Mr. Speaker, I would like to quickly go over why this is a very serious issue and why I believe the Speaker should refer this to the procedure and House affairs committee for further investigation.
To begin with, there is no precedent for this particular case. This procedure involving getting 100 signatures from more than two parties in the House is a relatively new one. We have experimented with it for the last year or so. As far as I know this has never been a problem before because this is a relatively new procedure. I think the Speaker needs to give us some guidance and I would suggest allow the procedure and House affairs committee to give guidance to the House in general.
There is no precedent because the rules are new but there are some examples involving signatures and signed documents presented to the House. The authorities on parliamentary privilege agree that the House demands the utmost integrity of the documents presented to it.
Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada on page 233 states that forgery or fraud in the preparation of petitions could be treated as a matter of contempt since that would constitute an affront to the House of Commons. In other words, the integrity of documents is treated very seriously.
Erskine May talks about an abuse of the right of petition. It points out that it would be an abuse to attempt to alter the prayer of a petition after it had been signed. In other words, a person might think he or she could improve it by changing some words but Erskine May said it would be an abuse to do that, to change something after there were signatures on that page.
I agree with the member for Athabasca that this same type of abuse has happened in the case of Bill C-206. This is not a motion that was presented to the House where we could debate a motion, a generality, something that was just a statement of opinion in the form of a motion and we could give and take on the debate, one side or another. This was a complete bill, a bill in its entirety, presented to members in the House saying “This is the bill I want to present in the House; please sign your name on the bottom”. That name was signed in good faith. There is the bill. There is the document. That is the bill. It is not a concept. It is not a theory. It is not even an agreement in principle. That bill is what that signature applies to.
I know the member thinks he has improved this bill. But these were not technical changes such as having the wrong date at the top of the page or the clauses were not numbered correctly. Clauses were added to the new bill. Clauses were deleted from the old bill. This is a new bill.
In fact, I would go so far as to argue that one of the main reasons this bill had the support of over 100 members of parliament is because it specifically said that it could release polling information regarding the national unity file. This is something that the government traditionally holds close to its chest, refuses to talk about, spends taxpayers' money on but will not release to the public. The original bill would have forced the government to release it to the House of Commons and to the public. That is a bill worthy of support.
Unfortunately the revised bill, and the member can stand and admit this, specifically excludes the polling information on the national unity file. It is a huge difference. It is poles apart.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask that you find a prima facie case here, that you ask the member for Athabasca to move the appropriate motion that this matter be sent to the procedure and House affairs committee because this is the first time we have dealt with it. It involves the changing of documents without the knowledge of the signators on the bottom. It involves a huge change in the content of the bill itself, an additional clause and deletion of other clauses or portions of clauses which changes the essence of the bill.
To fail to refer that to committee would mean that any bill that is signed by 100 members of parliament and subsequently changed by unanimous consent, and people should know that often that is as few as two or three members present in the House, from here on in if members sign their names on the bottom of a bill, they have no idea what will come down the pike a couple of weeks later. That is not right for members of parliament who have the right to know when they sign on the dotted line that nothing will change until they have had their say here in the House.