I am now ready to rule on a question of privilege by the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt, which he raised first on November 2, 1994 and then again on February 8, 1995.
On November 2 the member rose to complain that during question period the previous day the Deputy Prime Minister had breached confidentiality by quoting from a letter which the member had written on behalf of a constituent to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. He contended that by revealing the contents of this letter without his permission the Deputy Prime Minister had interfered with his ability to carry out his duties. He argued that his constituents would now wonder whether or not matters on which they sought his assistance could be kept confidential.
The Deputy Prime Minister responded that the letter was part of the public record of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.
On February 8, 1995 the hon. member again rose on a question of privilege to state that new information had come to light on the same matter. He explained that the constituent on whose behalf he had written had received a letter from the manager of correspondence and complaints at the CRTC. In that letter the constituent was advised that under the terms of the Privacy Act,
unless she requested otherwise, the hon. member's letter, sent on her behalf, and any other correspondence related to her complaint would become part of the licensee's publicly accessible file in early January.
The hon. member now argues that contrary to the statement of the Deputy Prime Minister his letter was not in fact a public document when the Deputy Prime Minister quoted from it last November and again requested that I review the matter.
The chief government whip then intervened and argued that what was at issue was a question of law and that the Speaker does not rule on such matters. He also added that if the hon. Member had a complaint with the CRTC, there were other avenues by which he could pursue it.
Let me first address the matter of whether or not the member's letter to the Minister of Canadian Heritage was a public document and therefore able to be quoted from in debate. Beauchesne's Sixth Edition, page 151, citation 495(7) states:
When a letter, even though it may have been written originally as a private letter, becomes part of a record of a department, it becomes a public document, and if quoted by a Minister in debate, must be tabled on request.
From this, I must conclude that the letter from the hon. member to the minister was in fact a public document and therefore could be quoted from in the House.
It is not for me to decide whether or not, as the Deputy Prime Minister stated, the letter was part of the public record of the CRTC. The application of the Privacy Act and the laws and policies governing CRTC dossiers are beyond my purview. As my predecessors have repeatedly ruled, it is not now, nor has it ever been, the role of the Speaker to rule on questions of law. This has been a longstanding practice and I draw members' attention to Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure and Practice in the Dominion of Canada , Fourth Edition, 1916 at page 180 which reads that the Speaker:
-will not give a decision upon a constitutional question nor decide a question of law, though the same be raised on a point of order or privilege.
This is also repeated in citation 168(5) of Beauchesne's sixth edition, 1989.
On matters of privilege, it is up to the House to decide whether or not a member's privileges have been breached. The Speaker must be persuaded that there is some evidence that a member has been hindered in the performance of his or her parliamentary duties, before putting the question to the whole House for determination.
Having carefully reviewed the procedural authorities and the interventions of hon. members, I must conclude that in the case before us there is no prima facie question of privilege.
I thank all hon. members for their contribution to this decision.