Madam Speaker, I consider it a privilege to be standing in the House today to speak to this question of privilege that has been going on in this House for quite some time.
My comments will be somewhat technical later on, but first I will reflect on my 11-plus years here in this chamber as a member of Parliament and some of the things that I have witnessed, some of the things that I have observed, and some of my thoughts and expressions that I have on behalf of my constituents.
First, let me just say that we are very privileged to live in this country where we have inherited the Westminster parliamentary system from the United Kingdom. The history is rich and it is deep. The traditions that we have today have stood the test of time. It is no wonder that Canada is one of the most respected countries in the world. I know of nobody who legitimately flees Canada from persecution or other types of problems or political strife. People are free to come and go as they choose. If they choose to leave Canada, it is on their own accord, not because Canada has become intolerable toward them, that is, of course, if they follow the rule of law.
People from all over the world flock to Canada. They migrate here. People have fled Communist countries. They have fled persecution. They have fled poor economic conditions. Whatever the motivation might have been, they have come here seeking hope and opportunity for a better future. My wife is actually one of those people who have come here from another country, to get away from the persecution of the Soviet Communist regime.
Why do I say this? We have a great system. We have a great Parliament. We have rules of law. We have procedures. We have privileges as members of Parliament. When we stand to speak as members of Parliament, at least for myself, when I am defending my privileges, I am not defending me. It matters little that I, as an individual, occupy the office of member of Parliament. What matters is the office of member of Parliament is given the due respect that it represents. In my case, what does it represent? If my privileges are in any way hampered, denied, shunned, or taken away, they are not doing that to me. They are doing it to the 115,000 Albertans who I am privileged to represent. Every single member of Parliament in this House can lay the same claim, and rightfully so.
In that context, all of my comments will be made that way. I am not talking about me. It is not about me. It is about the role that I have, the role that I have been entrusted with, and the people who have entrusted me with it.
I have a couple of observations. In the number of years that I have been here, I have seen numerous cases where members of Parliament have got up on questions of privilege about being denied access to this place. Access to the House of Commons is a right and a privilege that is protected. As members of Parliament, we have unfettered access to the parliamentary precinct. This is something that we must preserve and protect. This is actually the matter before the House today.
I have personally been fettered or have been stopped or delayed in my access to the Hill. I have never made a complaint about it, and I have never launched a complaint about it. I have been stopped by RCMP officers who I know were diligently trying to do their job on the Hill on days when the lawn was busy and I needed to get across Wellington Street to get to a committee meeting. An RCMP officer actually put his hands on me. I simply said, “I'm a member of Parliament. I have unfettered access here. I need to get to my meeting”, and the RCMP officer let me go. That is fine. That is the way it should be. It is not about me. It is about the fact that I needed to do my job on behalf of the 115,000 people I represent. That was okay. I do not mind explaining myself from time to time.
When I was first elected here back in January 2006, I had never been to Ottawa before. I am a country bumpkin from Lacombe. I just fell off the turnip truck and ended up here in Ottawa. One of the things they asked for in the package I received after I had won the election was a photo of me. I could not imagine why they wanted a photo. I assumed it was to put on a piece of identification, whatever the case might be.
My office was in the Justice Building, where it stays to this day. I remember walking into the Justice Building where House of Commons security guards at the time, wearing blue shirts and shoulder flashes, said hello and identified me by name. How did they know my name? They knew it because they made the effort to know who I was, not because I am important, but because of the role that I play as a member of Parliament. The office that I hold as a member of Parliament is important. They need to know who I am so that I can access all of the buildings and all of the venues that I need to access as part of my role as a member of Parliament.
I have also been gifted with a pin, which all of us in the House wear. Members of the Senate wear the same thing. I do not know if RCMP officers doing security on the Hill understand what this pin means when they see it. House of Commons security officials and Senate officials know what it means. If I am not wearing my pin and in spite of the fact that I have been here for 11 years, if I go through a Senate door half the time I get stopped. Now we have a combined service of House of Commons and Senate security.
I am not casting aspersions at all, but I do not think security guards from the House of Commons normally would know all of the senators and I do not know if security guards on the Senate side would necessarily know all members of Parliament. I would argue that they should, and not because they should know who I am, but they should know who every member of Parliament and every senator is so they can be protected as they go about doing their duties. Members also need to be assured that they can get to where they need to go, whether it is for a vote in the House or a vote in the Senate, or whether it is a committee meeting or otherwise. There should be no jurisdictional squabbling or jurisdictional what I would call arrogance between the two chambers when it comes to allowing access to members of the House of Commons or members of the Senate who have a duty to perform. This has frustrated me from time to time. I hope that something like this will get corrected over time as these two security agencies come together under one umbrella.
These are the privileges that we have. We have the right to unfettered access. We have to get here to vote, which is the most important thing that I can do on behalf of my constituents. My words may sometimes not matter, but my actions do. Voting is the most important action I have as a member of Parliament and to be denied the ability to get here in a timely fashion to vote is untenable.
Let us go back and take a look at what the mitigating factors may have been that precluded my colleagues, who others have named in this debate, from getting to the chamber on time. My understanding is that it was the Prime Minister's motorcade, so let us examine that.
In the almost 10 years that I was a member of Parliament on the governing side of the House while the Right Hon. Stephen Harper was the Prime Minister of Canada, I do not recall ever seeing the prime minister's motorcade at the front door, other than once after one of the late-night votes. It was probably after midnight. I do not remember the prime minister's motorcade picking up the prime minister at the front door. Under Stephen Harper, the prime minister's motorcade was always at the back where it would not obstruct anyone or anything and would be out of sight from anybody else. It was out of the way. This was the modest way in which Stephen Harper went about his business. He did not need to make a show or production by walking out the front door of Centre Block so that everybody could see him.