Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order concerning the content of the motion to be proposed by the hon. member for Vancouver South.
Let me say at the outset that the government readily accepts that allotted day motions ought not to be interfered with by the Speaker, except on the clearest and most certain procedural grounds. We believe that such grounds for intervention exist.
Mr. Speaker, I want to draw your attention to your own ruling of March 26, 2007 at pages 1873 to 1875 of Hansard. On that occasion the issue was a supply day notice which, had it been in order and had been adopted, would have timetabled four bills.
The motion today, if adopted, would order the government to produce a long series of documents, and as quoted in the motion itself “in their original and uncensored form”.
It is our contention that this is an improper use of a supply day motion. A number of outstanding issues surround the documents listed in the motion. There are issues of statutory secrecy, military secrecy and international agreements, all matters that this House has habitually respected when requesting papers and records.
In some cases, the custodians of these records are statutorily barred from making them public. The passage of this motion would order them to violate laws which have been enacted with the consent of the House of Commons and the Senate, the two chambers that, along with the Queen, compose Parliament. It bears repeating, the House of Commons alone is not Parliament; it is one-third of Parliament. Statutes carry the authority of the three elements.
The motion proposed by the member for Vancouver South would order people to break the law under the authority and order of only the House of Commons. Because this is an allotted day motion, it is not subject to the usual process which could include negotiation of amendments that a majority of the House might accept, notwithstanding their unacceptability to the opinion of the mover of the motion itself.
The traditional regress of grievances preceding the granting of supply never included requiring public officials to break the law, yet that is what this motion would order. Will the next allotted day motion order the release of tax information, for example, or other secret contents in government files? Where would this lead? In other words, to use the vernacular, this could be the start of a very slippery slope.
Are allotted days to become opportunities to violate the rights of Canadians through substantive motions that bypass the statute law? I suggest this was never seen as the function of allotted days, and request that the Speaker recognize that this motion exceeds the long-standing conventions surrounding supply day motions.