Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
That is a very tough act to follow. Very powerful and passionate arguments were just made by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills defending the importance of the decisions made in this place and the democracy that we have. I probably will be far less interesting, powerful and passionate, but I have a couple of citations to make that I think the Speaker will find helpful in making his decision, and I would like to share those with him.
Central to the very key elements of the intervention from our opposition house leader, who made a very compelling case for the path that he has put forward, was the idea that, if the House is able to do incredible things to order persons to attend, we should be able to do the same with respect to documents. That is central to the arguments he made, and I just wanted to share with members a couple of citations I believe the Speaker will find helpful in making his ruling.
First of all, in their 1972 paper, entitled “Parliamentary Committees: Powers over and protection afforded to witnesses”, then Attorney General of Australia, Ivor Greenwood, and then Solicitor General of Australia, Robert Ellicott, wrote at paragraph 117:
Although seldom if ever used, it would no doubt be within the competence of the House of Commons and therefore our own Houses to authorise an officer to search for specified documents or classes of documents in a particular place and order that they be inspected or copied or brought before the House. If a committee had power conferred on it to do this there seems to be no reason why it, too, could not give such an order. Any person who obstructed an officer in the course of carrying out the order would, of course, be guilty of contempt.... We are inclined to the view that the power to give such an order is conferred on a committee by reason of a power to send for documents.
The principle of the House being empowered to search for and seize documents is also endorsed at page 688 of Australia's House of Representatives Practice, sixth edition, and it is also cited favourably by Derek Lee, a former Liberal member of Parliament in this House, in his 1999 book, The Power of Parliamentary Houses to Send for Persons, Papers and Records at page 47, where he adds, “Alternatively, where a person is in the sergeant's custody, the House may send the sergeant to accompany the prisoner while the prisoner goes to obtain the document required by the House, as the U.K. House of Commons did in 1809.”.
I just wanted to make sure I added those important citations to the record. I think they will be helpful to the Speaker in making his decision, and I believe it is very clear that the House does and should have the power to order the documents to be produced, just as it can order someone to attend to the bar.