Peter Van Loan

[Situation in Syria, April 7th, 2017]

Very briefly on a point of order, Mr. Speaker, your comments are quite right. However, the foundation for the principle that responses are to match the length of time of the original minister's statement also rests on a foundation of the government providing to the people who are speaking from the opposition a copy of its text in advance so that we may have the capacity to calibrate the response appropriately.

While some notes were provided, they indicated only the types of topics to be discussed. The actual text was not indicated as such, and I think that some latitude should be given to the hon. member with regard to the difficult circumstances under which he has had to prepare his response.

[Privilege, April 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I was about to commence on another element of my argument. I was certainly more than ready to stand down for the period of time to allow such a statement from the Prime Minister, if the government was ever going to propose it. I certainly had been expecting it at 10:30, but in any event, pending the Liberals seeking to do so, I will continue.

Where I was heading was the context in which this is occurring, the context of rules being changed and government members asking that they be trusted on their kinds of initiatives like this. However, we keep seeing a contradiction between words and deeds. The contradictions keep piling up.

Why is this important? This is important because this place works on trust. This place works on the principle that House leaders speak to each other, which apparently the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader on this other matter has not been doing, and communications begin to break down. That trust is very important.

There is an interesting element to this that is critically important. In the United Kingdom, the mother Parliament, they refer to something called “the usual channels”. The usual channels constitute that element of the different House leaders and whips speaking to each other. Perhaps in the U.K. the whips take the more supreme role, and here it is the House leaders who take the supreme role.

There is an excellent paper that was written called “Opening Up the Usual Channels” that discusses some of this. I want to point to some of the important elements in it, and some of the quotes they provide.

The first one comes from Erskine May, 22nd edition, 1997. It states:

The efficient and smooth running of the parliamentary machine depends largely upon the Whips.... He [the Government Chief Whip] and the Chief Whip of the largest opposition party constitute the 'usual channels', through which consultations are held with other parties and Members about business arrangements and other matters of concern to the House.

That trust, that ability to negotiate, that ability to discuss together is critical to this place working. Yet, the effort by the government repeatedly, whether it be through Motion No. 6 some time ago, and we recall the issues that arose out of that, whether it be through the actions at the procedure and House affairs committee and the effort to push through the government's timelines unilaterally on changes to the rules of this place, again something that is out of the usual practices of this place, and now, last night's manoeuvre, are all part and parcel of the same thing.

Mr. Speaker, we are seeing this ability of the parties to negotiate and to discuss together break down, and this could have very troubling consequences for the long term. We are seeing it right this very moment where that communication has broken down. The government is failing to do its job.

I am going quote again from this paper:

One of the most distinctive features of the Westminster Parliament is the way in which parliamentary business is organised. The initiative in arranging the parliamentary agenda lies largely with the government of the day and the ultimate decision on what is debated, when and for how long rests with the government. However, in practice the government negotiates with the opposition parties, particularly the official opposition, through what are euphemistically known as the ‘usual channels’.

It is an important mechanism, and it is part of the culture. The Speaker's staff or someone at the clerk's table actually attend these meetings that take place in the usual channels just to speak to its importance on the practical aspects of making this place work.

If we are to allow the manouevre that took place at committee to stand in the context of the other things taking place at committee, the unilateral effort to change the rules, and the fact that there is a clear difference between what is said in this place and what is protested in this place by the government and then the deeds and actions that follow that are entirely contradictory to that, one can see that there is a need for the Speaker at this time to stand up and defend the rights of the members in this place, defend the rules that we have had for so many years, and send a message to the government, to all members, that this place has to work based on that kind of trust and straightforwardness.

In my many years as House leader, many may have taken issue with the approach that I utilized. However, one thing I do not think we will ever find anyone take issue with is that we were always straightforward, direct, told the truth, and did business in a productive and businesslike fashion. That is how it must be done. It was one where we always respected the rules and followed the rules, not one where we tried to change the rules through backdoor processes, as we are seeing right here.

Make no mistake, this is an example of the government trying to change the rules as it regards privilege in this place through a backdoor manoeuvre through this motion at committee that is being proposed. That is wholly inappropriate, wholly unacceptable, and it cries out for your intervention, Mr. Speaker.

With that, I will close my comments, but underline that it is far more troubling than the case may sound for persons unfamiliar with procedure. For those of us who are familiar with this place and have been here a long, long time, the manoeuvres and actions here are very, very troubling, and the consequences for all our privileges and how privilege is dealt with here are very profound.

[Privilege, April 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I find myself a bit surprised to be standing again today on another question of privilege, which is, in fact, very much related to the question of privilege to which I spoke yesterday. The accumulation of these things happening together is a signal to everybody. I hope it is particularly a signal to the Speaker that something is going very wrong in this place. It is of a matter of great importance and it is a hard thing for most normal people to understand. This has to do with centuries of history of how this place works and rules people consider to be arcane, but they are important rules. They are the foundation upon which this democracy exists and upon which it has been built for generations.

While the government said that it respected that privileges had been offended, we saw the government's double manoeuver yesterday in choosing to vote to extinguish any effort to protect those privileges. Then through another device, it tried to mislead and pretend it was protecting them in a fashion that was entirely inappropriate and not permitted under our rules.

Questions of privilege belong to this chamber. Questions of privilege are not government legislation. They take precedence over government business on the orders of the day. They take precedence because they are profound. A question of privilege and a motion of privilege are the property not of the government but of this chamber.

Yesterday, the majority government members took a decision to reject the effort to protect those privileges. They now try through words to escape the consequences of that decision and pretend they did not reject the effort to defend members' privileges. That is exactly what they did yesterday.

The more serious question is this. Are we now going to change how privilege and the defence of privileges of members works in this place from this point going forward? Is privilege no longer a question for the House to decide? Is it now a question of government motions and government initiatives that happen at a committee level? Are we going to so diminish the question of privilege in this place? Are we going to create that as the route through which it is done?

That is why this calls out for the intervention of the Speaker. There are rare occasions in the history of a Parliament when events begin to take a course and, for whatever reason, people get too clever by half. We get folks who think they can find ways to change rules, make new rules and make life more efficient for themselves. Some people call this campaign brain or political brain, and they get too clever by half. In a time like this, the circumstances cry out for a Speaker to say, no, that it is the duty of the Speaker to defend the rights and the privileges of members of this place. That is the most profound and important duty of the Speaker. That is what the Speaker is elected by the members to do, not to aid and abet a government effort to make its life more efficient. I would never suggest our Speaker has done that thus far. I am very pleased that has not happened. However, there comes a time when passivity is not sufficient.

When this question of privilege was raised, it raised a question of profound importance. It called out for that intervention to protect all of our rights and privileges. Let us remember what we talked about. The government is saying that we should not worry, that privilege can be taken care of by the initiative of a government member at a committee. I do not see that anywhere. I do not see it anywhere in the big green books. I do not see it anywhere in Erskine May. I do not see it anywhere in centuries of Speakers' decisions. Committees deal with questions of privilege after this place, sitting as a court, has taken a decision on them and referred them there. We are to sit in the second instance, with you, Mr. Speaker, in the first instance in making the prima facie finding. Then this place, as a court in the second instance, makes the decision on a reference. That is the proper process.

The government, for whatever reason, while saying it protected the privileges, took a decision yesterday to extinguish and snuff out the proper effort through the processes that belong to us to defend those privileges. Every member on that side who voted to do so took that decision that the right of a member to vote was not really important enough for them. They were going to have it drop off of the agenda of this place. Now the Liberals try, through some sleight of hand, to make the trick where they pretend they will really defend it elsewhere. It is not the process that does that, and if it does it, they are not really defending the rights and privileges of members at all. It is a profoundly troubling manoeuvre.

It comes in the context, and the context is important, of these other events that are taking place, because the Liberals are seeking to change the rules once again here. They are seeking to change the rules at a committee. They are doing so at the same time as saying, “Oh, we just want good faith discussions. Trust us.” It is the same as, “Oh, this kind of motion is another good way of doing it. Just trust us.”

One of the ways this House of Commons has worked, again for generations, has been through trust. Sure, we could have partisanship—

[Privilege, April 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is referring to the fact that right now the procedure and House affairs committee is dealing with other business that is very much of a long-term nature. It is the kind of stuff that is generally the subject of study. In fact, we hear the government say it has no particular proposals. We fear it does have particular proposals in mind. It will not commit that it will agree to any kind of unified approach here. It seems to me there are a lot of discussions still to be had there. However, we are not going to be changing the rules next week, but we will be having votes next week, so the question of what we need to do to ensure we do not have a repetition of the unfortunate event is important.

This is the first time we will be considering this issue in this particular context, where security is a question under the new unified Parliamentary Protective Service that was supposed to solve these problems from happening again, as they had in the past.

Clearly, the design that was created by the experts, with the best of intentions, and I think they all do good work, that was supposed to solve the problem did not do it. That is why parliamentarians, all of us, have to take responsibility for ensuring all of our rights are properly protected, particularly the rights of minorities, but every individual member. That is an urgent and priority matter.

[Privilege, April 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat puzzled by the question, and I am not sure what the member is driving at. The motion is that this matter be studied by the committee, and the amendment is that the motion should have priority over other business of the procedure and House affairs committee. In fact, it is an amendment to the motion that parallels exactly what the rules of this place are, which is that an issue of this matter takes precedence. The amendment is asking that it take precedence as well at the committee that deals with such business. Essentially, it is recreating in the committee the same philosophy, approach, and rules here. I do not understand how that is partisan.

I know the hon. member knows something of partisanship. I know that because I have been reading through some things he has said in the past five years, and his positions are 180 degrees opposite of the positions he takes nowadays. That suggests to me, if nothing else, partisanship if one can have one set of views on this side and views that are 180 degrees opposite on the other side.

Certainly the question of the rights of a member to vote should be considered paramount. The reason it is considered partisan by some of us over here is that we hear members from the Liberal Party saying, as we heard here, that this should not go to the committee, that this should not have priority and that we should let it be dealt with by officials and put it off into the shadows somewhere and leave members out of it, to “leave it to us, trust us”. That, to me, sounds a bit dangerous.

[Privilege, April 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, that is the place where such matters are always studied. I appreciate the member's comments on fairness in the rules.

Of course, those of us who have been here for some time recognize that the purpose of the rules is not the efficiency of the government. The purpose of the rules is the protection of the rights of the minorities through which our democracy is protected. That is why we, as a government, never once proposed changing those rules without the consent of the other parties. That is why the only changes ever made by the Conservatives were with the consent of the opposition parties.

[Privilege, April 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I am comforted by the hon. member's words now. They stand in stark contrast to what he was doing and saying in the House some hours ago. While other members were speaking, he was waving a piece of paper in the air and pointing to it, saying “I have the report. We know what happened. We have the report.” I will take him at his word now, as we all should do as members of the House, that what he is saying now is true, and that gives me great comfort. It still does not change the basic discomfort I have with the process of the Speaker conducting his own inquiry, but I am comforted to say that what he says is true. I hope the same is true for the member for Hull—Aylmer, who similarly indicated he had possession of the report. I hope that is not the case.

On the question of the rules, our approach was very simple. It might have been very convenient for me as government House leader to have different rules and to not have to stand and move time allocation, and pay what political price was necessary.

The Liberals want to short-circuit that, jam it down the throat of the committee right now, and never have to take responsibility for their actions under the rules. They would rather come to the game and decide that they would like to change the rules. I understand that if one comes from Winnipeg, perhaps occasionally, as their football team or hockey team has challenges, he or she might like to change the rules a little. However, I have never once heard those fine players on the Jets or the Blue Bombers suggest that what they needed to do was change the rules so they could finally—

[Privilege, April 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate. It would be better if I did not have to, but I am certainly pleased to come to the House to offer my thoughts in this debate, coming from a number of perspectives from my own personal experience.

I, of course, spent a number of years as minister of public safety, and in that regard, had responsibility for, among other things, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who, at that time, had responsibility for security in the precinct outside this building. I also, of course, spent some time as government House leader. We had occasions when we had to deal with questions of privilege when peoples' access was denied, for one reason or another, on the Hill. As well, I had the honour of serving on the Board of Internal Economy, which wrestled with the many questions on how to deal with security and at the same time with the question of members' privileges.

The recurring theme that has become loud and clear here is that notwithstanding these repeated problems in the past, members' privileges continue to be denied. Why is that important and why is the amendment of the member for Beauce so important in that context?

There is no greater privilege a member of this House has, and no greater duty and responsibility, than the duty and obligation to be in the House to cast a vote on behalf of constituents. Hence, there is no greater violation of members' privileges than actions that deny them that most fundamental right. That is why it is taken so seriously. That is why it must be taken so seriously. That is why it is a matter of urgency, and that is why the member for Beauce is so correct in his amendment that says that not only must this be studied, but this study must be given priority and treated as an urgent and important matter. That is certainly the case here.

As I said, this is the second time. There was another occasion in this Parliament, in different circumstances, admittedly, when tempers were high and people were heated over Motion No. 6. It is funny how that happens. Every time someone is denied a chance to vote, it is at the same time as Liberals are proposing draconian rule changes to suppress the rights of members in the opposition, and lo and behold, at the same time, members of the opposition are denied their privilege and right to vote. I do not know if that is coincidence or God sending a message or some kind of literary theme at work, but it is a recurring theme. We are seeing that right now with the effort by the government to unilaterally force changes through the procedure and House affairs committee.

It is also a nice way of juxtaposing those two issues and focusing on why, indeed, the privilege of members to vote needs to take precedence at this particular time. It is a matter of urgency that could occur again tomorrow. It could occur again today, for all we know. None of the changes being talked about at that committee include this dramatic, urgent situation, but we could face the exact same problem today, tomorrow, or the next day, and we have to work to resolve it as soon as possible.

The member for Winnipeg Centre set the groundwork for me on what I want to say next, when he said that the Speaker went on at length in his decision on this. I want to approach my next set of comments with sensitivity and a bit of delicacy, because I am going into what is a very delicate area.

In his ruling, the Speaker stated, “In fact, I have received two reports of the incident. The first, from the House of Commons Corporate Security Officer and Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms, provides an excellent minute-by-minute summary of events and is supplemented by witness statements. The second report was received from the acting director of the Parliamentary Protective Service. Based on those reports, here is what appears to have happened on March 22. At approximately 3:47 p.m., the bollards at the vehicle screening facility were lowered to allow for the arrival of a bus transporting journalists to Centre Block for the presentation of the budget. The media bus, under Parliamentary Protective Service escort, immediately proceeded to Centre Block”.

The Speaker then continued with his interpretation of events, as reflected in these reports. He went on for some time and then wove in references to the member's presence at the gate and the inquiries that were made. It is not clear in the reports where those came from or whether they were based on the member's representation in the House when this question of privilege was argued. In any event, they are there. Why am I troubled and uncomfortable?

Those findings were in reports that were apparently made available to the Speaker. I have not seen those. I do not believe they have been tendered to this House, yet they were the evidentiary basis on which the Speaker's finding was made.

I want to make it clear that I do not take issue with the prima facie finding of the Speaker. I conclude, in fact, that it is fair and correct. However, there is a long-established principle. In the courts, for example, we know full well that if judges are hearing a case and they hear evidence before them, they are to decide that case based on the evidence. It is considered highly inappropriate, and we would have an instant appeal to the courts, if judges were to play detective, gather evidence of their own, and seek out the advice of experts on their own.

I say this because the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre is saying that we should just leave it to the experts, something that is our responsibility, and we should trust them. That has already happened here, in part, in a way that I find uncomfortable, if I can put it delicately. That discomfort is that the basis of the decision in these reports was available to the Speaker but not to me, as a member of the House. It is evidence on which his finding of a prima facie case was made, but I had no opportunity to look at that evidence myself and make my submission on whether it supports or does not support a prima facie case, and that is, of course, the proper role in place in this House.

That evidence should have been before all of us before that finding was made. Certainly, I would hope, it would come out as part of what would be available to the committee when it does its study, a reason the study must go ahead and why it is urgent.

It really is not the place of the Speaker to conduct such inquiries. We have the good fortune of having had precedents on it. For example, Speaker Milliken was faced with this on one occasion. This is from October 25, 2001, where he stated the following:

The hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona in his remarks tried to assist the Chair by suggesting that it was for the Chair to investigate the matter and come up with the name of the culprit and so on. I respect his opinion of course in all matters, but in this matter I think his view is perhaps wrong. There is a body that is well equipped to commit acts of inquisition, and that is the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which has a fearsome chairman, quite able to extract information from witnesses who appear before the committee, with the aid of capable members who form that committee of the House.

I think there the Speaker was saying that it is not the role of the Speaker to conduct inquiries, to gather evidence, and to make decisions about those him or herself.

I recognize that the Speaker has an administrative responsibility here, with the recomposition of the Parliamentary Protective Service and the unification of those on the Hill and in the House. That being said, that does not change the fundamental principle in law and in parliamentary law that if we are to be able to debate an issue and make a decision on it, if some facts or evidence, not law or previous decisions but facts or evidence, form the foundation of a Speaker's decision, it should be before all members of this House. We should all have an opportunity to evaluate it, pass comment on it, and make our submissions on it. That did not happen here. That I find a little bit troubling.

It then becomes one step more troubling. We have seen the member for Hull—Aylmer make reference to these documents, suggesting that he has them. We have had the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons wave the documents about, yelling, “ Look it's in here, it's in the report”. Not only did the Speaker have this evidence and not present it to the House, but he apparently has presented it, or someone has, his administrative responsibility, to members of the Liberal government. It has not been presented to us in the opposition on this side, so we are handicapped in this debate to begin with.

The worst part is for the confidence of people in this House, the confidence that this House is working properly, fairly, and judiciously. We have to understand that this evidence was before everyone before the prima facie finding was made.

As I said, I believe the Speaker made the right finding in the end. My concern is the process of getting there and particularly that members of the Liberal government had access to this information.

That could lead a critic to suggest there were perhaps an unseemly, inappropriate proximity between the role of the Speaker, sitting in a quasi-judicial function deciding a question like this, and the government having and sharing information unavailable to other members of the House. By this, I do not wish to in anyway call disrespect upon the role of the Speaker and the job he has done. This ruling is a sound one in the end. It is not unusual for a sound ruling to occasionally have an error in process on the way. However, I did want to share with the House my discomfort with that process. There is a concern there.

That we have these documents floating about, which the opposition has not seen, underlines the importance of why this has to go to the procedure and House affairs committee to be studied. It also underlines why it is a matter of urgency.

There is a lot at the procedure and House affairs committee right now. The government has suggested all kinds of things that in other ways will tilt the table toward the Liberal government.

In all my time as House leader, and I am the longest-serving Conservative government House leader in Canadian history, we never, ever proposed unilateral changes to the rules. I know I am well respected for the approach I took of respecting the rules of the House and making everyone happy that we were in it. We never once sought to propose unilateral changes. In fact, my friend, who was my parliamentary secretary, the member from Regina, was very good at laying out the government's position at the procedure and House affairs committee. We agreed that changes would not made without agreement among all the parties. That is the proper approach.

Something like that can be done in the matter before the procedure and House affairs committee. If such a commitment is made, if such an agreement is arrived at, the committee need simply pass a resolution like that and we can proceed on with all the business. I do not think anyone in that context would argue that it does not make sense for our procedural matter here, the question of privilege about the rights of members to vote, to take immediate precedence.

What is so discomforting is that when we pull all these things together, there is a recurring theme again and again. It is a recurring theme where Liberals may have said one thing when they were in opposition, but now have a very different approach in government. That has never been my approach. I have tried to be consistent throughout, and tried to follow the rules of the House. They are very important and should be followed. However, to change those rules in mid-stream for partisan advantage is poisoning the well of this place. I think everyone who has been here sees how it is poisoning that well.

I feel badly for many of the Liberals, including the candidate I ran against, a fine lady, who spent much time in meetings telling their constituents they wanted to do things differently with a new respect for Parliament. They wanted to be more consensus-oriented, communicate and consult more, and work together. Apparently, that was not true. I sense that is why in these debates we see such lack of diversity in the spokespeople on the other side, because so many of them feel that discomfort. They did not campaign on the proposition of replacing or adding to time allocation, with an ability for the government to unilaterally impose it without a vote of the House, not just in each stage of the bill, but all the way through the process, to dictate it for every stage and advance, and thereby limit debate. No one ever talked about that. However, that is what the Liberal government now wants to do.

Now the Liberals think it is more important to talk about that and make that happen than it is to talk about the fundamental privileges of members of the House to vote. That is what the member for Beauce is saying. If we keep having occasions where people get denied their opportunity to vote, the most critical central part of every member of Parliament's role, what do I say? I feel for the member for Beauce and the member for Milton. What do they say to their constituents who ask why they missed that vote?

Some people care about voting records. As leadership candidates, they may have the odd hole. However, to then have additional holes created because somebody stopped them from carrying out their duties here, how could that be? How can somebody stop them from voting? They are there to vote on behalf of their constituents. It is a difficult thing to explain. Some people may begin to arrive at arguments like that presented by the member for Winnipeg Centre, that it must be the fault of the members somehow that they got stopped. That is why this is so serious.

If I can step into a place as genuinely non-partisan as possible, we had the same problems when we were in government. I wrestled with them as a member of the Board of Internal Economy, as government House leader, and as public safety minister. Why? Because people had a job to do, usually in the security service, that they took far too seriously and did not appreciate the importance of the privileges here. The thought and the hope was that by creating a single unified service on the Hill, we would finally overcome that, because the problems were always on the RCMP side. The Parliament Hill side was pretty good. It was always the RCMP.

Guess what? Notwithstanding all the changes, the problem has not been solved. That is pretty urgent. That is pretty important for us. Toward the end of our government, when these questions would come up, I would be very quick to stand and say that the member of the opposition, who was unhappy with the circumstances, was absolutely right. A member's privilege should never be violated in this fashion. Even if it is just to hear the speech of a visiting head of state who we are interested in, a member's privileges should not be denied. Certainly, when it is the question of that most profound element of our job here, to vote, it should not be denied and should not be permitted.

When this issue arose initially, I found it surprising that the government did not offer to bring to the House the evidence that the Speaker went and got on his own. We always did that. We offered to go and get that information and provide it to the House. I am surprised that did not happen. I am surprised he did not intervene to do that at all, but let it come to this without providing those kinds of answers. It is not an answer to say that it should be turned over to the experts, that the functionaries, the officials, will decide for us what our privileges are and how they shall be respected.

If we do not assert our own privileges and rights in this place, I can assure members that nobody else will. That is why I thank the Speaker for his prima facie finding. That is why I think he made the right decision. That is why I think it is so important that we study it. I do not know if this is one of the things the Liberal government has proposed in its set of changes, but there is a reason why it is built into the rules right now. When a finding like this is made, the House proceeds immediately to the motion from the member and immediately to the debate and that debate continues until the question is resolved.

The drafters of those rules cared about how this place worked. They cared about balancing the rights of members. They cared about ensuring the minority was protected in all cases. They realized this place was not here for the convenience or efficiency of this place. I keep hearing the word efficiency from the government House leader in defending what the Liberals are doing. The drafters of those rules realized that this place has certain inefficiencies which are called “protecting people's rights”. Protecting our rights means sometimes those inefficiencies. They recognized it was so important that when a finding like this was made and a motion like this came forward, it took priority over all other business of the House. That is what the Standing Orders say now.

Perhaps the Liberals want to change that. Perhaps they do not think it should have precedence. Perhaps they do not think it is the most important part of business. That is what their conduct shows. That is what it showed with Motion No. 6. That is what it shows with their work at the procedure and House affairs committee now. That is what it shows with the submissions from the member for Winnipeg Centre from the Liberal Party. It shows that we should not deal with this, that it can be dealt with by officials, so never mind.

We stand on centuries of precedent in the Westminster system. These rules are there for a reason: to protect our democracy, to protect the rights of the minority. That is what this motion is for. That is what the motion moved by the member for Milton would do and what the amendment moved by the member for Beauce would do. That is why they should indeed be approved, and why priority must be given to this most fundamental question of a member's right to vote in the House.

[Privilege, March 22nd, 2017]

With due respect, Mr. Speaker, you did make a prima facie finding with regard to the member for Don Valley East. It is in that regard that there is an effort to move the appropriate motion.

If you are saying you did not make that prima facia finding, that is a very different matter indeed. However, I believe I heard you find that the member's actions were in breach of the privileges of the members of this House as they are set out in our rules and our traditions.

I would appreciate your clarification on whether you did in fact rule on that and make a finding on that.

[Privilege, March 22nd, 2017]

It is a serious breach of privilege, my friends.