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Procedure and House Affairs committee Yes, I think I would have said there was a prima facie breach of privilege on which I would ask the committee to give me advice. I certainly find it offensive, but if I had been the Speaker, I would have asked whether we had transgressed that boundary between offensive and harmfu
March 27th, 2012Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks
Procedure and House Affairs committee You're asking me for an opinion on something. I maintain that I'm not a lawyer. I can't give you a legal opinion on it. I can give my subjective, personal opinion.
March 27th, 2012Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks
Procedure and House Affairs committee Sir, you are part of the “High Court of Parliament”. I'm a citizen, and you're a member of the court in that sense, and you are dealing with a question of law. I consider it a breach of privilege, and that's a personal opinion. As I said, I'm not trying to persuade the committe
March 27th, 2012Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks
Procedure and House Affairs committee There seem to me to be two different things. One is the penalties that the House itself can impose. If the House finds and can identify the person, it can bring that person before the bar of the House and find the person in contempt of Parliament. It can put them in jail. Jail, f
March 27th, 2012Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks
Procedure and House Affairs committee Yes, I agree. On the other hand, there are parts of the law that protect people from offensive or potentially harmful speech acts, such as libel, sedition, or obscenity, and there are others. What we have here is a speech act—well, calling the web “speech” is, I think, acceptabl
March 27th, 2012Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks
Procedure and House Affairs committee I agree, and I made the point here, which I really did not like making but I think has to be made, that the original statement that those who are not with us are in effect on the side of the child pornographers is certainly objectionable. It classes anybody with legitimate object
March 27th, 2012Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks
Procedure and House Affairs committee I can do that, but it's simply an opinion on an extremely difficult topic. What I'm trying to suggest is that there's a spectrum here. It begins with things that are obviously offensive, but only offensive at one end. At the other end, it has items that are clearly producing harm
March 27th, 2012Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks
Procedure and House Affairs committee I'm always surprised, sir, but it's an honour to be here. I prepared some remarks which, with the permission of the committee, I will read, because I tried to be very precise in my expression of things. My observations on the privilege issue raised in the House of Commons by the
March 27th, 2012Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks
Procedure and House Affairs committee I'm retired.
November 22nd, 2011Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks
Procedure and House Affairs committee I'll give you my answer, which is yes. The basis for it is my sense of members and constituencies, which is the same issue we have in the northern parts of Canada where the constituencies are very small in numbers but huge in size. It's also true in the northern parts of the prov
November 22nd, 2011Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks
Procedure and House Affairs committee It depends on the members. I remember speaking with one member from Alberta, and I said over the Christmas holidays, “How many constituency events did you go to?” Some of you can probably work out who it was. He said, “None.” I stared at him and said, “I beg your pardon?” He said
November 22nd, 2011Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks
Procedure and House Affairs committee Thank you. As often happens amongst the professoriate, I'm not going to agree with everything my friend Ken Carty says here. I will begin by saying that I don't get excited about this growth in the House of Commons. I think there has to be a cut-off. I apologize that I didn't
November 22nd, 2011Committee meeting
Dr. Ned Franks