Mr. Speaker, I rise pursuant to the question of privilege I raised earlier today.
The member for Mississauga—Streetsville rose in his place shortly before question period to say that he had recently reviewed the blues and realized that he had accidentally misled the House.
He has been in this place long enough to know that the whole point of the blues, the early recording of what happens in House of Commons debates, is to fix any inaccuracies in them before they are published at the end of the day. That is why they are sent to all MPs shortly after they speak.
The House then sat for six more days before it was adjourned for constituency week last week.
This cannot possibly have been the first opportunity to realize that he had been making up false stories and uttering them in the House. What I am saying to the Conservatives across the way is that it is difficult to accept the member's explanation of events. It is difficult to even believe the member after he so brazenly and deliberately misled the House of Commons.
To verify his account, it would be useful to hear from the sources he cited as to the events that took place and therefore to have the procedure and House affairs committee study the matter and call those sources of information to testify. We are faced with a clear-cut case of prima facie contempt of Parliament. All members would benefit from a proper review of the issue at committee.
I remain ready to re-move the appropriate motion, should the Speaker be ready to rule. You were not in your chair, Mr. Speaker, at the moment the member for Mississauga—Streetsville decided to rise. Typically, on important issues like this, members notify the Speaker's office so that he or she would be able to hear first-hand their argument.
The intervention by the member for Mississauga—Streetsville this afternoon did nothing to address the three conditions that you, Mr. Speaker, have set out when studying whether a member of the House has misled this place: first, it must be proven that the statement was misleading; second, it must be established that the member making the statement knew at the time that the statement was incorrect; and third, in making the statement, the member intended to mislead the House.
Earlier today I outlined our argument as to why this has been satisfied in all three cases for the member in question. He claimed to have witnessed voter fraud first-hand. He gave great detail about a crime he had witnessed, yet no explanation as to why he did not report it to police and no explanation as to why he then uttered it a second time in the House of Commons.
This was not a misspoken word or two. These were two separate accounts by the member of things he claims to have witnessed that in fact he did not. How could the intention have been anything other than to make the House think he had witnessed something that is not true? Perhaps he might not have intended to offend the House, but there can be no doubt that he intended to mislead the House of Commons.