Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Sherbrooke for raising this question of privilege, because it is very important. It is not just about being put at a disadvantage; it is about a lack of respect for my rights as an MP, Canada's Constitution and the Official Languages Act.
I want to support the member's question of privilege by adding two or three arguments. First of all, I believe that the Speaker is responsible for ensuring respect for Canada's Constitution, the Official Languages Act, the customs of our country and the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, as they apply to Canada's Parliament and the House of Commons.
I would like to speak about something that happened to me last Monday. It was not the first time this has happened, Mr. Speaker, and I have written to you two or three times about this matter.
On Monday, at the end of the day, I was returning here for a vote. The person manning the RCMP post who checked my ID could not speak French. When addressed by the authorities, francophones prefer to be spoken to in our mother tongue. French is my mother tongue. This is the third or fourth time this has happened. It is another breach of my parliamentary privileges to not be served in my mother tongue, an official language that Parliament and the House of Commons must respect and that you, Mr. Speaker, must ensure is respected.
Our colleague has raised a question about a technical briefing on a very important bill. At that session, the information was not provided in a fair and equal manner in both official languages. I believe that this constitutes a question of privilege.
I want to add one more thing. If it is indeed acknowledged that this privilege was not respected, then should that not prevent the government from using a time allocation motion to rush the bill through, when francophone MPs may not have had the chance to get as much technical information as anglophone MPs? This is a very serious issue that cannot be summarily dismissed. This has major repercussions for the entire country.
Mr. Speaker, you may be a bit surprised to see a member from the third party take the floor. I am not here to kill time. I am here because the question raised by the hon. member for Sherbrooke is extremely important. I thought it was important that you take note of that because this is a very serious matter.