Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to again just outline this breach of privilege question in a clear and concise manner, if I can.
The meeting on Thursday, March 25, of this committee was an in camera meeting. Although the member for Parkdale—High Park is not a regular member of our committee, the member decided to attend our meeting on that day and put forward a motion on behalf of the regular member, who was present at the committee at that time.
On Tuesday, March 30, Mr. Kennedy sent an e-mail to all members of the Liberal caucus stating that our committee would “review the government's stated deadline of March 31, 2011 and its impact on municipalities, as proposed by Sukh Dhaliwal and myself”. They expected “the committee to schedule meetings for mid-April”.
He attached a template letter and a questionnaire and asked Liberal members to “send to your municipal contacts in your riding”. The attached letter stated that “Gerard Kennedy's motion” had passed on March 25, and received “all party support”.
The public minutes did not mention these transient facts that were contained within the letter, which I think everybody has received a copy of. They did not mention whose motion it was, nor that it received all-party support, a fact that could be seen as misleading without the context of the debate that occurred on March 25.
I might remind all colleagues that, indeed, Mr. Kennedy proposed a motion that would take the meeting from an in camera meeting to a public meeting, and the committee said no. I would suggest that is in fact an aggravating circumstance. The public meetings also did not mention when the committee would be hearing testimony or the statements that they expected committee to schedule meetings for mid-April. That could also be seen as intentionally misleading, taken out of context of the debate that occurred on March 25.
Mr. Chair, this is clearly a breach of privilege on the facts and pursuant to the rules of the House. It is a breach of privilege on the behalf of the member for Parkdale—High Park, and I believe the committee should report this matter to the House immediately as a result.
As you are aware, we cannot find a breach of privilege; only the Speaker can do that. But we are under obligation to report it to the House if we believe that it may have taken place.
To be clear, what use is an in camera meeting if we can't trust other members of Parliament to keep the information confidential? This House operates on the basis of rules and trust. In this case, I would submit that both of these have been breached by Mr. Kennedy.
I also have drafted a report that was utilized by the environment committee in relation to a similar breach that took place with Ms. Linda Duncan, and I would like to submit that for distribution.
That is my submission.