Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to enter in to this important debate. It is important to pause in the regular order of business and take one step back to make sure that the fundamental ground rules are in place so that we can do our ordinary order of business more properly.
We are faced with a situation where one of our colleagues, specifically, but all of us, generally, may be precluded from doing our job to the best of our ability and living up to our obligations due to the ruling made by the Ethics Commissioner dealing with our colleague from West Nova in the context of the Mulroney-Schreiber airbus inquiry.
The motion put forward today contains four points. It is quite thorough and comprehensive and quite well crafted in that way. It begins with a categorical statement of which we should all take note:
That this House reaffirm all of its well-established privileges and immunities, especially with regard to freedom of speech;--
My colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River walked us through some of the history of how we arrived at that and how necessary that notion is for Parliament. In fact, he traced its history back to 1689 and the original Bill of Rights in the UK, which forms a part of our Canadian Constitution.
The second item in this comprehensive opposition day motion states:
that, in order to clarify and assure those privileges, Section 3(3) of the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons, which is Appendix I to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, is amended by deleting the word “or” at the end of paragraph (b) and by adding the following after paragraph (b):
I will paraphrase the paragraph. It should be made abundantly clear in the Standing Orders, that govern the conduct of members of Parliament, that members are not in a conflict of interest just because they are engaged in a lawsuit or a lawsuit has been filed against them. That in and of itself does not automatically put members in a position of conflict. That is the important amendment that we have to contemplate here today.
I will deal with these points one at a time after I have introduced them.
The paragraph goes on to say that the House should refer the Thibault inquiry report back to the Ethics Commissioner for reconsideration in light of the recommended change to the conflict of interest guidelines in the previous paragraph.
Finally, and important to note, the opposition day motion we are dealing with today states:
that the House affirm its confidence in the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.
In other words, nothing that we are saying today in the context of this debate is to be viewed as a statement of non confidence in the Ethics Commissioner.
Most of us would agree that the Ethics Commissioner made the only ruling that she could given the current language of the Conflict of Interest Code which forms part of the Standing Orders of the House. She herself realized that her ruling may be cause for great concern.
I should begin my analysis of the opposition day motion perhaps with her final observation on the last page of the report. Ms. Dawson said:
Concerns have been raised about the use of lawsuits, more particularly libel suits, to prevent a Member from performing his or her duties in the House of Commons. I cannot predict whether this may indeed become a problem and I hope it does not. Should this become a serious concern for Members, however, the Code could be adjusted to except libel suits from the ambit of “private interest” for the purposes of sections 8 and 13. Such a step would not appear to be necessary, in any event, in relation to disclosures under section 12.
Clearly, she contemplates that her ruling, accurate as it may be, may alert members of the House of Commons that the Conflict of Interest Code may have the inadvertent effect of interfering with their privileges to speak freely in the House of Commons on issues that concern them.
Let us take a step back then, as I explain the NDP's view of this whole situation.
I should tell members at the outset that I am the vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, and my colleague, the member for Dufferin—Caledon, is the other vice-chair of the committee.
This whole inquiry by the Ethics Commissioner stems from a complaint that he filed dealing with whether or not the member for West Nova should be barred from questioning our witnesses in the Mulroney-Schreiber affair on the basis that there was, in fact, a lawsuit filed by Brian Mulroney, suing Mr. Thibault for comments he made outside the House and outside of the parliamentary committee.