Mr. Speaker, I apologize for not providing sufficient information. Should a future question of privilege arise, I will be sure to do that.
However, I rise on a question of privilege relating to a declaration I received in lieu of response to Order Paper Question No. 2001, regarding the government's refusal to cover the costs of legal assistance to Admiral Mark Norman.
The document I received from the government reads in part:
With respect to legal assistance provide to specific individuals, a response could disclose personal and solicitor-client privileged information. Therefore the Government must respectfully decline to respond.
We are accustomed to the government responding to written questions with non-answers, and we are also aware that Speakers' rulings, documented in Bosc and Gagnon state that “...it is not the role of the Chair to determine whether or not the contents of documents tabled in the House are accurate”. However, what I have not experienced in my relatively short time in the House is a situation where the government makes no attempt whatsoever to answer a question or offer reasons why it cannot answer a question, but instead boldly refuses to even respond to a question. That is a different matter altogether and, I believe, is unprecedented.
While I appreciate that this may appear to be a technical point, the government has for years been getting away with providing inaccurate, misleading and incomplete answers by exploiting the technicality I mentioned earlier from Bosc and Gagnon. I think you will be aware, Mr. Speaker, that the last thing the House needs to do is codify another technical loophole to allow the government to deny information to members.
Mr. Speaker, you may be tempted to consider the statement a response, since it was tabled like a response, but to do so would make mockery of the proceeding, since a response stating the government declines to respond is a communication effort left better to a Monty Python skit than to a proceeding in Parliament, and not unlike the time Graham Chapman attempted to explain rumours of cannibalism in the British Navy when he said “...Absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount, more than we are prepared to admit...”, which could also have doubled as an answer to an Order Paper question.
Standing Order 39(5)(b) has a provision to deal with the government when it fails to respond to a question within the 45-day period required under subsection (a), but no such procedure exists in the Standing Orders to deal with a government refusing to respond outright. I would argue that the only means to deal with this matter is through a question of privilege.
On December 16, 1980, at page 5,797 of Hansard, Madam Speaker Sauvé ruled that:
While it is correct to say that the government is not required by our rules to answer written or oral questions, it would be bold to suggest that no circumstances could ever exist for a prima facie question of privilege to be made where there was a deliberate attempt to deny answers to an hon. member....
The second edition of Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, at page 234, offers a condition that is relevant and has been clearly met to allow you, Mr. Speaker, to rule favourably on my question of privilege. It says that in order for the Speaker to find a prima facia question of privilege:
...an admission by someone in authority, such as a Minister of the Crown or an officer of a department, an instrument of government policy, or a government agency, either that a Member of the House of Commons was intentionally misled...and a direct relationship between the misleading information and a proceeding in Parliament, is necessary.
As you know Mr. Speaker, deliberately withholding information from the House is in the same category as deliberately providing it with misleading information. They are both deliberate acts that obstruct and impede members of Parliament in the performance of their duties. In this case, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence actually signed the defying declaration that his government declines to respond, and he did so through a proceeding in Parliament.
Given this deliberate and admitted defiance of the authority of the House of Commons by the parliamentary secretary, I trust, Mr. Speaker, that you will allow me to move the appropriate motion and refer this matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. I am prepared to move such a motion should you find favour with these arguments.