Mr. Speaker, as you are aware this question of privilege was raised by the whip for the NDP, the member for Acadie--Bathurst, and responded to by the member for Nickel Belt, who is the chair of the aboriginal affairs and natural resources committee.
This question of privilege is a result of a process that the chair kicked into place at a meeting last week, as a result of a motion brought by myself asking the committee to pass a resolution which would have had the effect of compelling a witness to attend before the committee to testify on a bill which the committee was considering.
I was speaking to the motion seeking resolution for the summons to be issued and was interrupted by the chair. He indicated that he would cut off any further right on my part to speak. I continued to speak and he then allowed a point of order from the parliamentary secretary to put the question on the resolution.
The precedent that I would like to draw to your attention that governs this type of situation is that of the meeting of the industry committee on Tuesday, March 23, 1999.
The Bloc member for Mercier moved a motion. There was a very brief discussion. The chair I think stepped out of the chair and was replaced by the member for Essex who suspended the meeting, which is in accordance with Marleau and Montpetit. I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to page 857 if you wish to consider that. It was in accordance with the statements in that part of the text.
In a subsequent meeting, I believe the following day, the government member for Hamilton West moved a motion setting time limits on debate on any motions or discussion pertaining to that bill. After debate the question was put and it was passed.
That is not the procedure that was followed here. The chairman of the committee simply allowed, improperly I would submit, the request for a point of order which then turned into the question being put on the main motion, the motion I had brought forward. It is important to appreciate that at that point I had spoken less than 10 minutes. I would estimate that I spoke somewhere between five and seven minutes, and I still had a number of points that I wanted to make.
The other thing I would ask you to take into account, Mr. Speaker, is that it had been indicated in previous meetings that this witness would attend. If the blues are considered, the chairman indicated he agreed with me that this individual might be the most important witness that the committee needed to hear with regard to the bill under consideration. In spite of that and in effect by allowing the procedure to go ahead, he cut off any further debate on my part to convince the rest of the committee of the importance of that party coming before the committee and in spite of the fact that it was crucial for that party to give testimony before the committee. I believe he agrees with me.
I want to again draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, that at that point on the motion in that committee we were not faced with any time limits. The committee had not agreed to any time limits and had not imposed any time limits on members of the committee.
I quote from page 857 of Montpetit and Marleau:
On occasion, committees place strict limits on the amount of time during which a given item will be considered.
That did not occur here. It is my position that anyone speaking to that motion would have had unlimited time to speak to it.
As I said, this was not a situation where I had used an unreasonable amount of time. It was not a question where the committee was being thwarted in its actions. I had spoken less than 10 minutes on what was a very important motion with regard to the issue of this witness appearing before us, who, it had been understood, was in fact going to appear before us.
On that basis, Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to consider the privilege motion and make a ruling that the procedure followed both by the chair and, in effect, by the committee was improper and not in keeping with the procedures of committees or of the House.