Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will explain the process that the House goes through when mailings are reviewed. I cannot specifically speak to these mailings, because doing that would involve an internal process and things that were discussed at the board, but in general terms, I can say that any mailing—which is what you find in section 29—that is prepared for members by the House administration through the printing services is vetted by our printing services, and they apply the test that you find in the MAS.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Marc. Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you following yesterday's meeting of your committee. In addition to the duty of confidentiality imposed on House employees and referred to by the deputy clerk, I want to remind the committee that there are professional obligations imposed on me and counsel working for the House of Commons by the various law societies to which we belong also requiring us to protect confidentiality.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's correct. Ultimately privilege is the control of the House over its own proceedings, so it's the House itself that decides how it wants to deal with privilege and what issues it wants to be changed or not. That's ultimately the question here.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  And witnesses.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They were essentially e-mails about witnesses' appearances, about who would be coming. There might have been some about the Auditor General's presentation, or things like this. They were very innocuous.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I will quickly complete the answer. It is true that this creates pressure on the system which, as it stands, allows Ms. Legault or the commissioner to look at things from the angle of the Access to Information Act. From that perspective, we understand her position. However, there is a broader context, that of the Constitution and the effect of parliamentary privilege.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In general terms, an amendment would be to the effect that no legislation could operate so as to infringe parliamentary privilege unless expressly provided for in a specific statute. So the constitutional status of privilege would be clearly stated. In practical terms, if you applied that concept to the Access to Information Act, without an amendment a request would come to the House as a third party, but as part of the process, the Information Commissioner would have to consider the documents, and privilege would be considered.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, it's a statute.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, that's correct. This is what Mr. Scott was explaining.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As I was explaining earlier, an amendment to the Access to Information Act would only deal with the situation as it relates to access to information. To cover in a general fashion in the statutes other situations in which privilege could be invoked or dealt with, I was proposing an amendment to the Parliament of Canada Act, which is a statute, but one that recognizes the privileges of the House, just as the Constitution does itself.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, you're dealing with the separation of powers, Mr. Chair, so it would be hard for one branch to ask another to do something. However, the House—or the committee, and then the House ultimately—could highly recommend that a certain approach be taken—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  —because ultimately it would show that Parliament itself, at least the House of Commons, has a view about respect for its privileges. In turn, the government would have to take that into account, I suspect, but you could not force them to put in place a specific process. We're trying to look at a practical solution that would work for both.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's the Parliament of Canada Act.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I have a very quick comment. I would just comment that if you're faced with “quasi-constitutional” provisions and “constitutional” provisions, which is what parliamentary privilege is, you would have to argue that the fully constitutional provisions would prevail in a situation like this.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, and in fact it's really up to the House, and members in the House, ultimately, to decide what they want to do with the documents in question being covered by privilege and how they are to be released. On the question that we're dealing with documents that are privileged or covered by parliamentary privilege, it is only for the House to decide how they can be released.