Mr. Speaker, I spoke to the member's amendment that we considered in relation to Bill C-36 and that asked for the matter to go back to committee. I was certainly grateful that the member brought it to the House, and I voted for that amendment to send it back to committee because I felt so strongly that the information requested by the committee was so vital and fundamental to the bill itself. One could not possibly, with 10-year-old information, properly debate the matter in committee, and that is what the member has brought to our attention.
I would like to make reference to House of Commons Procedure and Practice by O'Brien and Bosc, page 89, under the section “Rights and Immunities of Individual Members”, specifically the paragraph under “Freedom of Speech”. It reads as follows:
By far, the most important right accorded to Members of the House is the exercise of freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings. It has been described as:
“[…] a fundamental right without which they would be hampered in the performance of their duties. It permits them to speak in the House without inhibition, to refer to any matter or express any opinion as they see fit, to say what they feel needs to be said in the furtherance of the national interest and the aspirations of their constituents”.
The reason this is relevant to the privilege issue raised by the member is that there is in fact a decision pending from the Supreme Court of Canada right now on the issue of access to information, and the argument is very directly related to the right of freedom of speech, a charter right, in fact, under section 2.
Just underneath that right in the charter, it also says that we have the right to vote. If we follow that through to its logical progression, as has been argued in the courts, if one has the right to vote, one must have the right of access to information. Because one needs that right of access to information, the right of access is implicit in the charter. That is the whole argument.
We have a situation here where in fact the right of freedom of speech has been inhibited because the access to information necessary for members of Parliament to discharge their duties has been interfered with by a minister of the Crown. Not only did he withhold this information from the justice committee, but it is also the same minister who withheld the RCMP report from the debate on the gun registry information and may in fact be involved in withholding documents with regard to the Afghanistan detainees.
There is a pattern here and it is a pattern that is disturbing to me. That is why I rose in the debate on the amendment and why I am rising today, because I believe that the rights of members of Parliament to discharge their responsibilities have been interfered with by the obstruction of the minister.