Brian Murphy

[Main Estimates, 2008-09, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the member for his question.

Of course it is unfair to exclude one aboriginal group from a process that would select representatives for the entire population of a province. There are ways of going about it other than that proposed in this unfair bill C-20.

We received a submission from the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada which is opposed to the process in Bill C-20 because it is an appointment process that seeks to avoid a neighbourhood or riding system. The results would discriminate against official language minority groups, including those in New Brunswick.

I am very familiar with the situation in New Brunswick. With this system, the francophone population of that province would run the risk of not having any Acadian senators. That is unfair. The Acadian population fought electoral discrimination in the last century. The Acadian community of New Brunswick is opposed to this bill.

Why has the Minister for Democratic Reform introduced and supported a bill which runs counter to the aspirations and the hopes of the Acadian population of New Brunswick?

[Main Estimates, 2008-09, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is not in my character, but one snippy response deserves another, so I will say to the minister, yes, I read the bill, and I wonder if the Minister for Democratic Reform knows the difference between this and going to provincial governments, asking them to come for more than a sandwich next time and sitting down with the premiers at a first ministers conference, as has been the history and the practice of every Conservative and Liberal prime minister--the NDP will never have a prime minister--to discuss the issues of the day. They have always done that and that is what I meant by consultation.

Perhaps the minister needs to read about the great old days of Meech Lake and Charlottetown. Maybe he needs to know if first ministers conferences have ever been avoided by a government. Perhaps he needs to read a little history.

[Main Estimates, 2008-09, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by saying that as far as I know there are no famous hockey players campaigning against me in the next election, that I know of yet. I would hate to face that prospect, to be quite blunt. It might be worse to be campaigned against by a famous ex-rock star, one never knows.

In New Brunswick, one of the four provinces that was part of our Confederation from the beginning, the issue of Senate reform has been topical over the years. I do remember, as a younger person, being involved in Meech Lake and having the then premier of New Brunswick, Frank McKenna, ultimately be a very ardent supporter of the Meech Lake process.

I remember as well the Charlottetown accord process, when I was first elected to municipal politics, and I remember that being a period of interesting consultation, with the voters and the provinces, with respect to Senate reform and constitutional reform in general.

What strikes me, as I begin the comment on the supply issue, is that I do think that both the Conservative Party and the NDP are being a bit sneaky, frankly, with their stances and I will explain that very clearly. The NDP, if it is as true to its convictions as it pretends to be, ought to open every session of Parliament with a private member's bill, a motion, or, perhaps with their new bed fellows often the government, a bill which calls for the abolition of the Senate.

It is one thing to say that we are continuously and regularly against the abolition of the Senate, but it is another thing to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. The NDP should in fact bring a vote for abolition, but it does not do that. It does this tonight, ladies and gentlemen of the public might want to know, it does it on a supply day.

The NDP members say that it is almost like the baby is coming, but we are not going to buy a crib for the baby. What they are really saying is that they will not fund the Senate, but they did not have the guts, it was not on their agenda. I am not accusing the member for Timmins—James Bay of not having guts or not making it his continual priority, but maybe he cannot get through to the leader to make it a priority to abolish the Senate. Maybe that is the case.

However, the fact is that we are standing here tonight discussing whether all of the departments of government should be funded, and the funding in question in this motion is the Senate, whether the Senate should be funded. If it is not funded, it dies. It cannot function.

That is a little sneaky. The real big sneak though is the government. The Minister for Democratic Reform, through his prepared text, would have Canadians believe that his party's sensible piecemeal approach, Bill C-19 and Bill C-20, of various ways to reform the Senate, are as a result of their consultation with the people of Canada and that is what the people want.

I do not know about that. If we want to talk about what the people want by virtue of polling, which is what he referred to, then really what we are talking about is the disrespect that Canadians now have in the honesty of the government. The government is falling in its credibility and honesty.

I think they will see that what the government is trying to do is to appease parts of Canada, and particularly western Canada that has in fact been underrepresented in the Senate of Canada since its inception and since the joining of provinces into Confederation, by promising them and their leaders in provincial capitals and movements like western think tanks and that sort of thing, promising them gradual reform but as an end game hoping that the gradual reforms do not work.

Then the end game for the Conservatives and the Minister for Democratic Reform is to do one of two things, I suppose, do what I think a vast majority of his caucus wants him to do, which is to join with the NDP and abolish the Senate. That would centralize the power of the governing party in the one house, the unicameral house.

There are very few unicameral houses in western democracies. Most evolved western democracies have bicameral systems, two houses: the congress and the senate, the senate and the people's house. That is generally the way these things work. So, he would be alone on that one but maybe that is what the government House leader wants. Maybe, however, he wants to fill the Senate with the people that he wants.

He said earlier that the only reason the vacancies have not been filled is because the government did not want to make patronage appointments. I do not know if that is an admission that Michael Fortier, the current senator, was in fact a patronage appointment. We heard some backtalk that it was necessary because we needed a minister from Montreal and he would run at the next available opportunity.

I do miss some press stories, but I have not seen Michael Fortier, the senator, run in any byelection in Quebec that was called recently. I think he is probably not going to present himself in a byelection and, therefore, the government's ruse in saying that it had to appoint someone to have representation really was false, as well.

Bills C-19 and C-20 are a furtherance of the government's disingenuousness with respect to achieving reform of the Senate, to which it pays lip service. That is because, despite the fact that a couple of eminent professors support, in the case of Bill C-20, Senate reform with respect to the election or selection of senators, the vast majority of academics have come out and said they are against Bill C-20, the bill that says provinces can select names that the Prime Minister can choose or not.

The vast majority of provinces, through their attorneys general, have been against the bill. It goes to the fundamental point, and it would have been a good question had I had the opportunity to ask it of the Minister for Democratic Reform, of whether the real public consultation that he seeks with the Canadians would be done in focus groups and hotel rooms in predominantly Conservative ridings? Or is he afraid of consulting with the provinces?

Provincial governments, and maybe the Minister for Democratic Reform did not know that, by some of his rhetoric inside and outside the House, I am not sure he does, are elected. Premiers, MLAs and MPPs are elected by the people of the provinces and they represent those provinces.

However, the Minister for Democratic Reform has serially called a number of them into question, that is, the premiers of the provinces. He has called the premier of Ontario, I think, the small man of Confederation. These kind of epithets are not really conducive to sitting down with premiers, which his government has not done yet.

The government gave a nice meal of venison and, I think, apple pie or cloudberry pie at Sussex Drive around Christmas, but it has not sat down with provincial premiers to discuss the idea of constitutional reform, which has been very much part of our Canadian history for some time.

I do not know if the member for Toronto Centre can recall any of these times, but even in the best of times, provincial leaders and prime ministers and their federal counterpart ministers had disagreements. So, if the Conservative government is afraid of disagreement, which clearly by the way the Prime Minister runs his caucus, it is, then that is fine. Why does he not come clean with the Canadian people, why does not the Minister for Democratic Reform come clean with the people and say, “Well, we're just not meeting with any provincial governments because we think there might be disagreement?”

I think the Minister for Democratic Reform has seen through the hearings we had on Bill C-20. We had Bênoit Pelletier, the minister for Canadian intergovernmental affairs of Quebec recently before the committee. I think he has seen that there is profound disagreement with the way the federal government is proceeding with Senate reform. He knows that in my own province of New Brunswick, Premier Shawn Graham, who is responsible for intergovernmental affairs, is against the procedure. Even what he thought were erstwhile allies in the west, they have said, “Well, we don't agree with the part of Bill C-20 that says that the election modality should be federal. It should be provincial.”

The Conservatives cannot even get their allies onside. They do not want these bills to pass. They are not genuine about Senate reform. I think in lieu of this supply item, the best they can do is hide their tails and oppose it.

[Main Estimates, 2008-09, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my friend a few questions. I know he has an aversion to great hockey players. I have heard that story a number of times.

On a serious note, he has ended his comments by saying that this matter will end up in court. I want a clarification. The issue of Senate reform or the amendment of the Constitution will ultimately end up in court, at least that is how I read his answer.

Earlier in his comments, he talked about four levels of government. I do not know if he was including the Senate as the fourth or the courts as a level of government. I am not clear on that.

My question, in pith and substance, is this. With regard to the role of the courts, does he see that an amendment of our Constitution is inevitable, arising from the process that the Minister for Democratic Reform has put before the committee with Bill C-20, and will put before a committee with Bill C-19?

Does he not agree that a reference to the Supreme Court would probably be the only answer to the question of whether these bills are constitutional? Does he at least agree on process?

[Ethics, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party has drawn the attention of Canadians back to the Cadman affair to avoid its current problems with the member for Beauce.

Yesterday the Conservatives produced a sworn affidavit from Dona Cadman, in which she stated, again, that Conservative officials offered her husband a bribe in exchange for his vote. What is more, the audio experts provided by the Conservatives confirmed that the section of the tape where the Prime Minister talked about financial considerations was not altered and that those were accurately his words.

Yesterday, the parliamentary secretary falsely accused the Liberals of doctoring the tape, but when asked what parts were doctored, he could not answer.

If the Conservatives really believe the tape is false, they should be suing Tom Zytaruk and have him charged for conspiracy to incriminate the Prime Minister. Of course, they would have to sue Dona Cadman and her daughter as well.

This is a blatant yet closely diversionary tactic by the Conservative Party to change the channel on its silence on the security breach of the ex-foreign affairs minister.

[Business of Supply, June 5th, 2008]

I am still confused, Mr. Speaker, as to how the member would determine a legitimate lawsuit from a vexatious lawsuit.

If I understand his answer, and I want to give him the full opportunity to answer, it is legitimate until a court determines that it is vexatious. If a court determines, through the procedure that is laid out in our courts across the country, that it is vexatious, then it is vexatious, but until that point, even if it is Mickey Mouse suing a member of Parliament, it is not vexatious. It is legitimate.

As a final point, I want to know if the Mulroney lawsuit, where he alleges that the member for West Nova said that it was improper to say that he received money while prime minister, when in fact Mr. Mulroney agreed probably to receive money while he was prime minister and then received it as a member of Parliament, is a vexatious lawsuit or a legitimate lawsuit?

[Business of Supply, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the corollary to one being innocent until proven guilty in civil law is that the money is not paid until there is a judgment. The case he refers to is a finding of a court. It has been done. If there is a pecuniary interest or a private interest that flows from that, it makes imminent sense that the member could not come back into the House and deal with the issue of that judgement before committee or whatever.

The Conservatives believe their own speeches when they talk about legitimate lawsuits, potential liability, contingent liability, and potential conflicts of interest. If we say that just by the slapping down of a lawsuit and it becomes real, then why does the member for West Nova not just pay the $2 million? That is not the way it works. It has to go to court. This case will not go to court. Brian Mulroney will not take this case to court against the member for West Nova.

Brian Mulroney received $1 million just in costs for the complete destruction of his reputation. I am not saying the member forWest Nova does not have an equal and better reputation, he probably does, but he is being sued for $2 million after Mr. Mulroney received $1 million, and only for costs. The case is never going to court. It is not money in the bank. The member should know that.

He should also know that we are free to sue, but we are also free to defend in this country in civil litigation. It is the whole basis of our criminal justice system which carries over to civil liability. It is the reason we have freedom in this country.

[Business of Supply, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, either way, under the current interpretation, just slapping a lawsuit on someone imposes some sort of pecuniary interest, gain or loss. When one sues, obviously one is trying to get money.

It brings me back to some comments the member for Dufferin—Caledon made about the lawsuit. Having notice of a lawsuit because one reads about it in the Globe and Mail that one is being sued is not the way the system works. The system allows people to file a claim and, in most cases across this country, they have six months to serve it.

The injustice and the political chicanery that took place here was that the member for Dufferin—Caledon had a copy of the notice of action with statement of claim attached before the member for West Nova was served. He said that he went down to the clerk's office and got a copy of it. Should the member for West Nova have done the same?

In fact, getting into litigation as implied undertakings of confidentiality, which that members knows about, it surprises me that he would put the member of West Nova or any of us, as the member for Winnipeg Centre said, any of us who might now be sued, the law says that we must have notice of it when we are served, not when we read about in the Globe and Mail.

This lawsuit frenzy, which that side over there seems intent on, will destroy not only this institution but individuals in this institution. As a recent poll shows, it is working counter to the Conservative government's claim that it wants it to be crystal clean, clear, transparent and accountable. It is not working.

Why do the Conservatives not get back to the nuts and bolts of Parliament? Why do we not work in an environment where if we say something in here we will not be sued for it. Why do we not have more respect for the old girl that is this place, the Parliament of Canada?

[Business of Supply, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the member rightly points out that there are other provisions with respect to conflict of interest and certainly we are dealing with a very case specific amendment to the code with respect to someone being sued and his or her participation being cut off by his actions. He also rightly refers to an action that took place outside the House for which there were remedies, et cetera.

What was different in Mr. Ouellet's case was that there was no issue of his abilities as a member being cut off. In the case of where a justice of the Federal Court, Justice Joyal, criticized this Parliament, we as a Parliament considered bringing that judge in for contempt.

There are checks and balances with respect to contempt by the judiciary toward parliamentarians and vice versa. The example mentioned by the member has nothing to do with an MP's ability to speak.

As the member for Scarborough—Rouge River said, what happens outside regulates itself. The member for West Nova will go through a lawsuit. It is the Conservatives who have imbued the actions outside with terms like “legitimate lawsuit” and “potential conflict of interest” to make it sound as if they are the judges of what is meritorious and what is not. However, it is very clear: private interest, conflict of interest, recusal.

With respect to Mary Dawson, I do not think she got it right in that case. She inserted the words “contingent liability”. The matter needs to be reviewed for the protection of all members. The member for Dufferin—Caledon is sometimes quite outspoken and maybe he will join the “I've been sued” club some day. I hope not. The member for Winnipeg Centre suggested that I might be, but I hope for his sake he is never a member of that club.

[Business of Supply, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise and address the House on the motion of my friend and sometime mentor from Scarborough—Rouge River, who is a very eloquent defender of parliamentary rights and privileges without respect to party calling or any other loyalty. He is loyal to this institution. This motion, I truly believe, derives from his sense that there is a wrong and we should right it.

The member for Scarborough—Rouge River may be seen as leaping to the defence of the member for West Nova. I believe it was the Bloc intervenor who said earlier, and I am paraphrasing his French, that he is no fan of Liberals but he does defend the right of all parliamentarians to represent their communities and to speak out.

I am a fan of the member for West Nova, and I do not mind saying that, but it is very important to parse this and to say very clearly that we are not here as a party defending only the member for West Nova. We are here talking about each and every member of Parliament, and Parliament as a whole, with respect to their rights and privileges to represent the people of Canada.

We are here speaking for the institution. To paraphrase the famous Jewish rabbi, Hillel, if I do not speak for Parliament, if we do not speak for ourselves, who will? And if not now, when?

It is quite ironic, however, to say that here we are talking about a statement that was made outside the House regarding a matter that was very much part of the business of the House by way of extension in committee. That was the Mulroney-Schreiber affair. We are talking about a statement that was made about former prime minister Brian Mulroney. In almost two hours of debate now, there has been no mention of Brian Mulroney, what he did, what was said and why we are here.

Is that not the strongest evidence of the chill about speaking out to issues, about speaking to power, so to speak? I might even sound like an NDPer here, if you will forgive me, Mr. Speaker. As for speaking to issues that are before us, they are not being spoken about at all because of the de facto chill that is in this place.

This means that we are not speaking at all in these two hours about Brian Mulroney accepting cash while he was still a member of Parliament and the statement the member for West Nova made, which was that he believed Brian Mulroney accepted money while he was an office-holder, when we know after the fact from the testimony that Mr. Mulroney met with Schreiber while he was prime minister and subsequently received money. It is not a stretch. I would love to see how this lawsuit turns out, if it ever gets there.

Is this not more than just a libel chill we are talking about? Are we not really talking about a democratic chill? The libel chill is the agent used to chill democracy, to chill the right of the citizens to expect the member for West Nova and the members in the House to get up and pursue issues that are important to the continued democratic well-being of the nation.

I must get back to the idea of libel chill. Libel, of course, is something that is written. In this case, what is alleged, let us guess, is the form of defamation known as slander. There are many defences in the common law to any suit with respect to defamation, the first of which, the primordial one, is the truth. The truth is always a defence. The second, or the second branch, is the various defences of privilege, qualified and others.

I come from a municipal background. In municipal councils across this country, there is not the form of parliamentary immunity and privilege that there is here, yet there is a qualified privilege for elected officials. There is a qualified privilege for people speaking out on public issues.

I will quote now from a British House of Lords decision in 1974, without I hope offending any politician of any stripe, which puts in a nutshell why it is important for elected representatives to be able to speak out. The case refers to members of a local council at meetings or any of its committees speaking in colourful terms about issues and persons.

What was stated is that the reason there is a qualified privilege protecting non-parliamentarians but elected representatives is that:

--those who represent the local government electors should be able to speak freely and frankly, boldly and bluntly, on any matter which they believe affects the interests or welfare of the inhabitants. They may be swayed by strong political prejudice, they may be obstinate and pig-headed, stupid and obtuse; but they were chosen by the electors to speak their minds on matters of local concern and so long as they do so honestly they run no risk of liability for defamation of those who are the subjects of their criticism.

Does that not encapsulate what we really think of democracy? We are not sending to municipal councils and to this place of Parliament the most careful individuals who never say anything outrageous, of course, and as a body all of us have the right to say things that are on the minds of the people. Sometimes those statements get pretty interesting.

The principles laid down with the common law for councillors surely are expanded upon from the 1689 bill of rights, over which a king eventually lost his head, over which centuries of parliamentary privilege have evolved, to the point where what happens in this place, in the Parliament of Canada, is ruled by the rule of privilege that predated the creation of this Confederation in 1867. It certainly predates the Constitution Act of 1982 and has been ruled by the courts to be exempt from the charter of rights in almost every case.

There are exceptions with respect to the Speaker. In fact, the firing, hiring and disciplining of staff is an example, as are many other administrative issues that deal with the private rights of individuals when they brush up against parliamentary privilege, but by and large, and my friends on the other side may not like this, it is the state of the law. The parliamentary privilege is immune from the charter of rights. It is an element in being that is different from the laws of the rest of this country.

I think of other countries across the world where one can close out democracy by threatening to sue or suing someone. I do not think Canada wants to be on the list of some of these countries. In Singapore, for instance, it was de rigueur for political leaders in power to libel-chill opposition members to the point where they had to resign from Parliament and go out and make some money to defend lawsuits. It is not the kind of democracy or the vehicle for democracy that I think we want.

To pick up on the point of the member for Winnipeg Centre, and let us just pick on his party because he brought it up, his party often takes on certain groups or classes of entities in our community. I can think of the rhetoric and talk regarding big oil and big profits in these days of high gas prices. If this ruling, the interpretation of the Conflict of Interest Code in this case, were to stand and if we were to do nothing, it would not be difficult to envisage the big oil companies suing the leader of the New Democratic Party and anyone else in the party who espoused the view that big oil is making horrific profits at a time when the community is suffering from high gas prices.

If that were the case, if every member of the New Democratic Party were sued for pecuniary damages and there were hearings at the natural resources committee or the environment and sustainable development committee with respect to big oil profits and gas prices, it would mean that no member of the NDP could serve on the committee, vote or ask questions.

When the Bloc member said he is no fan of the Liberal Party, I suppose I should say in fairness that per se I am no fan of the New Democratic Party, but I would defend to the death the right of the New Democratic Party to intervene on an issue that it thinks is pretty important, and which I can see from the perspective of all Canadians is important, and that is the price of gas.

This is not a wild expansion of what happened in this case. It is not something that opposition members can say would not happen, particularly with respect to the rhetoric that we have heard from the other side today.

Let us keep in mind that the conflict code says that if a member has a private interest or a conflict of interest, that member should recuse himself or herself from a matter before a committee or in Parliament. That seems pretty clear.

Where the train falls off the track and gets derailed is in the interpretation of “private interest” and “conflict of interest” and whether a lawsuit is meritorious or not.

The member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, who is very experienced in the House, has been involved in procedure and House affairs for some time, so he did not just fall off the turnip truck. He not was told to make this statement. He believes it. He said that in the case of a legitimate lawsuit against a member where there is a pecuniary interest and so on, the member should recuse himself.

With all due respect to the member and any member in the House, what is a legitimate lawsuit? An individual can go into court, start a notice of action with a statement of claim attached, at a cost of $120, and serve someone. It is considered legitimate if it is accepted by the court with a court stamp.

My friend the member for Dufferin—Caledon, the other twin pillar of reasoning over there, said there are remedies for that because the individual being sued can go to court and get the action thrown out. He would have us and members of the Canadian public believe that all one has to do is phone up a judge, meet him at Tim Hortons and tell him the lawsuit should be thrown out because it is vexatious. It is not that easy.

My colleague failed to mention that there are proceedings in court that have taken years with respect to whether a statement of claim discloses a cause of action or not, and the threshold is not that high. For an action to survive, one just has to show there is a scintilla of a cause of action, which will or will not be proven subsequently. As for what a “legitimate lawsuit” is, I have no idea. If it is filed and served and it is in the courts, it is a lawsuit.

The next point was, what is a “private interest”? If someone is being sued for money, it is a private interest, I guess. The member for West Nova is being sued for $2 million. That must make it a very big private interest.

However, let me get back to the subject we cannot speak about, which is Brian Mulroney. He sued for many millions of dollars and eventually accepted nothing. His lawsuit against the Government of Canada was settled for costs. He did not get anything. Is that a private interest? Was that a legitimate lawsuit? Would that have put him in a conflict of interest?

I think there are many questions are being raised by the Conservatives' interpretation of what a legitimate lawsuit is and what an actual private interest is.

Finally, do the Conservatives agree that the commissioner, Mary Dawson, overstepped and misinterpreted the code? As an officer of Parliament, she is entitled to have an opinion. She is entitled to look at the documentation, the case law and the practice and precedents of the House and come up with a determination. Her determination was that liability, in the black letter law of the Conflict of Interest Code, includes contingent liability.

One has to ask oneself, as the member for Scarborough—Rouge River said, what does that mean? What does a contingent liability mean? Is it the same as a legitimate lawsuit? Or in the case of the member for Dufferin—Caledon's remarks, are we now going to include potential conflicts of interest?

Is the intention of those members in opposing these changes, which every other party seems to be onside with, to say that in the case where there is a legitimate lawsuit and where there is a potential conflict of interest all members should recuse themselves from matters before the House regardless of who the litigant is?

I do have to take issue with where the member for Dufferin—Caledon was coming from when he asked the House on May 7 if it matters who the litigant is. I ask members to look at what he said on May 7:

Yes, I did raise the issue in committee and, yes, I did think it was improper. When a former prime minister of this country is suing him for $1 million he has no right to participate in that committee.

What if we substituted someone else for “a former prime minister”? What if we substituted Fidel Castro or someone we have low regard for, collectively or individually, when someone is suing him for $1 million, he has no right to participate in that committee?

It seems to me that there is a heavy embodiment of defence of the old regime with respect to the Conservative response to this motion. All of us should be looking to having a code by which we can all live. It strikes me that “There but for the Grace of God go I” is a good way to look at this.

Perhaps there will be a day when a Conservative member, who says something controversial having to do with matters before this House, will be sued for his or her comments by a group appearing before a committee. Perhaps that member would want to, on his or her own, suggest that he or she has a defence to the action even though it is alleged that the member made the comments. The member may decide to deal with it outside. The member may decide that he or she does not need the Ethics Commissioner or the Code of Conduct to tell him or her that he or she cannot represent his or her citizens. That is what this is all about. It is about whether we are representing the people of Canada.

We are sent here as individuals to represent the people's interest and the privileges and immunities arrive out of the fact that it is the people's interests that are being protected. It is not to protect the individuals because they wear a nice suit, live in a nice house or are nice people. It is because the people of Canada in my riding, for instance, sent me here to speak out on concerns that are important to them. I will be judged, as will every member when an eventual election occurs, on whether we spoke out in the right way on the right subjects.

However, for now we are here bringing up subjects and speaking to them. To preclude a member of Parliament from participating in a committee or voting or speaking on an issue in this House is to deny the people who sent that person the right to speak. That is the whole basis of why a Speaker, when chosen, symbolically reluctantly moves to the chair and a new member is symbolically reluctantly moved into the House. It is because there was a fear of the sovereign that he or she would do something bad to the people who spoke out for the Commonwealth, for the people, in exercising their concerns.

As the first report of the Special Committee on Rights and Immunities of Members in 1977 stated:

...a fundamental right without which they would be hampered in the performance of their duties. It permits them to speak in the House without inhibition, to refer to any matter or express any opinion as they see fit, to say what they feel needs to be said in the furtherance of the national interest and the aspirations of their constituents.

It strikes me that, if this were to be challenged and defeated, we are now in a position of whether we are going to defend the old institution of Parliament and give in to trendy views of self-loathing with respect to this institution, which seems to be the debate.

I want to refer to a couple of excerpts from David Smith's book on parliamentary democracy called The People's House of Commons. It seems to me that in some cases privilege is attacked, what people say in the House is attacked, as it says at page 23, because there is a “loss of conviction on all sides in its superiority”. That is immunity in Parliament. “Hence the power of slogans such as 'the democratic deficit', multi-partisan in appeal within the Commons and popular with press, public, and academics outside” seems to take hold.

However, there is a bright note. We had the recent Supreme Court decision on the Canada House of Commons v. Vade case of 2005. I said earlier that the Supreme Court of Canada said that there was a certain immunity of Parliament, the privileges of Parliament, from the Charter of Rights. Over time, a certain loophole has evolved with respect to private matters as they respect other private person's rights butting up against Parliament's privilege.

In this decision, the court stated that the core function of Parliament is 'to keep the government to account' and it is due to this particular function (plus the legislative and deliberative ones) that Parliament enjoys rights, powers, and immunities that keep certain aspects of Parliament and its members' activities beyond the reach of the courts.

This was the first time that the concept of keeping government accountable was recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as a foundational function for privileges of Parliament.

It seems to say that it has heightened an existing dimension with respect to privileges and immunities. It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court in the future will incur upon the functions of independent officers of Parliament, like the Auditor General, who fall out of favour with the government of the day and whether Elections Canada, for instance, which has been beaten up lately, frankly, would survive an incursion.

In summary, I am happy to support the motion because it is to the benefit of all parliamentarians. Other than with respect to the actual wording and amendments to the Code of Conduct, which the member for Dufferin—Caledon spent most of his time speaking to, I think most members agree that Mary Dawson perhaps made a mistake in inserting the words “contingent liability”.