Mr. Speaker, I find it unfortunate that the debate has taken this kind of turn. We have heard from many of our constituents and we have certainly read in the media that most Canadians are quite concerned about what they consider to be hyper-partisanship in this place. One needs to look no further than the comments made by the member for Outremont to understand why Canadians are quite concerned about that.
Once the ruling was made that there is a prima facie case and this matter should be referred to the procedure and House affairs committee for further examination, all we needed to do collectively as members of this place is support that motion and allow the procedure and House affairs committee to do its work and to conduct a complete examination. Instead, we have a diatribe by the member for Outremont, and I suspect we are going to hear others later this day, rather than merely referring this matter as should be done succinctly and immediately to the procedure and House affairs committee to allow it to do a full examination.
I find that completely unfortunate and inappropriate, but that just speaks to the fact that many members in this place do not want to allow committees to merely do their work but try to make political and partisan statements, or in other words, to use the vernacular, “piling on”. That is what we saw from the member for Outremont.
I will take this opportunity to make one statement to correct some misinformation reported by my friend from Outremont, who suggested that perhaps there were more emails sent out and asked why the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar did not go to the IT services of Parliament to get it to examine whether only five emails were sent out.
I can confirm that this has been done. The member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar did confirm with IT services in the House that only five emails had been sent. I have that documentation in my hand. Following the conclusion of my presentation I would ask for unanimous consent to table that so we hopefully do not hear the same sort of dubious suggestions from other members that perhaps there is a larger conspiracy at work here. There were five emails sent, and only five.
As I said, since there was a prima facie case to a breach of privilege, and in light of the additional information we have heard since this matter was first raised in the House, our government will be supporting this motion. I would ask all members, if they feel likewise, to support it, support it briefly and succinctly, and allow this to be sent to the procedure and House affairs committee as quickly as possible.
I would ask for unanimous consent to table the documents confirming the fact that IT services has examined the computer in question and only five emails were sent.