Mr. Speaker, I only want to comment briefly. The issues referred to by the House leader for the official opposition refer to proceedings of the committee and what a committee is able to do in terms of its authority to ask for witnesses, its authority to exceed the powers of the House and so on. We are not discussing an issue like this today.
The issue brought to our attention has to do with officials of the House under our command, the command of the Board of Internal Economy through you as its chair, Mr. Speaker, and whether they exceeded any authority vested in them by all of us, particularly in an era where we asked officials to reduce budgets and so on.
Be that as it may, later this afternoon—I am told it is at 5.15 p.m.—the committee of the Board of Internal Economy, you, Mr. Speaker as our chairman and all of us sitting on the board have mandated to review the precise issue of legislative services and what services are afforded to members. We will be dealing with precisely the services in question.
I suggest that the information brought to the attention of the table and the Chair be handed to that committee. It could assist the committee in its deliberations. The committee could then recommend to the Board of Internal Economy an appropriate course of action in terms of the restoration of services which may or may not be deficient as alleged by the hon. member in the question of privilege raised a moment ago.
I am sure that the committee and the mandate we gave to the committee at the board was to act expeditiously. Therefore, I can only conclude that the board as a whole would be seized of this very rapidly. Then it will be up to us as representatives of all political parties in the House at the board level to take the course of action which is warranted.