Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to respond to the question of privilege raised by the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford respecting the meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security for the study of Russian interference and disinformation campaigns in Canada on November 5, 2024.
The committee reported to the House on November 7, 2024, that the witness at the meeting in question refused to respond to questions posed by members of the committee. The committee expressed its view that the failure to respond to questions constituted contempt.
I want to be clear with the House that this particular witness was called before committee for a very serious reason. We believe that the evidence suggests that she has been involved in very odious behaviour on behalf of a foreign government. The government takes the issue of foreign interference very seriously.
I submit that this is a unique situation that requires some restraint on the part of the House in considering how we deal with this case. The witness is under indictment in the United States on very serious charges for which she has been advised by her legal counsel to not speak about the material facts of her activities, which are before the courts, for fear of self-incrimination. While the House does have the authority to compel responses from witnesses at committee, this matter is being considered before a court in another country that may not agree that witness testimony is protected under our privileges. It could therefore be used as evidence against her.
Our role as parliamentarians is to be thoughtful about the context in which we compel information from witnesses. I submit, due to the extremely unique situation we are in, that before the Speaker pronounces on whether this constitutes a prima facie question of privilege, a thoughtful and balanced study of this matter at the procedure and House affairs committee be undertaken. It would provide members and the Speaker with recommendations on the appropriate manner to handle situations of such a delicate nature.
I would like to quote my hon. colleague from the Bloc and thank her for her thoughtful intervention on this issue. The member indicated:
However, the Bloc Québécois finds that the reason provided by Ms. Chen to justify her systematic refusal to answer might require an analysis of whether the immunity relating to freedom of speech extended to Canadian defendants applies before a body having jurisdiction in another country, in this case the United States, considering that Ms. Chen is currently being investigated in a criminal matter in that country following allegations.
She continued:
What we can glean from her testimony, or at least from the little she provided as testimony, is that she was afraid that what she said before a House of Commons of Canada committee could be held against her in the United States. In that case, I think it is important to take that into account. We believe that the case should be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
We do not believe this matter should displace all other House business at this time. This is a unique set of circumstances where the witness is under an indictment in another country where testimony is not protected by the usual parliamentary privilege that exists in Canada and where the witness is at a real risk of self-incrimination. While we want to get to the bottom of the witness's actions, we believe that at this time it would be premature for the Speaker to find a prima facie breach of privilege and that a reasonable approach, given these circumstances, would be for PROC to undertake a study of its own volition to provide recommendations on how to deal with this unique situation.