Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is in relation to a letter and a question of privilege related to the 43rd Parliament, which I wrote to you about, and I rise today just to be perfectly clear.
When the House began its summer adjournment, the Chair had before it a question of privilege, which the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes had raised on June 10, with respect to the second report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics that had been presented to the House that morning. The then government House leader's parliamentary secretary told the House that he would come back within a week with a response, but the Liberals remained perfectly silent throughout June.
Before a ruling could be delivered, the Prime Minister called an unnecessary federal election in pursuit of his own ambitions for power. By rising today, I am seeking to revive this question of privilege.
As you recently heard from my House leader, Mr. Speaker, it is a well-established principle that one Parliament may address a contempt that was committed against one of its predecessors. He also spoke about importance of raising this matter today in keeping with the spirit of your ruling from last autumn.
Since there has been some turnover in the membership of the House since June, I will give a recap of the issues raised in the original question of privilege.
Very extensive submissions were put forward on June 10, so I would refer the Chair to those including—