Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I should like to add a few brief remarks to what has already been said.
I would like to say that we support the question raised by the government House leader. In our opinion, there are two aspects to the current situation, the substance and the form.
First, there is the substantive issue: is the parliamentary privilege of members against participating in legal proceedings when Parliament is in session and for 40 days before and 40 days after the session still valid? That is a question that must be answered, but not, we think, in a court of law.
More importantly, there is a question of form. In my opinion, the authority of the House of Commons and its Speaker cannot be usurped by anyone else. The Speaker's first duty is to ensure that the rights and privileges of parliamentarians are respected. Any body that might wish, for the common good, to stand in the place of the Speaker of the House and the means that could be established for deciding such questions is, in my opinion, null and void.
As Speaker, it is your duty to safeguard our privileges. It is the duty of the House of Commons to define these privileges, enlarging or shrinking them according to circumstances and specific situations. But at no time should these recommendations come from any other place, not even a court of law.
Therefore, I support the government House leader. I believe that this is an extremely important opportunity for us to clarify the concept of parliamentary privilege, to explain it and help people understand it who might not have had the opportunity to study these issues sufficiently. I would like to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that you have our entire cooperation at every moment of this operation which, as far as we are concerned, is fundamental to protecting the parliamentary privileges of the elected members.