Mr. Speaker, I also feel a little chagrined at being asked to rule on my own confidence in the Speaker. I look upon the Speaker as a referee and arbiter of the rules.
I remember quite well that one of the first things I did when I came here in 1993 was to meet the various candidates for Speaker, yourself included. I had an opportunity to query you on an issue that I thought was important. I tried to decide whether or not you would be impartial. You convinced me that was important at that time. I am frank to admit that I gave you my vote. It was a secret ballot so no one would have ever needed to know that, but that is the way I voted.
I have found myself a little frustrated with some of the democratic processes in the House lately. I did not enjoy the process of debate, time allocation and restriction on the committee work on Bill C-20, the clarity bill. I believe there were mistakes made on both sides. There was obstruction going on in the House. I am not sure how I would have responded, if I were on the government side, to that obstruction. I did think that some of the things that were done were hasty and more heavy-handed than they needed to be.
On the processes of the House, in the last little while we have had two major bills where there has been significant opposition pressure brought on the government. We did bring those pressures to bear on Nisga'a to express our concern with the way this new bill had come through. The Bloc did the same thing with Bill C-20. It brought every mechanism that it could to bear to express its vigorous displeasure with that bill.
This, however, does not come down to whether or not the vigorous opposition that can be mounted should somehow be stifled. Neither does this come down to an issue of friendship with the Speaker or personal admiration for the Speaker. To me this comes down to the issue of whether or not these legal counsel, these officers who are there to give us help in crafting and organizing our affairs and to give us advice on making amendments to make sure that they are technically correct, can do their job if there is not the confidence of the members in them. I believe and echo the comments of my colleague who just spoke that this is the central issue we are debating.
I am not a solicitor. I know little of solicitor-client privilege. I am a physician. I know a lot about doctor-patient privilege. I know if I broke that privilege when I was practising and doing my job that I would be censured to a degree where I could not practise. I do not see the difference between solicitor-client privilege and the very sacred privilege between the physician and the patient.
In my view there is one way that I as a physician could release information on my patient, and that was with the patient's permission. It needed to be written and dated. Then I could share the information with the health team, with specialists, with the technicians doing blood tests, with those doing the tests that we ran and with the nurses in the OR. That is the only way I could share that information. If the patient gave me documentary evidence I could send the records to a solicitor, and only then.
I believe that our table counsel need to have the permission directly and specifically of the member for whom they are working before they release that information to the team. It would be very straightforward.
There are times when the team should know every word that is being proposed. There are times when that is not appropriate, where for strategic reasons or for whatever reasons the information should not be shared by the team.
At the heart of this issue is not Bill C-20, not the Nisga'a treaty, and not all the mechanisms we have for expressing our displeasure. At its heart is that very issue. Can legislative counsel function properly if they share every piece of information with the team? My comment is that they cannot.
I feel that legislative counsel will have to withdraw from those duties and keep their oath of office if that is what is expected of them. I would ask that this not just be looked at by the Speaker but by the table officers themselves, by the individuals who direct the affairs of the House. I believe that this ruling needs to be reviewed and revisited. I expect that this will be a healthy review of that specific ruling.
I will be voting my personal confidence in the Speaker tonight when we vote. I do not say that in any way to ingratiate myself with the Speaker, but only because I have found the Speaker to be partial on issues where I expected partiality and impartial where I have expected that to take place. I share those thoughts in sincerity with the Speaker and with the table officer. I appreciate the opportunity to do so.