Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege with regard to the actions of a member of the House which I believe constitute a contempt of Parliament.
I cite Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada , page 210:
In the sense that the House may discipline members for improper conduct, the practice relating to taking up the conduct of members is a matter of privilege.
Beauchesne's sixth edition citation 50 states:
In any case where the propriety of a Member's actions is brought into question, a specific charge must be made.
Page 206 of Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada states:
The conduct of a member may only be discussed in the House of Commons by way of a substantive or a distinct motion, i.e. a self-contained proposal submitted for the approval of the House and drafted in such a way as to be capable of expressing a decision to the House.
Mr. Speaker, I have a specific charge and a substantive motion. I will submit it to you to determine whether it should be given privilege:
Whereas the member for Charlesbourg, acting as the defence critic for the Bloc Quebecois and supported by the then Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, released a communiqué on the letterhead of the office of the leader of the official opposition on October 26, 1995 before the referendum in Quebec inviting all francophone members of the Canadian Armed Forces to join the Quebec military in the event of a "yes" vote supporting separation from Canada;
That in the opinion of this House, this action by the hon. member for Charlesbourg and the then leader of the official opposition should be viewed as seditious and offensive to this House and constitutes a contempt of Parliament; and consequently, the House refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for examination.
Beauchesne's sixth edition citation 28 refers to the Speaker's ruling from June 19, 1959:
-it is clear that many acts which might offend against the law or the moral sense of the community do not involve a Member's capacity to serve the people who have chosen him or her as their representative nor are they contrary to the usage nor derogatory to the dignity of the House of Commons. Members of the House of Commons, like all other citizens, have the right to be regarded as innocent until they are found guilty, and like other citizens they must be charged before they are obliged to stand trial in the courts. Parliament is a court with respect to its own privileges and the dignity and the privileges of its Members.
The member for Charlesbourg has not denied sending the communiqué. This is a matter of fact. It is not something we have to prove. It is prima facie. The question to be answered is whether the member is guilty of offending Parliament. In the opinion of the House is the hon. member for Charlesbourg guilty of sedition?
This issue is being debated in the media and in the public. It is not going away. Many of us have received letters, faxes and phone calls concerning this matter. Canadians from coast to coast to coast have been contacting me as the Reform Party's defence critic objecting to the action taken by the separatist party in the House.
Retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie recently told Diane Francis, the editor of the Financial Post : ``Only in Canada could someone get away with something like that. In some countries people would be in jail. In Canada the attitude is ignore it, it will go away, there are more important issues''.
I repeat that in June of 1959 the then Speaker of the House pointed out that Parliament is a court with respect to its own privileges and dignity.
Beauchesne's sixth edition citation 46 states clearly:
The House has, on occasion, examined the activities of Members to establish if they were fit to hold their seats.
We have the right and the duty to examine these activities of members. I am not recommending that we do this on a regular
basis. However, a case such as the present one warrants our examination. In the present case we have a member of Parliament encouraging members of the Canadian Armed Forces to choose sides on the secession debate. This should be examined by the House.
Page 188 of Maingot's states:
A prima facie case of privilege in the parliamentary sense is one where the evidence on its face as outlined by the member is sufficiently strong for the House to be asked to send it to a committee to investigate whether the privileges of the House have been breached or a contempt has occurred and report to the House.
The evidence here is black and white. It is in the form of a communiqué the hon. member sent to the military.
With respect to whether this constitutes a contempt of Parliament, Erskine May's 21st edition at page 115 states that an offence of contempt:
-may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence. It is therefore impossible to list every act which might be considered to amount to contempt, the power to punish for such an offence being of its nature discretionary.
Maingot's, page 191:
While privilege may be codified, contempt may not-there is no closed list of classes of offences punishable as contempts of Parliament.
On October 29, 1980 a Speaker of the House said:
The dimension of contempt of Parliament is such that the House will not be constrained in finding a breach of privilege of its Members or of the House. This is precisely the reason that, while our privileges are defined, contempt of the House has no limits.
Mr. Speaker, if contempt has no limits, if there need not be a precedent for the offence, if contempt cannot be codified and if the House shall not be constrained in finding a contempt of Parliament, how can you do anything else but allow the members of the House the opportunity to decide if the actions of the hon. member for Charlesbourg are offensive and constitute a contempt? How can you decide this matter offends us or not? The evidence is more than sufficiently strong. The evidence is conclusive. The member sent the communiqué. We must therefore go to the next step. We must determine by due process in our opinion the member's innocence or guilt.
I would like to table the evidence in this case, which is the communiqué dated October 26, 1995 from the office of the official opposition.
Mr. Speaker, I ask that you find this matter to be a prima facie question of privilege. I believe that this matter should be reviewed to determine whether or not the dignity of the House has been violated by the hon. member's actions.