Mr. Speaker, I have listened to something which I do not believe is a question of privilege. I think it was a plea made to the Board of Internal Economy but expressed in the House of Commons.
First, the speech of the hon. member was not concluded by a request for a referral to the proper parliamentary committee. In fact it concluded with what I said earlier. In other words, it was a plea that the Board of Internal Economy reverse a decision which he alleges the board has already taken. I will not get into whether the board has or has not taken such a decision because that could become a question of privilege if I did precisely that.
What Your Honour has before you is a dispute between two members of parliament: one a member of the House of Commons and one a member of the Senate, both being members of parliament under the constitution as we know it today. Should that constitution change someday to state something otherwise then it could be judged otherwise. Meanwhile, the fact remains that under our constitution parliament is the Sovereign, the House of Commons and the Senate in parliament assembled.
He alleges that the senator, when exercising this lawsuit against him, was speaking on behalf of the Senate. I submit that is ridiculous. That is about the same as our believing that when the hon. member who just spoke speaks in the House he speaks on behalf of all of us, let alone when he speaks outside the House.
On very few occasions would I ever admit that member speaks on behalf of me or my constituents, particularly when he speaks outside this place.
Second, the allegation is made in a civil suit and not in reference to what was said inside the House, or if it was at least the hon. member has not demonstrated that the civil suit pertains to something that was said in the House.
I believe that he referred on a number of occasions to a 16 page document which he circulated to several thousand constituents of his riding and was not about something that was said in the House.
Only one person is in the position to speak on behalf of this institution. I would submit, Sir, that is yourself. Only one person, similarly, can speak on behalf of the Senate. I would submit that is your counterpart, the hon. Speaker of the other place. Therefore to pretend that one member of the Senate is speaking for the institution is not factually correct.
In his speech, the hon. member also made very strong allegations regarding the government and, therefore, many members in this House. He said that the senator was taking legal action with the support, according to the hon. member's claim, of the government in office, which means some 30 members of this House.
He also said that the senator could get legal services and that her lawyers might then get contracts, lucrative ones as he put it, from MPs, more specifically from ministers.
I would ask that a very close look be taken at these allegations, since they are in fact accusations which are, in my opinion, much more serious than the ones the hon. member referred to in his arguments.
He talked about freedom of speech in this House. Indeed, members of parliament do enjoy freedom of speech here, and the House can of course take action against one of its members if he or she says something that is not true or not acceptable under the standards of our institution. However, this freedom of speech does not extend beyond the precincts of this House, and I go back to my original point, which is that the member is referring to something that took place outside the House.
I am not taking sides regarding what happened outside the House. It is none of my business. However, I do believe that we are all concerned by the allegations made in this House about parliamentarians who sit here.
He referred to non-elected senators having, as a result of all these allegations, precedence over elected MPs. The reference he made earlier in which he alleges that some members of the House, ministers, could give legal contracts to lawyers in exchange for defending a member of the other place is a very serious allegation. I would invite Your Honour to reread that portion of the statement very carefully to see whether anything warrants that kind of what I would call vicious attack against hon. members of the House.
I believe criticism of the Board of Internal Economy made in this way in the House is not acceptable. Members of all parties serve on the board and attempt, under the guidance and leadership of our Speaker, to do a good job on behalf of all of us in the management of this place. That is what I believe all of us do in good conscience. This kind of accusation is unwarranted, not specifically against me, but against all of us who sit on the Board of Internal Economy on behalf of this institution.
The institution itself is more important than any one of us and certainly does not warrant the kind of criticism I have just heard.