Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to say a few words in support of the motion.
It has caused us within the NDP and, I think, those within all opposition parties a great deal of concern as to whether the ruling by Commissioner Dawson would continue to inhibit our conduct in the chamber, at committee and just generally in terms of our ability to do our job.
I welcome the motion and I welcome your ruling, Mr. Speaker. It may not be entirely appropriate but I congratulate you on the ruling. I think it is extremely important that we no longer feel the pressure, at least those of us in the opposition parties, that we have felt since the ruling came down from Ms. Dawson, that we were not able to do our job. I think we all felt a concern in what we would say in public.
It was a ruling that to me seemed to fly in the face of the long tradition we have had, going all the way back to Westminster. I think we can argue that this right was granted to us when parliaments first began being formed within the Westminster system. It was a right that we had to respect. I have to say that the individual case that we are dealing with should not have had that right taken away in any way.
We have all listened to a lot of the speeches that were given on that opposition day. I listened to all members from all parties. We all felt that, in spite of what Ms. Dawson found, we understood how she found it, how she made those decisions and how she came to the conclusions that she came to. Even she acknowledged in the report and in her determinations the type of impact and effect it would have on us.
As I was I was reading her decision, if I read between the lines it was as if the commissioner was almost reluctant to make the determination she made but felt compelled to do so by the wording of the mandate that she had been given within the code.
Mr. Speaker, the ruling you made was extremely important. I think all of us in this House recognize the responsibilities we have to act responsibly in terms of this very special privilege we have been given. It is the members of this House alone who have this privilege throughout the country and we recognize its importance and that it is not to be abused.
However, we also must recognize that even where it is abused in individual cases that right should not be taken away from all of us. I think inevitably the only way you could conclude the decision that we had from the commissioner was to that effect.
We sit here and try to do our jobs as best we can. We try to be responsible and then we get hit, I would almost say blindsided, which is not meant in any way to be a criticism of the commissioner's decision. We could go back and probably point fingers at ourselves for not properly drafting the wording by which she was being mandated. We need to take some responsibility in that regard.
I do not have a sense that the government is willing to move on changing that mandate given that it was one of its members who initially raised the complaint before the commissioner. I do not believe we are at a stage where we can correct the wording. In any event, we do not have the time to correct it so your ruling, Mr. Speaker, is timely in that regard as well.
I want to go back to the issue of the abuse because the commissioner was obviously concerned about the impact on the victim if the power we have here is abused. I recognize that. However, all members of the House, those who are here and those who are not, should know that it puts greater pressure on us to act responsibly and we cannot shirk that duty to act responsibly.
By the same token, we cannot give up. At this point, I am really addressing my comments to members of the governing Conservative Party who were willing to say, because of the individual cases of irresponsibility, as they saw in this case and maybe in others, that the commissioner did and should have the authority to curtail our freedom as members of Parliament to speak as freely as we possibly could.
The members of the government need to step back and take a look at the history of the Westminster Parliament that we and a number of other countries have adopted and implemented, particularly in the Commonwealth.
We do not see this kind of limitation placed on parliaments elsewhere that I have been able to discover in any event. The consequences of this decision would be unique to Canada, the fear I suppose being that if it were to happen here, would it happen subsequently in Australia, New Zealand, in England or in some of the other parliaments in the Commonwealth.
We must be conscious of not creating that precedent, if I can put it that way, in the legal sense and have it followed elsewhere. We need to curtail it here and to fight strongly for the rights that we should have in regard to our ability to do the very best job we can for our constituents.
At times we do need to say things in the House and in committees that we might not perhaps otherwise say. We respect the limitations we are under and we know we have limitations. In the last few years we have had a ruling around the responsibilities we have under human rights legislation. We recognize that. We recognize that our conduct is bound by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the House.
Having said that, it does not seem to me that those two examples in any way should take away our right to speak freely, as we have historically had.
I pride myself, and I think we all do in the House, that I come here on behalf of my constituents to advocate for them, to defend them and to protect their rights. Because we have been given that right and responsibility by the constituents who have elected us and sent us here, we bring with it a duty to do our utmost to provide that protection and to advocate as strongly as we possibly can.
If we were to give that up, the very essence of why we are here and why our constituents have sent us here, we would be abandoning that duty. We would be giving it up, which may sound melodramatic but it is as fundamental as that.
We have the responsibility in the House to do whatever we can to maximize protections to our constituents, the citizens and residents of Canada. It is not too harsh to say that if we are not prepared to the maximum to stand up for those rights they expect us to protect by protecting our own rights, our ability, in effect, to do that job, then we probably should not be here.
The motion put forward by the member for Scarborough—Rouge River is extremely important. The Speaker's ruling today is extremely important because I believe it sets back into balance the rights that we have as members of Parliament. The responsibility to carry out those rights always remains with us individually and that we do not abuse them.
In the particular case that prompted Commissioner Dawson to make the ruling that she did, that legal case that is in the civil courts, whether there has been abuse and whether there has been defamation is to be left to the courts and to be dealt with there. If there is a penalty to be paid, then it should be paid there. It is not a penalty that the member should suffer in this House or in committee doing his job as a member of Parliament and, more important, it is not a penalty that any other member should have to suffer, which is what is happening here.
The Speaker's ruling today was extremely important, timely and one that was badly needed. Once again, I congratulate the Speaker on his ruling.