Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Scarborough—Agincourt.
The hon. member accused me of instructing witnesses from my department of withholding information. This is a very serious allegation, as intimidation of witnesses is clearly inappropriate.
I submit that the member's question of privilege is not valid for two reasons. First, there is no evidence that the situation described by the hon. member constitutes a prima facie breach of privilege. At most, this is a debate about the interpretation of facts. Second, this concerns proceedings at the standing committee. Since the standing committee has not presented a report on this matter, this matter cannot be considered in the House as a valid question of privilege.
Now if I may present the factual situation, Mr. Speaker, the citizenship and immigration committee was hearing witnesses from my department during a committee meeting on May 2, 2007. During this meeting the atmosphere and manner of questioning the departmental witnesses was hostile and some of the witnesses felt intimidated.
As the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, I wrote to the chair of the committee, copying the members, following this meeting, expressing my concern over the intimidation of witnesses. I informed the chair that I had instructed the deputy minister of the department to instruct any future witnesses from the department that they should put their response in writing at a later date if they were in doubt of information that was required at the time of the questioning. I also instructed the deputy minister to indicate to future witnesses that they should not tolerate instances of inappropriate ways of questioning.
This was an attempt to ensure the well running of the committee and the well-being of my departmental officials.
Here is the $10,000 question. It is the procedural point.
Mr. Speaker, I submit that this cannot be a valid question of privilege at this time since the citizenship and immigration committee has not presented a report to the House on this mattter. Page 128 of Marleau and Montpetit states:
Speakers have consistently ruled that, except in the most extreme situations, they will only hear questions of privilege arising from committee proceedings upon presentation of a report from the committee which directly deals with the matter and not as a question of privilege raised by an individual Member.
As the citizenship and immigration committee has not reported on this matter, I submit that this is not a valid question of privilege at this time.