Mr. Speaker, it is most unusual to raise a question of privilege in this House concerning events in a committee.
However, I absolutely insist on bringing to your attention certain facts which, if not considered by the Chair, would have the effect of creating an entirely new parliamentary law, and would be of such a nature as to virtually eliminate the concept of in camera status as far as government members are concerned.
Allow me to explain. I know that you generally do not have to address such matters unless, and I quote Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada , page 249:
—it is alleged that a particular person gave the in camera proceedings to the press or some other misconduct is alleged specifically, a Speaker will be reluctant to find a prima facie case of privilege.
So this is what I wish to submit to you. The member for Toronto—Danforth has himself admitted to having made the in camera testimony by Chuck Guité public. The explanation he gave strikes me as totally implausible.
He said, and I quote:
...I take full responsibility for what I said to the media today because it was my belief that we were going to vote on a motion that was in front of this committee today in proper format and we had the numbers to make sure that motion passed...and his papers were going to be made public and that is what I said and I stand by my statements.
The member's claim that anticipating that his colleagues who were in the majority would vote in favour of doing away with the in camera status represents two errors: first, he anticipated the vote of parliamentarians, and second, basing his belief of the existence of a Liberal majority, he felt free not to respect the in camera status.
Supporting him in this—which the committee, with its government majority, has done, and I shall return to that point—would have the following result. The Chair, by not agreeing to recognize my question of privilege, and by allowing the committee to get away with its decision—a government majority, I would remind you—would be tantamount to admitting that only opposition members need to respect in camera status. Thus, in future, any government member could claim under any circumstances that in camera status no longer applies because he is certain that his colleagues in the government majority will eventually support him and make reports public the following day.
How could such a notion be accepted, a parliamentary law which imposes respect of in camera status on an opposition member, but allows a government member not to respect it out of certainty that the majority will support him the next day and make the documents public? That is the first point.
The same goes for the decision made in committee. The member can say he will not respect in camera status because he knows that the government members will vote in his favour the next day and that he will not be reprimanded since the majority rules.
I believe that the government majority on the committee made a serious error in taking the position they took. This is a flagrant breach of in camera status. The member admitted it himself. Comments were disclosed to journalists and this is causing huge problems for the committee right now. This information was allowed to be made public. The breach of in camera status came about simply because a member can claim he knows his colleagues will back him up the next day and because the majority will steamroller over the rest of Parliament.
I know that your role as Speaker of the House of Commons is to ensure that parliamentary law rises above partisanship. Parliamentary law applies to everyone, whether they are a government member or an opposition member. To allow the government majority to let the offending MP off the hook would be to say that you acknowledge that in camera status does not apply to everyone. It is in camera for members who are not part of the majority.
There is an extremely serious problem with that. I feel like my parliamentary privilege is being breached because this member blithely ignored it. He did not comply with the very strict rules of Parliament and relied on his colleagues to come to his defence the next day. The result is that all the opposition members are indignant at having their parliamentary privileges breached. Yet, all the government members, with no regard for parliamentary law or the need for fairness and respect for the rules of ethics or operation, voted right away to prevent their colleague from having to face parliamentary justice.
If you find that my question is in order, I would like to put forward the following motion:
That the member for Toronto—Danforth be suspended from the service of the House until such time as he appears at the bar of the House to apologize, in a manner found to be satisfactory by the Speaker, for his actions in contempt of the House.