Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to both the government House leader and also to the very cogent arguments raised by the member for Timmins—James Bay.
First, there is no doubt that the question put forward, in what has become the infamous Question No. 1129 with respect to each Senate appointment made by the Prime Minister, is an issue of public policy. It states:
(a) did the government verify that each individual being appointed to the senate met their constitutional residency requirement; (b) how did the government verify that each individual met their constitutional residency requirement; and (c) what are the details verifying that each individual met their constitutional residency requirement?
This is something to which the government has to respond. For the government to try to pretend that any issue touched by the Duffy trial is something that it no longer has to answer as a matter of general public policy is simply absurd. It is an absurd conclusion for the government House leader to stand and say that the government can now define anything it wants as something that remotely or faintly may touch on some trial, that somehow it means the government is simply exempt from responding. It is something the member for Timmins—James Bay pointed out very effectively and very cogently in his argument, and the government House leader simply has not contradicted that.
Second, this goes back to the issue that was raised by Speaker Sauvé 35 years ago, saying that in terms of a prima facie question of privilege to be made there effectively is an argument that could be made when there is a deliberate attempt to deny answers to an hon. member, if it could be shown that such action amounted to improper interference with the hon. member's parliamentary work.
This is a very clear issue where the government is deliberately, because it is an embarrassing issue to it, trying to withhold what is a simple question of public policy, what is a simple constitutional process, and one that the government has responded to for decades. Now that we have the Conservatives entering this twilight zone where I assume they only have a few weeks in their mandate and are perhaps reacting to events in Alberta, they are trying shut down what should be an appropriate public policy response. They should have responded to the question raised in Question No. 1129 by the member for Timmins—James Bay. There is absolutely no reason for them not to. For them to try to throw out these outlandish reasons for why they cannot respond to a simple public policy question on the process that the Prime Minister's Office undertakes is something I think the public certainly sees through.
This is a question of privilege that I hope you will consider over the next little while, Mr. Speaker. If the government is going to respond, we will be responding in kind as well.