Mr. Speaker, I think that it is worthwhile, considering how complicated the process has been—the hon. members who spoke one after the other earlier did not go into the historical aspects—to mention the dates, which are extremely important.
What the Liberal member has also done—and I would like to have his attention—in connection with the consent relating to signatures, raises sufficient doubt to warrant taking our time to address this very important question which affects the privileges of all of the members here, particularly the way signatures are handled.
The ruling of the Chair is a very important one because it will impact upon how this matter of signatures will be handled in future. I think that all of the parties will need to question themselves after you bring down your ruling.
On December 23, 1997—we were in the first session of the 36th Parliament—the member tabled a bill, or in other words Bill C-264 was read for the first time. With that bill, the member obtained a series of signatures. He even boasted of this on June 11, 1998. At around 6.20 or 6.25 p.m., he sought the unanimous consent of the House. I will quote him directly because what he said is very important:
Mr. Speaker, I rise as a private member on a point of order to seek unanimous consent. I feel very awkward after what just occurred two seconds ago.
Last October I submitted a private member's bill dealing with the access to information bill which proposed a great number of amendments to the legislation. I received support from all parties. There were representations from the Bloc, the Reform Party, the Conservatives and the NDP. I received seconders from all opposition parties and seconders to a total of 113 on the government backbenches.
Unfortunately in the time since then I have had many representations on my bill. A lot of people looked at it and made suggestions. They have noticed some flaws and some technical difficulties in a few areas which maybe I did not think out very clearly.
I emphasize here it is still at first reading; it has not been picked. If it ever does get to be read in second reading I would not want debate to be deflected on the flaws. I would hope the debate would deal with the good points of the bill.
That day, he obtained unanimous consent. No one has yet read the bill he is introducing or the little discrepancies, little changes—essentially technical ones as his Prime Minister puts it on other matters. But when we look at these little changes—and what I am about to say is still very important—these two bills are worlds apart.
I will give only a few changes, and members will see that they are not just little discrepancies or small technical changes.
The member's new bill refers to Canada's constitutional integrity, whereas in the first one there was no mention of integrity or anything to do with the Canadian Constitution.
The second extremely important little change is that clause 9 introduces a section 14. Previously, there was reference to negotiations between the federal and provincial governments. Now, there is reference to federal-provincial—the way it is drafted is very ambiguous—relations.
The following clause, which is the best, and which also was not in the initial bill for which he obtained the signatures of the House, reads “The head of a government institution may refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains information on plans, strategies or tactics relating to the possible secession of a part of Canada, including information held or collected for the purpose of developing those plans, strategies or tactics”.
How is it that the first bill contained no mention of this and this one does? Because the House gave unanimous consent, we are going to let this be done?
Who revised this bill? Who advised the member? Was it the Council on Canadian Unity, the Privy Council, the Office of the Prime Minister, without our consent? We do not know who advised him or anything. This makes no sense.
I think very sincerely that the member is abusing certain privileges and cannot, as indicated here, use Standing Order 87.6, which the Chair knows very well, and use the question of the 100 and more signatures to have his bill given precedence.
You must, Mr. Speaker, with what you have heard in this House, simply withdraw this bill, remove it from the order of precedence of this House, because, otherwise, you will set a precedent and, more importantly, you will change forever how things operate here with the famous system of the 100 signatures of the House.
The member proceeded unreasonably, and you cannot approve that.