Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the question of privilege brought forward by the member for Edmonton North.
Late Tuesday afternoon my office was contacted by the office of the member for Edmonton North in regard to this situation. Immediately after being informed, my staff contacted the House liaison officer in the information services department to clarify both our rights and our responsibilities.
As you can appreciate, Mr. Speaker, given the relative newness of the information age, there was some confusion on the part of information services as to how to proceed. My staff did, however, contact the staff of the member for Edmonton North later that afternoon to say that we were working on the matter with information services in an effort to satisfy the security needs of the Canadian Alliance caucus as well as the needs of the member for Edmonton North as it relates to her performance of her parliamentary duties.
On Wednesday my staff also contacted the office of legal counsel to further clarify our rights and responsibilities. It is the opinion of legal counsel that we were well within our rights to ensure that all information under the member's name which resides on the server under the sole authority of the Canadian Alliance caucus and under the jurisdiction of the whip, is in fact information to which she is entitled. My staff then discussed with the member's staff a solution to ensure that both the needs of the member and the needs of our caucus could be met in a timely fashion. That offer unfortunately was not taken up by the staff member from the office of the member for Edmonton North.
We have no desire to deprive the member for Edmonton North of information to which she is rightfully entitled. However, we must as well be confident that our rights are not compromised in that process. We have assured the member that we are more than willing to transfer all of the information that is rightfully hers once we are sure the files do not contain information to which she is no longer entitled by virtue of her expulsion from the Canadian Alliance caucus.
To that end we have since received clarification from the chief information officer and are now in the process of facilitating the return of the appropriate files.
I trust, Mr. Speaker, you will find that my office has acted not only in a responsible manner, but that we have done so with great dispatch. Therefore, I respectfully submit that no question of privilege exists.