Mr. Speaker, earlier today I served notice of my intention to raise a question of privilege concerning a householder I had sent to my constituents in the month of April which was a 16 page booklet. I received a number of complaints from constituents telling me that inserted directly inside the householder was a piece of Conservative partisan material.
The item in question was a reply card apparently sent as a 10 percenter by the member for Vegreville—Wainwright displaying the Conservative logo and asking my constituents to send their address information to the Leader of the Opposition.
I am not sure what reason the member from Alberta has to communicate with my constituents but my point is that this solicitation was inserted directly inside my householder and was an integral part of it. This caused confusion for many of my constituents, as well as upsetting them.
We have four opportunities a year to send out our message to all constituents and those messages are not to be filtered by media or opposition members. It is our opportunity to communicate directly with our constituents.
This parliamentary privilege is discussed at page 83 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice and states:
Members are entitled to go about their parliamentary business undisturbed.
This incident has interfered with my parliamentary privilege to communicate with my constituents in an unfettered way.
Some of the householders containing the partisan material were sent to locked Canada Post superboxes. This confirms to me that the insertion occurred either at the House of Commons or somewhere in the Canada Post system. This material was not inserted after it reached the constituents' letter boxes and I think that is an important point to raise in this context.
Mr. Speaker, if you find that I have a prima facie case of privilege, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.