Derek Lee

[Income Tax Act, March 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the House today on the private member's bill introduced by the hon. member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques.

Bill C-303 proposes to amend our Income Tax Act to provide a tax deduction for automobile expenses that forestry workers incur when they travel to work sites that are far away from their homes. Let me recognize right off the bat that the hon. member is attempting to address the needs of that particular workforce. He clearly will have a large number of individuals working in that field in his constituency.

The proposed bill would cover three kinds of expenses. First, it would cover daily out of pocket expenses for operating a motor vehicle. Examples of such costs are maintenance, gasoline and insurance. It would also cover interest charges on borrowing money to acquire a vehicle. Finally, it would cover depreciation costs. At the core, the bill gives a special package of tax benefits to a narrow group of employees.

We are all parliamentarians and Canadians here. It is incumbent on all of us to make sure that we uphold the fundamental principles of fairness and equity in public policy matters and in taxation matters.

I want to try and do my part here recognizing the hon. member's bill, the principles embedded in it and these other principles of fairness and equity.

The bill provides tax relief for only one kind of employment expense, that is, long distance commuting, and only when it is incurred by one kind of employee, that is, a forestry worker. Providing tax relief on this type of isolated, arguably ad hoc basis is problematic from the public policy point of view. Let me raise some concerns about that approach and which may have been overlooked in this bill as it was drafted.

For starters, we know that other groups of employees incur exactly the same kind of commuting costs as forestry workers do. People who work in construction or in the oil and gas sector are obvious examples. They often travel large distances to work sites. I am sure there are other examples as well.

We know that all employees no matter where they work incur some form of a mandatory employment related expense. I could give some examples. There are tools that are purchased by tradespeople: saws for carpenters, paint brushes for painters, hair dryers for hairstylists, some very expensive knives for those really good cooks. There are computers which are purchased by employees for working at home, monitors, hardware for the computer's hard drive and software and there are costs associated with that. Last, a common expenditure is safety clothing purchased by construction workers.

Clearly, employment expenses such as these ones can vary in their nature and their amounts. What strikes me is that there seems to be no reason that one group would be more deserving than any of the others in access to an employment expense deduction.

There is no doubt that employees who incur such expenses would be justified in asking for comparable tax treatment. However, if we were to introduce a general $500 deduction to recognize the broad array of potential employment expenses out in Canadian society, that would mean $1.3 billion per year in revenue forgone in the tax system. Recognizing all the employment expenses beyond the $500 would cost much more in lost tax revenue.

In addition, once we have opened up the door to this type of employment expense, we might not, in fairness, be able to stop just there. For example, there are various types of volunteers in Canadian society who have requested tax relief for their out of pocket expenses. These would include, for example, people who volunteer to provide emergency services and who incur vehicle expenses when they travel to an emergency site or when they go for training. Others include volunteer coaches for sports teams who might drive to practices and volunteers who deliver food and other materials to shut-ins.

Volunteers contribute substantially to our society and their efforts are valuable to all of us. However, extending tax relief to all volunteers and employees in a like fashion would be a very significant undertaking. Statistics Canada reports that there were some 6.5 million volunteers in Canada in the year 2000. Giving each of them a $500 tax credit would cost hundreds of millions of dollars in forgone tax revenues.

In closing, I am concerned about the apparent inequities that the bill would create. I am equally worried that it would place us on a slippery slope of providing unaffordable tax relief across a broad range of as yet unidentified workers.

In light of these shortcomings, I personally will not be supporting the bill. I do commend the hon. member for attempting to address a perceived need in the tax system and while I personally have not found a way to address it, I appreciate his efforts on behalf of his constituents in trying to do it with the bill.

[Privilege, March 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on the same matter, apparently as the press would show it and as the House record will show, there was an Ontario regional Liberal caucus meeting which took place on February 25, 2004. On both February 29 and March 4, which followed that event, there were accounts, and verbatim accounts, of that meeting published in an Ottawa newspaper. I believe it was the Ottawa Sun . The Ottawa Sun also published that it had received an audio tape of that meeting and presumably relied on the audio tape in order to write, print and publish the story.

There are three aspects I would ask the Speaker to consider in relation to this event. The first involves the matter of privilege itself. I submit that this disclosure by the Ottawa Sun constitutes a breach of our privileges, the privileges of all of us in this House.

It is the disclosure that is the breach. I have not made reference explicitly to the taping or the broadcast. There are factual elements involved in what happened here that are not precisely known to me. It is quite possible that the taping, the switching, the broadcast, the transcription, all of those elements, may also constitute a breach of our privileges here, individually or collectively, but I will leave that matter to the Chair.

Suffice it to say, from my perspective, that the disclosure itself of something known to be private communication in camera in our Parliament by a person outside of it constitutes a breach of our privilege. I submit that work that happens in camera in this place, whether it is by ministers in camera, House committees sitting in camera, or caucus meetings in camera, is all the same in terms of the need to ensure that we have the ability to conduct some of our business in camera.

I do not have to point out to the Speaker or members that when this privilege, this privacy of these meetings, is breached, innocent individuals can be hurt, not just elected persons but individuals and their interests. In addition to injury to individuals, the process of governance itself is hurt.

The second aspect, which relates to the first aspect I have raised, is section 193 of the Criminal Code. As I read the facts, I come to the conclusion, and I speak really as a person just reading the code and looking at the facts, there appears to be the basis of a criminal offence. The words of the section state, and I will just take the relevant words:

Where a private communication has been intercepted by means of an electro-magnetic, acoustic...device without the consent...of the originator...every one who...wilfully...

(a) uses or discloses the private communication or any part thereof...or

(b) discloses the existence thereof,

is guilty of an indictable offence and [is punishable]--

I submit that based on what has happened here, a criminal offence has been committed. I will not suggest by whom; I will simply indicate that it is the disclosure that constitutes the Criminal Code offence and not the taping or the transcription or the broadcast. These may also constitute offences under sections 183 and 184 of the Criminal Code. I will leave that aside for now.

The third aspect which I want to bring to the Chair's attention is in relation to the conduct of media in and around Parliament. Media in the House are given special privileges by the House. They are the controllers of a press room right below us, where we speak now. They are given privileged access to this place way beyond what individuals of the public would normally expect.

It seems inconsistent to me that those who avail themselves of these privileges as media, both for service and for profit, would knowingly be able to violate our rules here about confidentiality of some of our meetings.

Certainly, the meetings in the House of Commons are not private but are quite public; however, we do have in camera private meetings.

For those who would knowingly violate those rules and flaunt our working privileges on the front pages of a newspaper, I find quite inconsistent with their use of the privileges they have. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, that you consider that as a matter of privilege as well.

I will leave the matter there. I will look to you, Mr. Speaker, to engineer, if possible, some form of resolution that will uphold both the public interest and the finest traditions of the House. I am prepared to move a motion if you find that this is a matter of prima facie privilege as I believe it to be.

I would also add that as a result of this being on the public record, and in the event that there is the basis for a criminal complaint, that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police take note thereof subject to any direction that you, Mr. Speaker, might wish to assist them with.

As one member, I would like to see a resolution from within the House rather than the criminal courts. This is not impossible and that would be a preferred resolution if that were possible.

[Privilege, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the issue here is whether or not the House has been misled, intentionally or otherwise, by the hon. member. Just to focus with what I believe is great precision on what has happened here, the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough rose in the House and referred to a document, an internal memo. He described it as a document, an internal memo, and he said that he had a copy of that document and would like to table it in the House.

What the member did table in the House was two pages only of a five page document. I do not know and the House does not know if the member knew it was five pages or four pages, but the document that was tabled was not the document, was not the memo. It was selective and partial. I submit that in doing that, the member may have misled the House, either intentionally or not, and if he has done that, this may constitute a matter of privilege. That is the matter that is put before you now.

[Privilege, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, very quickly, the issue--

[Reinstatement of Government Bills, February 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and debate the question before the House. I do not consider it a complex question. Members opposite have had lots to say about it. I suppose I could compress my remarks into three or four minutes, but the ethic of the House is such today that we might as well have a fulsome debate. The clock is running on a vote. This debate will take us to a vote this evening. In a sense we are, as they sometimes say in sports, running out the clock.

Hopefully, in running out the clock, we will have some interesting things to say. I will do my best to add to the substance of debate, even though the debate itself is not essentially one of substance. It is really a procedural motion. The motion itself would allow the government to reintroduce bills in this session of Parliament, the bills being at the same stage they were in the previous session of Parliament.

To most Canadians that would not seem too out of line, too extraordinary or too undemocratic, but the opposition seems to think there is a problem with this. Even though it is roughly an eight or nine line motion in both official languages, we are probably going to have a few hundred pages of debate on whether or not it is a good motion. Let us keep in mind it is not substance. It is just a procedural mechanism to allow the reintroduction of bills, which in the ordinary course will be debated and dealt with by the House, and by the other place in due course, with lots of debate of course attendant in those procedures.

Why does the government want to introduce this motion and reinstate bills? What is reinstatement? At the risk of repeating a subject that has probably already been discussed in the House, I want to talk about reinstatement. It is not new, but it is not old.

I recall when I was elected to the House in 1988, it took me a couple of years to learn some of the rules and procedures. I recall in 1990-91 rising in this place and speaking about the stupid waste of paper and time, when at a prorogation all of the existing private members' business was trashed and put in the garbage can. Then when all the members came back in the new session of the House, they would have to reintroduce identical bills and they would all be reprinted with new bill numbers.

There were thousands and thousands of pages of private members' business which, as a result of prorogation and tradition, were trashed. All that private members' business was simply put in the garbage. We were just getting into recycling then. What a terrible waste of resources and House time because every one of those private members' bills, and some members had several items, had to be reintroduced in the House. They were normally introduced in the identical form that they were in at the end of the prior session.

I stood in this place, said it was a dumb thing to do, and asked if there was some way we could allow for reintroduction or reinstatement of these private members' bills in the same form that they were. Many members in the House said yes, we could probably do that. It would save us a couple of tonnes of paper and quite a few hours of House time because every time a member introduces a bill there is some House time taken. It ultimately became part of a minor procedural reform which was at first done on an ad hoc basis by the House leaders. Ultimately, the rules were changed to allow individual members to reinstate their bills. That is the concept of reinstatement.

If that logic flowed for the private members' bills, it did not take the House leaders long to figure out that they could do the same thing for government bills, and so there were packages for reinstatement prepared following a prorogation.

This of course differs from what happens when there is an election. When there is an election, of course, all of the parliamentary business ends, the whole legislative agenda washes and Parliament begins afresh in a new Parliament. But just the changeover between sessions is what we are talking about here and that involves a prorogation.

The House leaders then found a way to do this and we changed the rules. This reinstatement procedure, while not a long-standing tradition, is certainly not new and it is used. If it is good for private members' bills, the logic must flow that it is good for government bills. It may be trite these days to say that it saves a whole lot of paper, but it probably does and it saves a whole lot of House time.

I will say that in the past I recall a fair bit of political brokering, shall we call it, at the time the reinstatement motion was introduced. In other words, the opposition parties sometimes would meet with the governing party and negotiate what was reinstated as opposed to just allowing a blanket reinstatement. That seemed to work. There are certain bills, of course, that are not too controversial around here and it seemed to be pretty logical and efficient, if I can use that term, to reintroduce them using that mechanism. So there is nothing unprecedented or inappropriate about this, and I will use the term efficiency. Others may not like the use of that word, but it is good enough for me. It is worth something.

I also want to address a small piece of logic here. If we were to take the position that there should not be a reinstatement, we would also have to recognize that there would be a reintroduction. If the government wished to reintroduce a bill that was not passed in a prior session, it simply would reintroduce it, but not at the same stage it was at when the House prorogued. It would reintroduce it at first reading and bring it through that way.

Just because there is a prorogation does not mean that all the legislation that existed is never going to see the light of day again. It is going to be reintroduced. If members wish to use the term reinstate, they could use that term as well. The bill could be reinstated, but it would be reinstated/reintroduced at first reading.

In terms of logic here, there is nothing wrong or inappropriate about bringing back a bill. The bills that matter are going to get brought back anyway. The only question is whether we will bring a bill back into the House at the same stage it was at when the House prorogued. I never had a big problem with this concept when I was in opposition and I do not have a problem with it now that I am in government.

To be sure, there are bills on the list, which I will go through in a moment, that the opposition does not like or does not want to pass. That is okay. Rarely is there full agreement in this place on bills. The opposition, in objecting to reinstatement, simply is being tactical in doing what it can to slow down, stop or obstruct the passage of bills that it does not like. There is nothing wrong with that either. That is actually the job of the opposition: to test the strength of the government party and to test the integrity of the legislation.

I do not have a problem with the opposition objecting to reinstatement providing there is some logical basis for doing it, and I of course listened for those reasons. It is not logical to object to reinstatement because we do not like the bills that might come back, because if the opposition does not like the bills that come back it is fully capable of debating against those bills and voting against them when they come back.

The one exception to that, and this may be a reasonable position, is a bill that came back to this House after third reading, if I can put it that way. If a bill has already been passed at third reading, it would simply be sent off to the Senate. Where the bill died at prorogation, the House would not have another crack at the bill, but we have to remember that the bill had already been passed by the House fully and sent to the Senate at the time of prorogation.

Anyway, the motion now does not want to deal with each of the bills themselves. It is dealing only with the mechanism of reinstatement and whether the government should have the ability to bring back those bills using the reinstatement mechanism. It is really a simple question. We are now in the situation where the debate was dragging on this very simple question.

Mr. Speaker, you know from the content of the debate here that any number of issues are being debated under the rubric of this reinstatement motion question.

I heard an opposition member yesterday complain about the fact that the government had stolen an element from his private member's bill and used it in a government bill. That is a nice comment, but there is no property in a bill that is public and we all know that.

I know what the member was referring to. There are some good ideas around the House on both sides and occasionally those good ideas get collected, bundled together and put into a bill, which is usually a government bill. Sometimes there are some good opposition bills over there too. That happens. But the theft of the content of a bill, if I can use that term, the borrowing of the content of a bill, is surely not a major issue that should be debated in this motion at this time.

We have the debate sliding around, and because the issue is fairly simple I am pretty comfortable with moving the question to a vote tonight. The mechanism that moves it to a vote tonight is called closure. I am not comfortable with closure happening day in and day out and all over the map. It is a form of bringing a close to debate after a debate, but in this case the question is simple, as I say, and the issue is not unprecedented. I would say it is procedurally routine now and I am happy to deal with it in a vote tonight.

By the way, in that vote there will be votes for and against and that to me looks democratic. If the government succeeds in the vote tonight, the government will bring back bills that have already been here, bills that we have already debated and voted on. They will be brought back here in the same position they were in when the House prorogued.

In case somebody thinks that is just simply a very dumb thing to do, we must keep in mind that this is precisely what we all do with our private members' bills. They come back in the same position they were in when the House prorogued. There are members opposite who may argue strenuously against what the government wants to do in this case but who will bring back their own private members' bills using the virtually identical or analogous mechanism, the mechanism that was established here about 10 years ago for the same purpose. There are some crocodile tears, but they are routine in this place.

What is the list of bills? I thought it would be interesting or helpful to add some meat to the procedural sandwich here. I suppose many Canadians do not notice a lot of the bills that go through this place, but there is an interesting bill to amend the Statistics Act, which had come to this place from the Senate. That is a bit of a sleeper for most Canadians, but it is on the list.

There are bills governing reforms to how our first nations govern themselves. These bills are actually quite controversial. On two occasions in the last session, I stayed up all night when I was in the saddle, as they say, with a committee and was awake and without sleep for 47 hours. The committee did not meet for 47 hours, but I had other duties besides the committee business. On two occasions that happened. Therefore, I as one member--and there were many other members involved in this--have a whole ton of public MP time invested in some of this legislation. Those first nations governance bills were one of the envelopes wherein that time was invested. They may come back. They may not come back. Maybe the government will reconsider. I recall there was some concerted opposition to some of those bills, not all of them but some of them.

There is a citizenship bill for which we have been waiting for a long time, perhaps three years.

There is a bill to amend the Criminal Code for protection of children and other vulnerable persons. I sit on the justice committee. We made special efforts to get that bill through before the House prorogued, to finish our business and get it back to the House. My colleagues and I invested a fair bit of time on the justice committee. This is a good bill. I do not think there was any opposition objection to that bill. I think there was support for it, which is why we got it through the committee so relatively quickly. However, prorogation ended the bill. I think it would be reasonable to bring back the bill and get it through if we can, with the support of members of the House, and through the Senate.

There is an amendment to the family law act.

There is what looks like a technical amendment to the Canada airports act, the transportation amendment act. The Canada airports act is going to need some work. The federal government transferred responsibility for airports to a number of local airport authorities. That was something that had not ever happened and there were a few little gaps and a few procedural niceties that came to light during and after the process. We are remediating those items. It seems reasonable to fix them. It is a repair bill. It seems reasonable to bring the bill back and try to deal with it without putting it back at home plate at first reading.

There is a bill to deal with transfer of offenders. It also went through the justice committee. I do not think there was any significant objection to that bill either. It would improve the effectiveness with which we bring back Canadians from custody or detention outside the country. It would simplify the justice response to circumstances involving many Canadians in many different countries and in many different circumstances. Most Canadians accept that we in many cases are in the best position to deliver the corrections piece of the justice system to Canadians when they get into trouble in other countries. Not everyone agrees with that. Some think we ought to leave Canadians over there to serve their time, but on most occasions it is appropriate to bring Canadians back. That is what the bill would do.

There is an amendment to the Canada Elections Act. We all know about that because in that bill there is a trigger date for the new boundaries for the new ridings. I believe that the current date is sometime in August. The government bill would move that up to April 1, so that any election called after April 1 would be on the new boundaries. Most of us in this place would like to have an election on the new boundaries.

Rather than go through all of that, in short I want to say that there are some good bills, bills that are actually supported on both sides of the House. It is appropriate, logical, effective and efficient to bring them back. Tonight we will have a chance to adopt the motion that will do that. I am going to vote in favour of the motion.

[Reinstatement of Government Bills, February 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the member for a speech that was thorough in regaling the House with all the usual cliches that the opposition sprays about the place.

I want to point out that the motion does not deal with any of the bills that might be reinstated here. The motion only procedurally opens the door to allowing bills to come back into the House in the same position they were in when the House prorogued, noting of course that the House has already invested time and procedure in dealing with the bills.

Therefore, even if time allocation has been placed on the debate on this motion, it does not impair the debate on the bills themselves. They will come back to the House and be dealt with in the ordinary course, as they would have been had the House continued without a prorogation.

Let us not get too excited about the issue of whether or not the time allocation will interfere with debate on these individual bills. All members are able to take their own positions.

The hon. member outlined why he was opposed to all the bills that might be reinstated. The opposition amendment has included a list of all the bills it does not want to see come back because it does not like the bills.

Is the member opposed to the reinstatement motion because he does not like all the bills that would come back for debate or is it because he does not like reinstatement, efficiency and the saving of House time that would be attended to on a motion of this type? Would he clarify whether he is opposed to the motion because he does not like the bill or because he does not like reinstatement?

[Former Privacy Commissioner, November 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations and I think you would find unanimous consent to adopt the following motion without amendment or debate. I move:

That this House find George Radwanski to have been in contempt of this House, and acknowledge receipt of his letter of apology, tabled and read to the House earlier today.

[Privilege, November 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will speak to the motion momentarily, but I first want to acknowledge the efforts of all our colleagues on the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, as well as those on the subcommittee of that committee dealing with this issue, in particular our colleague, the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, who co-chaired the subcommittee.

I also want to acknowledge the very valuable assistance of the counsel to the House of Commons, Mr. Walsh; the Clerk of the House; the research staff for the subcommittee and the committee; and the witnesses who appeared at the committee. I also want to acknowledge the valuable assistance among members on both sides of the House and the member for Mississauga South.

I am surprised but pleased to take note of the letter that was read by our colleague and which has now been tabled.

The receipt of the letter from George Radwanski to the House, through the chair of the standing committee, in my view, will allow or can allow the House to conclude this matter in a way that respects and upholds the privileges of the House and the traditions of the House.

I, on behalf of all members of the House, was prepared today to move a motion, which procedurally would happen now, that would have summoned Mr. Radwanski to the House to conclude this procedure. I mention this so that the record will show that this is what should happen or would happen. The fact that we have not done this in some 90 years may well be enough reason for putting it on record so that we are all aware of how it may be done in the future in the unfortunate circumstance where it might have to happen.

Mr. Radwanski's letter, in my view, and hopefully in our view, allows us to put on record what we might well have had to do using the Bar of the House right here. We wish to do the right thing and we wish to do the right thing for Canadians in their House.

Mr. Radwanski's communication this morning I hope will be taken as good judgment on his part and that the matters raised by the committee had foundation.

Therefore I will not move the motion that I had drafted and submitted to the Speaker. I ask colleagues in the House now to agree that this matter of privilege and the alleged contempt be concluded now and that we return to House business.

[Privilege, November 4th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a matter of privilege. The background and the facts of this matter are set out in the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, which was introduced into the House this morning, and also in the fifth report of the same committee, which was tabled in the House in the month of June.

I am speaking today not simply as an individual member of the House, but in some way representing the members of the entire Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates and also the subcommittee of that committee which reviewed this matter. I speak on behalf of those members in reporting this matter today and proposing what I will propose.

I want to remind you, Mr. Speaker, that the report of the committee was adopted unanimously by the committee before it was presented to the House. I say that to indicate that in the event there is some allegation or sense of partisanship inappropriate to a procedure of this nature, I can say, as one member, and hopefully the unanimous adoption of the report will show it and manifest it, that there has been no partisanship. It is an exercise in fulfillment and in support of the institutions of this House. It is a matter which we believe we were obliged to report to the House and which we are now obliged to deal with it.

I want to indicate the substance of the matter, it is an alleged contempt. The alleged contempt is outlined in the report.

First, I direct the chair's attention to paragraph 1.15 of the ninth report, tabled this morning. It is important for me to read the three paragraphs of this and then three other paragraphs, if I may have the time of the House to do that. It reads:

Several key conclusions emerging from this testimony, and presented in detail in the Committee's fifth report, were contradicted by individual witnesses. The conclusions were:

1. (a) A letter, originally sent by the previous Privacy Commissioner [Mr. Radwanksi] to the Deputy Minister of Justice on August 2, 2002, was reprinted with one of the original paragraphs removed, and then date stamped with the August 2, 2002 date of the original. This was done in response to a direction from Mr. Radwanski, then-Privacy Commissioner.

(b) The falsified letter was included in a package of materials provided to the Committee covered by a letter signed by the Executive Director, Mr. Julien Delisle, and dated March 21, 2003

(c) The cover letter did not indicate that the falsified letter had been altered, but described it simply as “Copy of a letter of August 2, 2002 (Radwanski-Rosenberg) concerning the report of the Access to Information Review Task Force.”

The committee itself has reached a conclusion that the facts were otherwise than that put forward by the then privacy commissioner. I want to read three paragraphs from the report of this morning which itemize reasonably succinctly the nature of the alleged contempt. It states:

2.3 The version of events provided to the Committee by Mr. Radwanski in June of this year departs in several important ways from what actually happened, as summarized in the “Background” section of this report.

2.4 First, Mr. Radwanski denied that he had provided, or caused to be provided, the falsified letter contained in the March 21 information package. He described this as the result of a misunderstanding between Mr. Radwanski and his Chief of Staff, during telephone conversations necessitated by the fact that Mr. Radwanski was in Vancouver on March 21, 2003, when the package was being finalized. Mr. Radwanski claimed that his intention was that the paragraphs of the letter, excluding one paragraph omitted because it was confusing, were to have been used in the preparation of a briefing note.

The committee believes that is not an accurate representation of the facts.

Second, paragraph 2.5, states:

2.5 Second, Mr. Radwanski has argued that, on the copies of expense claims forms provided to the Committee, names were blacked out in order to safeguard the privacy of individuals. However, he denied any knowledge of the whiting out of information

The committee has concluded that information on documents provided to the committee was whited out, in particulars, as cited in the report.

Paragraph 2.6, states:

2.6 Third, Mr. Radwanski has denied that he made remarks of a threatening nature to employees, relating to the future career of anyone who had been disclosing information about practices at the OPC.

The committee has concluded that this position of the former privacy commissioner is also not based in fact.

I point out that the committee has concluded unanimously in its report that there was a contempt of the House at the committee. However, as all members know, only the House can find a contempt, not a committee. That is why the matter is being brought to the House at this time.

I invite you, Mr. Speaker, to conclude, based on the report, that there is a prima facie basis for a contempt allegation and to conclude this so the House may proceed to dispose of this matter in a fair and expeditious manner. I believe you will find prima facie contempt, given that the committee has unanimously concluded there was a contempt. The particulars, we believe, are adequately outlined. We regret this procedure was necessary. We felt it necessary to do so.

If you find, Mr. Speaker, that there is a prima facie case today, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion to dispose of this. I recognize that the House has not proceeded in this fashion for some 90 years, almost a century, and we should choose our way carefully, again in a way that is expeditious and fair.

I put that today, Mr. Speaker, hoping you will conclude that and allow the House to proceed to consideration of the motion.

[Committees of the House, November 4th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, entitled “Matters Related to the Review of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner”.

The report was adopted unanimously and relates to an earlier report, the fifth report, of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, and deals with a matter of privilege. I will be rising later today on that matter of privilege.