Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt the question you will have to deal with is serious. I am sure you will deal with it in a very serious manner as you always do.
Mr. Speaker, I believe you will have to consider mainly what constitutes privilege as being defined in citation 24 of Beauchesne which reads in part:
Parliamentary privilege is the sum of the peculiar rights enjoyed by each House collectively as a constituent part of the High Court of Parliament, and by Members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions and which exceed those possessed by other bodies of individuals.
In that regard Mr. Speaker will have to judge whether the action in question as alleged today constitutes an act which prevents other members from conducting their duties as defined in the definition of privilege we have before us.
The second thing Mr. Speaker might want to consider is in relation to the accusation made, whether the accusation was delayed or whether it was brought forward to the House at the earliest opportunity and given the gravity, whether the delay is justified under the circumstance. Mr. Speaker will have to decide on all those things.
Mr. Speaker will have to rule on the importance of the issue itself.
In a related matter, I ask Mr. Speaker to look at the issue of illegality which was raised today. I believe that one is outside the jurisdiction of Parliament. In addition and as an aside to the alleged illegality there is the issue of whether or not the action in question was unparliamentary and whether the issue was inappropriate for a member of Parliament to engage in. If that action were to be inappropriate, was it sufficiently inappropriate to deem an action by the Speaker and deem it to be a prima facie case of privilege?
There are actions from time to time that are inappropriate but Mr. Speaker rules that they may not necessarily be of such importance as to deem them to be prima facie cases of privilege. On the other hand, other accusations meet that test and have been deemed to be so by the Speaker and have been referred to the parliamentary committee.
The committee undertakes the second step of determining whether the prima facie case of privilege constitutes a true case of privilege as determined by peers of the House, members of Parliament sitting on the parliamentary committee on procedure, privilege and election.
The committee over recent years has seldom exercised its role in regard to privilege as it generally deals with issues involving procedure, amending our rules, and elections as was done recently in terms of electoral redistribution and so on. Nevertheless that residual power does belong to that committee, once having had referred to it by Mr. Speaker a prima facie case of privilege.
I believe those are the issues Mr. Speaker will have to address in making his determination. Then Mr. Speaker will bring that prima facie ruling back to the House for the House to refer the matter if it is deemed necessary to the appropriate committee.