I want to thank Ms. Sahota.
I may slightly disagree with you on a few points.
I don't think I was sufficiently clear in my opening statement, so I want to get back to some of the points that Mr. Richards made.
I want to thank Mr. Reid for his long dissertation. It reminded me of listening in one of my classes to Elmer Driedger on the interpretation of statutes. Your knowledge of history is always very illuminating, and I thank you for it.
I want to get back to what is really the issue before this committee. I think that's where I wasn't sufficiently clear, so I'm going to reiterate it.
The issue is not whether, in fact, there was an unauthorized disclosure of information. That's where I slightly depart from Ms. Sahota's point. The issue before us is whether there was, in fact, a breach of members' privilege, which is why, at the beginning, I suggested to this committee that we call the acting clerk and the law clerk and parliamentary counsel to establish the nature of the privilege. I think we know what that is, which is, were parliamentarians disadvantaged by having a premature disclosure of the bill before it was tabled in the House of Commons?
Then the next issue for me is getting to the threshold of crossing what is a breach of members' privileges. It has been our position from the get-go that in order for there to be a breach of members' privileges, it actually requires a substantive disclosure, that after the notice of motion was tabled in the House that Bill C-14 was coming forward, someone was in possession, on an unauthorized basis, of the bill before it was tabled by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada in the House of Commons. So far my point is that we have had no evidence to date that that had taken place. The article does not in any way indicate that happened.
The point I was trying to make earlier is that the only person who has actual knowledge of whether they had the bill is Laura Stone herself. She is, from my perspective, the only witness who really can answer that question, and it's a very simple question. She doesn't have to disclose her source, she simply has to disclose whether she actually had the bill itself.
I want to get back to the earlier point. When we were asking questions of the acting clerk and the law clerk and parliamentary counsel about the nature of members' privilege, I'll be frank, I don't think we got, necessarily, a satisfactory answer. I think this is where there is a disconnect between the official opposition and the government. Obviously, as Mr. Christopherson has suggested, you want to take a more expansive view of the rights and privileges that you have, particularly when you're in opposition, but it is my view, again, that we have to be very clear on what we're defining and what the nature of a member's privilege is.
From my perspective, the only way that you're going to have a breach as it relates to this particular issue is if the bill had been in the possession of somebody before it had been tabled in the House. That's been my view from the get-go, and that's why I don't, Mr. Richards, have any sympathy with respect to these particular motions. If Ms. Stone is prepared to answer the question, a very simple yes or no, “Yes, I had a copy of the bill”, I might have some sympathy to these particular motions, some of them, but that's not the evidence before us, and that's exactly my point, which is why the government can't support it at this time.
I want to make it very clear that our role is to investigate the issue of whether there was a breach of members' privilege. From my perspective, that threshold has not been met yet. Once you meet that threshold, then we get to the question of what this committee's role and responsibility is, which is to investigate.
If you want to get back to the original motions that are before us, that's my point about why, from my perspective, you're going about it in a roundabout way. It's a fishing expedition rather than getting to the heart of the matter, which is, did the reporter have the bill? Did somebody, not authorized, have the actual substantive contents of the bill in advance of us, as members of Parliament? If the answer to that is yes, then these motions have some validity.
Thank you.