I am now prepared to rule on the question of privilege raised on Thursday, March 13, by the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst alleging that the hon. Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages misled the House with her response to an oral question the previous day.
I would like to thank the hon. member for raising this matter and for his additional comments, as well as the hon. member for Gatineau, the hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier, the hon. Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages, and the hon. Government House Leader for their interventions.
I think it might be useful to remind hon. members of the events that led the member for Acadie—Bathurst to raise his question of privilege. On February 14, 2008, the Standing Committee on Official Languages adopted a motion calling upon the minister to appear immediately before the committee in relation to its study on the action plan for official languages.
Subsequent to this, during oral questions on Wednesday, March 12, 2008, the hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier asked the hon. Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages a question concerning this invitation to appear before the committee, claiming that the minister had declined the invitation to appear.
In her response to the House, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages stated that she had not refused to appear, noting that she had appeared before the committee on December 6, 2007. Furthermore, the minister added that, once work on the next phase of the action plan for official languages is completed, she would be pleased to appear before the committee again to discuss the matter.
In addressing this matter, the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst alleged that the minister had misled the House since her response in the House contradicted her letter of February 25, 2008, to the committee in which she declined the invitation to appear before the committee. However, on April 1 last, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages responded to this allegation, describing it as an unfortunate misunderstanding and stating that she would be pleased to appear before the committee in due course.
The Chair is fortunate that the minister's letter of February 25, 2008, which lies at the centre of this dispute, has been tabled and is therefore available for review. In that letter, the minister, on the one hand, clearly declines the committee's invitation to appear immediately while, on the other hand, she clearly states that she would be “pleased to appear before the Committee to discuss the next phase of the action plan as soon as I have finished working on it”.
At the very least, I find this to be an ambivalent response, with the result that a reader may choose to put the emphasis on the minister having declined or the minister offering to appear in due course and so arrive at very different conclusions about the nature of the minister's reply in the House on March 12.
The House is often seized with disputes of this kind. As Mr. Speaker Fraser aptly stated on December 4, 1986, at page 1792 of the Debates: “Differences of opinion with respect to fact and details are not infrequent in the House and do not necessarily constitute a breach of privilege”. This lends further support to the extract I cited previously on this matter from page 433 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice:
In most instances, when a point of order or a question of privilege has been raised in regard to a response to an oral question, the Speaker has ruled that the matter is a disagreement among members over the facts surrounding the issue.
In that respect, the situation before us today is like many others the House has seen. There is obviously a disagreement between hon. members with respect to the completeness of the minister's responses in this matter.
The House has noted that part of the minister's letter to the committee certainly declined the committee's invitation to appear immediately. However, hon. members will recognize with the Chair that the minister's response to the March 12 question selectively focused on another part of the same letter where she expressed willingness to appear before the committee at a future date.
Similarly, in their subsequent interventions, both the minister and the government House leader persisted in quoting selectively from the letter rather than acknowledging the ambivalence in the letter that appears to lie at the heart of the complaints.
In summary, then, I do not doubt that hon. members are vexed by the ambivalent letter and that they are disappointed by the evasiveness they encountered when they voiced their complaints. One might have wished that, in her intervention of April 1, 2008, the minister had put the matter to rest by simply explaining her decisions more thoroughly. Nevertheless, I can only conclude that this remains a dispute as to facts and I do not see here sufficient grounds for a prima facie finding of privilege.
I thank the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst for bringing this matter to the attention of the House.