Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, I am addressing you in your capacity as the custodian of our rights and privileges. For weeks, the government has been claiming that all members will be able to fully participate in the parliamentary reform. It said so as recently as yesterday. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
The government's proposed parliamentary reform and the approach it is taking to this issue violate the rights and privileges of members who do not belong to recognized parties. Hundreds of thousands of voters are being muzzled.
I checked, and I can tell the House that the letter from the Leader of the Government on the changes to electoral reform was sent only to her counterparts in the recognized parties. Not only were we not informed by letter like the other parliamentarians, but we had to learn about the leader's intentions in the newspapers.
We did not get the leader's letter until yesterday afternoon. What is worse, she indicated in that letter that the government will now have to use time allocation motions more often. That means we will have even less speaking time. The government's decision will limit our freedom of speech and have a direct impact on our work, the work that hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers elected us to do.
How can the government possibly amend the Standing Orders of the House without including every single elected member of the House, with no exceptions?
The government is accountable not just to recognized parties in the House, but also to all those elected by Canadians. This is set out very clearly in the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, on page 61: “The privileges of the Commons are designed to safeguard the rights of each and every elector.”
Members of non-recognized parties are 34th in the order of speaking, and the leader has announced that the number of closure motions will increase. This means that we will never get a turn to speak. This will permanently silence small minority political parties, as well as voters. It is an unacceptable attack on the freedom of speech of the members of the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party.
Mr. Speaker, in the next few weeks, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will debate the the reform of Parliament, its procedures, and its Standing Orders. It will establish the new parliamentary rules that you will have to enforce. I would like to bring to your attention that as a result of the defeat of our motion of April 5, these changes will be discussed and amended without our being able to fully participate in the discussions. It was the government that defeated our motion.
We are barred from all committees. This practice is discriminatory and unfair for non-recognized parties. These rules and procedures discriminate against non-recognized parties and run counter to the principle that the privileges protect the rights of every voter.
Mr. Speaker, we are asking you to defend minority elected officials so that the majority does not crush them. I will repeat the quote: “The privileges of the Commons are designed to safeguard the rights of each and every elector.”
In your speech of December 3, 2015, you clearly stated that you wanted to reform parliamentary procedure. You said: “I believe the Speaker should lead discussions about how to reform our procedures to achieve these things and to have measures that ensure that members are better able to focus on their work and carry out their duties”.
On page 89 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, we read: “By far, the most important right accorded to members of the House is the exercise of freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings.” A little further on, it is described as “a fundamental right without which they would be hampered in the performance of their duties.”
The Speaker's role in protecting this privilege in particular is set out on page 308. “The duty of the Speaker is to ensure that the right of members to free speech is protected....”
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, as the custodian of our privileges, it is your duty to intervene to ensure that the elected members of non-recognized parliamentary groups are not deprived of their most fundamental right, the right to speak, and the right to vote in committee and in the House on behalf of their constituents.
I am asking you today to guide us as to how to reform our procedures so that you can protect the rights and privileges of parliamentarians belonging to non-recognized parties. In fact, we hold that there are four breaches of our parliamentary privileges.
First, the procedure put forward by the government to reform House procedures and practices without the participation of all parliamentary groups, who are excluded from the committee on parliamentary reform, is not in keeping with the principle of fairness that must guide the Speaker's rulings and infringes on our freedom of speech.
Second, the government's expressed intent to use its parliamentary majority rather than seeking a consensus among elected officials to make changes to the Standing Orders and procedures is not in keeping with the practices and customs in that regard.
Third, the government's expressed intent to use time allocation more frequently inordinately violates the freedom of speech of non-recognized parties, especially since it has announced that it will use its parliamentary majority to push through its reforms.
Fourth, the fact that elected members of non-recognized parties were not informed of the government's intentions regarding the procedural amendments at the same time as the recognized parties is a clear indication that parliamentarians from non-recognized parties are not being treated equitably.
We are counting on you, Mr. Speaker, and we await your wise judgment.