Mr. Speaker, the last intervener brought an interesting point as well.
The hon. member rose on a question of privilege. I believe the first thing she raised was the fact that the hon. member was compelled, or some such, to speak for 13 hours. I have no idea who is guilty of compelling anyone to speak for 13 hours, but I hope that at least that point is investigated. It sounds like cruel and unusual punishment, as someone across the way is indicating as we speak.
More to the point and perhaps more seriously, I understand that the committee has been dealing with whatever it is it is dealing with in camera. Obviously I am not going to reveal the contents of it because it is in camera. I understand that our parliamentary procedures are such that when someone is speaking in camera and someone wants it moved out of there to be discussed otherwise, such a motion can be put before the committee.
It has not been adduced so far that such a motion was put, let alone how it was disposed of, let alone whether it was defeated by the committee. Even if all that had been done and if the committee had refused it, the committee has not yet reported to the House for the Speaker to make the determination of whether that process, which we do not know if it occurred or not, was administered properly. It is a little premature to put this point before the House.
However, I do think that on the point of someone being compelled to speak for 13 hours, that matter in itself deserves to be verified by the Speaker. Finally, if someone did commit such an act, urged or compelled by whomever, I do believe that we have precedents in the Speaker's ruling on the Blenkarn issue of some years ago and other applications thereafter, whereby the committee can also deal with such matters. In any case, I do not believe the issue has yet been reported to the House.
Surely all hon. members on that committee would not feel compelled to speak ever again for anywhere near that amount of time. I would hope that they would deal with the business that is before the committee. Several citizens are expecting us to do just that rather than being compelled to do that which was described earlier.