Mr. Speaker, I left off talking about two reports of the committee, the 34th reports, one presented in 2015 and the other one in 2017. In response to the 2015 question of privilege in which concerns were raised about whether a 74-second delay of a shuttle bus rose to the level of a prima facie breach of privilege, one of your predecessors ruled, on May 12, 2015, at page 1379 of the Debates:
In this light, emphasizing the notion of balance, questions raised by the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons are pertinent with regard to defining what constitutes an impediment to unfettered access for members to the parliamentary precinct and buildings. It would indeed be unfortunate for members to carry the concept of physical obstruction to illogical and unreasonable lengths. However, I would caution that the House ought not either to fall into the trap of assessing these matters on the sole basis of the duration of a delay or impediment. One can easily imagine a situation where even a very brief obstruction, depending on its severity or nature, could lead a Speaker to arrive at a prima facie finding of privilege and to allow a debate in the House.
Most recently, Speaker Regan, on April 6, 2017, at page 10251 of the Debates, said:
The importance of the matter of members' access to the precinct, particularly when there are votes for members to attend, cannot be overstated. It bears repeating that even a temporary denial of access, whether there is a vote or not, cannot be tolerated....
Obviously these kinds of incidents, which have given rise to the issue now before us, have been all too frequent.
The 2017 report from the same committee, the procedure and House affairs committee, which followed that particular ruling, meanwhile noted, “In line with past precedents, the Committee strongly believes that the right of unimpeded access for parliamentarians to the parliamentary precinct is of the [utmost] importance and that obstruction or interference with Members engaged in parliamentary business cannot be condoned.”
The relevant precedents are, I would respectfully submit, numerous and unequivocal, and I have laid them out. A temporary denial of access for MPs to the parliamentary buildings cannot be accepted and must be addressed.
What is unique here is that parliamentarians were a part of this protest, in an effort to impede and obstruct the work of fellow parliamentarians, members of the House. It is also, I believe, part of a broader pattern of unhinged behaviour on the part of New Democrat MPs, though I know that is already a matter on which the Speaker is currently deliberating on, given their behaviour in the House late last week.
This is also a continuation of the very tactics that we have seen on our streets from unhinged mobs that think that their petty grievances allow them to target Jewish neighbourhoods, firebomb Jewish schools, obstruct synagogues and wreak havoc on our Canadian values, while abiding and abetting groups that are designated as terrorists in this country. It is essential to recall that this issue, and this question of privilege, is not about some politicians looking out for their self-interest. Rather, as Bosc and Gagnon articulate on pages 59, “The privileges of the Commons are designed to safeguard the rights of each and every elector.”
Later, on page 60 of that same book, Bosc and Gagnon, quoting from the 20th edition of Erskine May's guide on parliamentary procedure, which says, “The privileges of Parliament are rights, which are 'absolutely necessary for the due execution of its powers'. They are enjoyed by individual Members because the House cannot perform its functions without unimpeded use of the services of its Members”. A similar point is made by Maingot, at page 12.
Canadians send us to Parliament to represent them and to speak out in the impassioned debates of the day. In doing so, they also expect us to comport ourselves in a professional way. That does not, of course, include engaging in illegal, disruptive, harassing and potentially threatening conduct toward our own colleagues and the institution of Parliament. It definitely does not include the delay in the business of Parliament by not letting MPs walk into their own office buildings, and it definitely does not—