Mr. Speaker, in this debate I want to address an aspect of the procedure that we are dealing with here. Some members have referred to this as being a matter where we should be voting in favour of the motion to support the ruling of the Speaker.
I bring to members' attention my understanding of the rules here, that we are not voting to support or not support the Speaker. What we are doing is voting on a motion moved by our colleague, and that motion is on the floor because the Speaker has ruled that there is a prima facie breach of that privilege of the House.
This does not mean that there has been with certainty—agreed to by all members—a breach of those privileges.
The ruling of the Speaker allows this motion to come to the floor and to be debated on and adopted or not, as we see fit. So the whole issue of whether or not there has been a breach of privilege still remains in the hands of members and the Speaker did not, and I say this respectfully, wish to become one of the voters or movers of the motion.
Whether we vote for or against in this particular instance, we are not voting for or against the Speaker. We are already here in the House with the Speaker who has our support. That is not at issue.
All of the issues surrounding whether or not there has been a breach of the privileges of the House will be taken up by a committee of this House which we set up for that purpose and that committee will report back to the House with the report. At that point in time every member of this House will have an opportunity, dependent on the rules of the House. to debate the report and the House may or may not adopt the report.
That report may make recommendations as to how we should deal with this issue if all the facts are shown to be correct, how we should deal with it among ourselves as members of Parliament given the issues involved. It involves a number of our colleagues.
I wanted to make that point in the hope that the debate this afternoon would not get too much into the flag issue and too much into support or non-support of the Speaker—we always support the Speaker—but whether or not the matter should be taken up by all members through the committee we have designated for that purpose.