Mr. Speaker, I would like the hon. government House leader to explain what he means by his remarks.
What we are seeking today is not additional services from the House legislative counsel or clerks. We called for changes because there arose a situation which gives us cause to believe that there has been a breach of the confidentiality we expect. Information was passed from the legislative counsel to the clerk. In his ruling, the Speaker tells us that this should be seen as a normal state of affairs, something to which we were not accustomed before because it was not the situation then.
The Speaker having told us this, we no longer trust the team with whom we are dealing because there has been a loss of the confidentiality we need. It is a fact that amendments we had discussed only with legislative counsel were rejected, meaning that this information—we clearly had proof—had been passed on to a clerk. So this is one occasion on which we have good reason to lose faith in the existing system.
Furthermore, if, pursuant to the ruling of the Speaker, it is a normal state of affairs that the clerks should work with the legislative counsel within the allowed framework, the same situation occurred when we were advised to use the word secession instead of sovereignty. Which we did. If the legislative counsel works jointly with the clerk, they should have been in agreement. We did what we were told and, at the end of the day, over one hundred of our amendments were turned down, just because we did what we were asked to do.
We believe that sometimes the clerk works in co-operation with the legislative counsel, and other times, he does not seem to do so. Where are the confidentiality and the trust we are entitled to? This is why we introduced a non-confidence motion. I would ask the clerk—we are not asking for the Speaker's head—to make sure this does not happen again. We have nothing against the current Speaker, but we are opposed to situations that result in our being unable to work in total confidence.
If the government House leader is willing to change his mind on this, I will point out to him that we had already suggested that this motion be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for discussion. If this had been accepted, we would not be having this debate today. But it was turned down.