Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to my hon. colleague's comments and his reasons for voting against the motion.
I point out two things. First, his interpretation of why that committee is unable to deal with motions such as this is obscure and obtuse at the very least. The government has practised this willy-nilly form of obstruction among so many committees. It is unprecedented in Canadian history.
I experienced this in the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development. For six weeks the government talked out the clock on a private member's bill. It has never been done before in the history of Canada. It did that every day, wasting thousands of dollars and setting new legal precedents.
On the issue as to whether the motion is viable, I am trying to understand my colleague's balance between the rights and responsibilities of Parliamentarians to speak and represent their constituents, yet not incur their own benefit, which is something our ethics code now currently prohibits, and at the same time, not encourage people within this place or outside of it with that libel chill of which he spoke.
By finding a contentious issue that was affecting some other Canadian or somebody from another country, or by not wanting a certain member of Parliament to speak to the issue, a person could simply file a lawsuit. A person could simply put a writ on a member and prohibit that member of Parliament from speaking to an issue again for the reasons countered in the courts, reasons unproven by the courts. Then our Ethics Commissioner would come forward and prohibit the member from speaking because of that lawsuit?
I am trying to understand the balance the member is trying to seek. How can he assuage the fears of people like myself and my party from creating that type of libel chill, that someone will sue us in the actions of our duties, thereby closing our comments and silencing our voices and the voices of the people we represent, which is again to the fundamentals of this place?