Mr. Speaker, just this past week I had a case in my constituency office requiring the urgent intervention by a minister to get a family member to come over to attend to a terminally ill child.
We wrote to the minister but we did not get a response within a reasonable period of time. We made the necessary inquiry. We were told directly that the department no longer responds to opposition members' requests for assistance and ministerial intervention.
If in fact the situation here is that there is another designate that will get the attention of the minister, who is not an elected person, what do we do in a riding like mine where there is no nominated candidate for the government party?
My privileges as a member of Parliament to get the services from ministerial staff on matters of urgency and compassion have been impinged upon because I have been told that they will no longer even consider our requests for a ministerial permit. This is standard practice. It is the right thing for us to do as parliamentarians. This is not a partisan issue but the government has made it a partisan issue. It has taken away the privileges, the rights, the responsibilities and the tools to discharge those responsibilities of members of Parliament by taking this political stance. Those are the examples.
Mr. Speaker, I would be prepared to table with you or in the House the full details of this case and the names and contacts of all the people who have indicated that information and I will testify in front of the procedure and House affairs committee if necessary to the veracity of the information being tabled.