Mr. Speaker, I rise today on this question of privilege because I believe it is a very grave matter with regard to democracy in this country. It is a grave matter with regard to the issue of respect by the government of the day to the House of Commons and the elected members of the House of Commons.
I rise with regard to the announcement last week by the government that it was terminating all funding to the Law Commission.
The Law Commission was established by legislation in 1996. It has functioned since that time with staff preparing reports, et cetera. The legislation that empowers the establishment of that commission was passed by Parliament through all stages. Nothing has been done with regard to that legislation to alter it in this period of time of 10 years.
What is happening is another attempt by the government to thwart the intent of Parliament to the expressed wish and desire of Parliament in the form of that legislation. What the government is doing, if I can put this in street language, is trying to do through the back door what it should be doing, if it is serious about this, through proper mechanisms through the front door.
The government is simply saying by stroke of the pen through, and I am not entirely sure where it thinks it gets the authority, either the chair of the Treasury Board or through some officer in the Prime Minister's Office that it simply is eliminating all the funding for the Law Commission.
It was quite clear when the commission was set up under the legislation that it had certain duties. One duty in section 6 of the legislation is to report to this House. It requires the Law Commission to establish a president and a set of commissioners. Those commissioners shall be paid by the government of the day by direction of this legislation. In addition to that, the commission would have full time staff and operate an office to do research and report on issues of the day in the legal community. As an aside, the Law Commission has done an excellent job in that regard.
This is not the first time that we have been confronted with this type of an issue and by this government. It is not as though the government could claim “sorry we slipped”. We went through this earlier this year with regard to the Firearms Act. We had speculation coming from various members of the government side that it was simply going to gut the provisions of the gun registry under the Firearms Act unilaterally by way of regulatory decree. This would have come from the PCO and/or the cabinet.
The government knows it cannot do that. The government received legal opinions that it cannot do that. There is no difference in that situation than in the situation with the Law Commission. The Law Commission is bound to be established by that legislation of now some 10 years. It has been established. The Law Commission had been complying with the legislation up until a week ago.
The Law Commission has been directed to cease operations completely by the end of the year. The government is cutting out the entire budget and have in effect directed the Law Commission to cease operations before the end of the year.
The government knows it cannot do it under the Firearms Act. It cannot do it under this legislation either for exactly the same reasons. In addition to that, and I think this goes to almost the contempt that the government has for the House of Commons, the previous Conservative government did the same thing to the Law Reform Commission back in 1992-93. At least that government followed the law and that was a majority government, which maybe is the difference that we have here.
This government knows that in a minority government, this particular minority government, with regard to this issue that it could not get a piece of legislation destroying the Law Commission through the House. The government knows that all three of the opposition parties would be opposed to that occurring. We believe in the institution of the Law Commission and so we would vote that legislation down.
If I again may go back to 1992-93, the previous Conservative government did in fact destroy the Law Reform Commission, the predecessor of the Law Commission, but it did so by legislation. The Conservatives had a majority government and they shoved that through the House at that time.
We have two solid authorities to say that the government cannot do what it last week proposed to do. The Conservatives cannot cut that funding and thereby destroy the Law Commission. They know they cannot do it because of the opinion they got on the Firearms Act. They know they cannot do it because there is a precedent specifically on the Law Commission, named the Law Reform Commission at the time, when a previous government did the same thing but did it by way of legislation through the front door, not by the back or side door.
In terms of the impact this has, it is not just a privilege to me as an individual member of Parliament, quite frankly, it is for every single member, including the members on the government side. If we are not going to abide by our own laws that we pass here, what could be more undermining of the authority of this House? I cannot think of anything.
This is a direct attack on our privilege as members. The laws we pass have to be abided by and have to be carried out. If they are not going to be, that is, if the government of the day wants to change this, then the government has to change the law. The Conservatives cannot do it by fiat. They cannot do it in the backroom. They have to do it publicly. They have to bring it to a vote in the House.
Mr. Speaker, I am asking you to find that in fact our collective privilege has been damaged and has been interfered with and that you provide us with that ruling. If you do, Sir, I would then ask that the issue be referred to the justice committee. Upon your ruling, I am prepared to submit a motion with regard to this.