Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this question of privilege. I am sympathetic to some of the points raised by my hon. colleague. I think many members of the House of Commons are asking for increased resources, especially in legal counsel.
It seems that some of the institutional knowledge and the historic understanding of how we do business has been lost because these very experienced lawyers are not here to serve us daily. Therefore, I understand the need to have increased resources in the legal department. It is something that the Board of Internal Economy and members should be concerned about. I hope they will continue to raise the issue of how best we can serve all members of parliament on both sides of the House who do not have access to the government resources.
Let us hope that the promise in the throne speech that talked about increasing research dollars for the library also includes legal services to members in a way that helps us to do our jobs most effectively.
However, I have a problem with raising personnel issues on the floor of the House of Commons. I hope we can come to a speedy resolution or even an understanding of all the complexities that go into this sort of an issue.
When these two employees of the House appeared before the standing committee and asked for protection of the House, we did not understand that there were outstanding grievances between management and the employees about the working conditions and different things. We ended up hearing a kind of a rehash of the ongoing problems for which we did not have the background knowledge to deal with. In my opinion, it was not appropriate for the standing committee to hear the grievance process. It is not what the union agreement calls for. We should not handle a grievance process, in a public forum, on the floor of a committee or on the floor of the House of Commons.
Individuals certainly have the right of protection before a standing committee when they bring testimony and they should be allowed to speak freely. However, there is a question which needs to be asked before their testimony is heard. If it deals with an issue that has proper process in place, as long as the process is going ahead, then we should allow the management, the union and the representatives to move that forward.
Although I am sympathetic to many of the concerns raised by the member, especially in regard to resources to members in the area of legal services, I do not think that we should try to solve it on the floor of the House. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, that you also take that into consideration in your ruling.