Mr. Speaker, members of the government have been invoking this argument that the Public Health Agency is limited in the documents it can hand over, by law. We heard this argument the first time the president of the Public Health Agency appeared before a committee on March 22. He invoked the Privacy Act in his consistent refusal to answer questions or hand over information subsequently.
I have a few points on this invocation of the Privacy Act.
Number one, Mr. Speaker, you have already ruled on this question in your ruling on the initial question of privilege, so it seems that by invoking this, members are trying to undo a ruling that you have already made.
Number two, members have rightly invoked the constitutional principle that the rights of this House are part of our constitutional law and they supersede statutes like the Privacy Act. A point that has not been made, however, and that was made by my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills at the ethics committee on March 31, when the committee first adopted an order to send for these documents, was that the Privacy Act itself contains an exception, which clarifies, in this case, that the document should be handed over. My colleague, at the time, read paragraph 8(2)(c) of the Privacy Act, which says:
(2) Subject to any other Act of Parliament, personal information under the control of a government institution may be disclosed...
(c) for the purpose of complying with a subpoena or warrant issued or order made by a court, person or body with jurisdiction to compel the production of information or for the purpose of complying with rules of court relating to the production of information;
In other words, we do not have a conflict between the constitutional principle of the supremacy of Parliament and the Privacy Act, because the Privacy Act explicitly defers to the authority of courts, of Parliament and of other bodies that have the right to send for these documents.
These arguments were made at the time, and in fact these arguments were persuasive to Liberal members of the committee. At the time, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs said:
I think the section that [the member for Wellington—Halton Hills] cited is actually more appropriate. I hope that legal counsel to the Public Health Agency of Canada will listen to [the member] on that, and investigate further the right and the responsibility of a parliamentary committee, following under the rules of the House and the purpose of the House to oversee government and its agencies. I'm not going to be arguing with [the member] on that point, as well.
Very clearly, members of the government who claim that there is some legal obligation on the part of the Public Health Agency of Canada to not hand over these documents simply are not aware of the relevant law in this case. Mr. Speaker, you have ruled, the Constitution is clear and the Privacy Act is clear that these documents should be handed over. Members of the government have consistently agreed with that view of the law at the Canada–China committee. That is why they have voted in favour of motions to send for these documents.