is not specifically the constitutionality of the bill. That is the second step. The first step is that we as an appellant body have been asked to overrule a judgment that a given bill is not votable because it is obviously unconstitutional.
I moved the motion to bring you in. What I wanted to hear from you was just that. Is it that blatant? If so, it's a slam dunk for us, but I'm hearing something very different from that. I'll get to that in a moment.
Staying with the votability, colleagues, I come to this with a strong bias. I've always had a great deal of difficulty with the notion that the majority of MPs get to decide whether an individual MP's bill gets the right of a vote. This is in the context of how our rights as members of Parliament have been lost over the decades as our parliamentary system has evolved. I always start with the bias that you better have a darn good reason for telling a member of Parliament that they don't have the right to air their issue. The one area where you have some sovereignty around here is the private member's bill, and now you're being told by everybody else that your right has been extinguished, and that this was done by peers, colleagues, so I offer my bias up front.
Having said that, I think it makes good sense that if something is outrageously unconstitutional, if it is obviously a violation of our Charter of Rights, we would not want to give it credibility by allowing a vote on it. The fact that it is unconstitutional means, in my view, that you haven't done your homework as member of Parliament. Rather than just saying your rights have been extinguished, go back and do your homework. Do the job right and figure out a way to bring it forward so that it is at least constitutional. If you can't do that, too bad. That's kind of where I am.
Parenthetically, I want to say that one of the things I am truly going to miss in not being a member of Parliament is having a fascinating discussion with a group of people where one of them says, “Yeah, I wrote a book about that.” This didn't happen in my previous life, and I don't expect it to happen in my future life, but in this life it happens, and it's amazing, especially when it's someone of the credibility of the person I'm talking about.
To get back to the point, for me, that's why it was so important to have you in here. There was some question that, by virtue of your office, your having given a constitutional opinion to the author of the bill would somehow negate our right to have an equally thoughtful opinion. That was a real problem.
I think we seem to be okay with that. We're not asking what advice you gave them. We are saying, “This is now before us. What advice do you give us?” It may be the same. It may be different. That's between you and the member, but anything that would preclude a committee of Parliament from seeking and benefiting from the thinking of the parliamentary law clerk nullifies, to me, what the system is there for. I'm a layperson. I have a grade 9 education. If we're going to talk constitutions, I want my lawyer. Who's my lawyer? The parliamentary law clerk.
Anyway, I think we got past that, and it's all good and fine.
Coming back to the actual issue, help me again with the test. Can a credible argument be made against the constitutionality? Tease that out a bit for me, please.