Colleagues, on May 1st, 1996, the hon. member for Richelieu raised a point of order to argue that, contrary to my statement that remarks made outside the House are not necessarily within the purview of the House, the hon. member for Rosemont had been obliged in 1993 to withdraw remarks he had made outside the House. I explained that, as I recalled the 1993 case, it differed because the remarks made in that instance concerned the House directly. Nonetheless, I promised to review the matter and come back to the House, if necessary.
I am now prepared to respond to this point of order. Let me point out that the 1993 case is not analogous because the remarks in question were a direct attack on the Chair. What was at issue is that a member was reported in a newspaper article and had criticized the conduct of the Assistant Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole.
Remarks critical of the speakership, be they uttered inside the House or outside the Chamber, particularly when uttered by a member of the House, are very serious and in themselves have been ruled to be breaches of privilege as per Beauchesne's sixth edition, citation 168(1):
Reflections upon the character or actions of the Speaker may be punished as breaches of privilege. The actions of the Speaker cannot be criticized incidentally in debate or upon any form of proceeding except by way of a substantive motion.
When this matter was raised in the House in 1993, the hon. member for Rosemont was given the opportunity to respond and explain his comments. Speaker Fraser, having listened to this explanation and to remarks from all sides of the House, stated, in part, on page 17404 of the Debates :
If we consider the words that were reported, we clearly have a prima facie case that affects the dignity of this House and our colleague, because our colleague is an officer of this House- like the Speaker, he is an officer of this House and an attack against the integrity of a person in that position is an attack against this House.
The Speaker ruled the matter to be a prima facie question of privilege. A motion was moved to refer the matter to the then Standing Committee on House Management for examination, and the motion was adopted. Two days later, the member for Rosemont rose in the House and withdrew his comments. From there, the matter was considered closed.
There is no question that both sets of remarks, the remarks by the hon. member for Rosemont in 1993 and the remarks by the hon member for Nanaimo-Cowichan, two weeks ago, were made outside the House. The distinction to be made between the two, however, is not where the remarks were made, but rather that the remarks in one case were critical of the Chair and in the other case were not directed to the House or any of its members.
I thank the hon. member for Richelieu for bringing this matter to the attention of the House.