Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer a brief anecdote from my experience yesterday in support of this question of privilege.
When I tried to access the Centre Block yesterday, I had to go behind the West Block in order to join with the buses that were going to the state dinner and an RCMP constable stopped me. I explained that I was a member of Parliament. He said that he did not care and asked for my security pass. I showed him my parliamentary pin but he told me that was not good enough, that he needed my security pass.
I was in a rush to make it to the state dinner and he almost physically detained me from walking into the parliamentary precincts as a member of Parliament with my identification. It is a similar experience to that of the member. This is really outrageous. It is especially bizarre when one sees the kind of laxness in security around here from time to time. As he said, we had the bizarre anomaly of protesters on the Hill and a policeman saying that he did not care that I was a member and would not permit me to access the parliamentary precincts without some unspecified security pass.
This really is a serious matter, sir, and I hope you will take it under advisement.