Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in this House today to discuss our Standing Orders to determine whether some changes may be warranted and also whether some of the existing provisions should be not only maintained but strengthened.
I salute the open-mindedness of the members of all political parties in this House, and particularly the government party, which has agreed to hold a debate on the Standing Orders in this House. I think it is rather unusual to have parliamentarians discuss the Standing Orders in this place to allow us to begin a review process that will no doubt be taken further by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
That having been said, while the open-mindedness of the members of this Parliament ought to be saluted, I must immediately express a concern. It is one thing to discuss the Standing Orders in this House, but it is another to take into account the recommendations, comments and concerns voiced in this place today.
Do government and other members of this House have any intention of following up on this debate? Will this not just be another of those sterile debates we have all too often in this place, debates that end up leading nowhere or to a unilateral decision by the government? I certainly hope not and I do hope the government will take note of what is said here today.
Right off, I would like to address the issue of the privilege of this House. The Standing Orders set out the procedure applicable when the privileges of this House have been breached. Parliamentary jurisprudence, customs and traditions and even the Parliament of Canada Act all show that there are, in this House, a number of privileges enjoyed not only by the House as a whole but also by individual members in the performance of their parliamentary duties here in this chamber.
We are told that for centuries these privileges have been sacred and carry with them certain safeguards. In the past, this House, members of this House and other parliaments in the British tradition have used provisions provided for in the Standing Orders, the legislation and case law to have their privileges upheld, privileges which, it must be pointed out, are considered sacred.
Unfortunately we cannot but notice that through the years, maybe as a result of changing political mores, maybe as a result of expanding communications, who knows, the procedures to uphold these privileges have become increasingly toothless.
It has become increasingly difficult to have the Speaker of the House rule that, in a matter which, in the opinion of some members of this House, represents an obvious breach of the privileges of the House, there is indeed a prima facie case of privilege or even contempt of Parliament. Once we have gone successfully through this first screening, the assessment of the matter raised in the House by the Speaker in his wisdom, then we must debate a motion usually aimed at referring the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
First I must point out that, over the years, there might have been, on the part of members of this House and the Speaker, regardless of the person who sits in the chair, a lack of political will not only to enforce procedures protecting parliamentary privilege in a concrete way, but also to consider any measure aimed at protecting it as being of the utmost importance.
When we debate privilege, which is often referred to the Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, we are faced with yet another problem. If the question involves in any way the government majority or a parliamentary majority made up sometimes of only the party in power or other times of the party in power and certain opposition parties, it becomes absolutely impossible to have it recognized that yes indeed there has been a breach of the House's privileges.
I am referring specifically to the case that has been before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The facts are as follows. We passed a motion in the House to refer to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs the matter of the statements made by certain MPs in the Ottawa Sun that, prima facie, constituted, or could constitute, breaches of the privileges of the House.
Obviously, an objective examination shows that these statements were made only by members of the government party or of the Reform party. Accordingly, when we examined the matter in committee, the chair and members did everything they could to squelch debate, to keep light from being shed on this very murky affair. The report is therefore very indulgent—I use the term deliberately—with respect to the members of the House who made these statements.
Traditionally, the Speaker of the House does not interfere in decisions taken in committee and in decisions taken by committee chairs.
This, I think, is an aspect of the Standing Orders that deserves closer examination because, although each one of us firmly believes that the person who occupies the chair in this House will act in an objective and impartial manner, so as to protect all members' individual rights, we do not, nor will we ever, feel this way about committee chairs. Why? For the simple reason that these chairs are partisan. For the most part, they are Liberal MPs with partisan interests to defend—which leads me to another question.
As I said, we do not have the absolute conviction that committee chairs will apply, not only the Standing Orders of the House, but also the spirit that lies behind them, which is protection of individual rights, the parliamentary rights of each and every member in this Parliament.
Unfortunately, we have had this unpleasant experience in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in connection with the référence to committee of statements made by members of this House to a daily newspaper which, in the opinion of the Speaker, might constitute contempt of the House.
I shall return later to that question of contempt, if time allows, but I would like to take advantage of this debate to raise the question of committee chairs. Traditionally, at least two committees are headed by members of the opposition, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, and the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations. It stands to reason that this should be the case, since the very nature of the control Parliament must exercise over the government's actions is at stake.
It would appear that, in the case of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations, since the Reform Party refused to take the chair position, the Liberals decided that they would, thus usurping the tradition that this position is reserved for the opposition. In keeping with the very logic of this committee's serving as a control over government regulation through this Parliament, the position of chair ought to have gone to the next largest party in opposition after the official opposition.
We will also have to be looking very soon at the matter of the weekly timetable for House sittings, and I trust that changes will be made which will allow more freedom