Mr. Speaker, I would like to join this debate. I do not think I will be using the full 20 minutes that is available, but I did want to participate in what I think is an important debate about the future of this place.

I will not go into the detail of the specifics of the matter that brought the ruling to the House, because it was obviously found to be sufficient to raise the question of privilege, but it is a good occasion for the committee to have a look at some of the questions that have arisen, some of them, frankly, without much contemplation, without much debate, without much public discussion in terms of the changes that may be taking place in the security arrangements for the House of Commons and the parliamentary precinct as a whole.

Obviously there are some lessons to be learned from what happened last October. I am afraid we have not even seen any reports as to what exactly happened last October. There is a bit of a gap here. Decisions seem to have been made about what we should do next without having a report on exactly what went wrong last October. It obviously was a significant shock to us all to have to encounter this, obviously without proper security in place because if there had been proper security in place, that individual would not have got inside this building.

Clearly mistakes were made, but nobody seems to be in a position to tell the public exactly what happened and make a report that we could have a look at. Without that, it is very difficult to draw conclusions about what should happen, but one thing that needs to be looked at, and I am hoping this is an opportunity for the committee to look at it, is this whole question of who is in charge, ultimately, of the parliamentary precinct.

Under our system, and it was always this way, it was supposed to be the Speaker. The Speaker is the guardian of the rights and privileges of members of Parliament, and they obviously include the personal security of members and staff of the parliamentary precinct. It disturbs me to hear, even in dealing with a debate about this matter, that we have the government House leader giving information received from the Minister of Public Safety who receives information from someone from the RCMP who says they reviewed security tapes.

Where is the Speaker in all of this? Where is the role of the Speaker in terms of being in charge of the parliamentary precinct, as opposed to the government? We live in a parliamentary democracy and there is an executive and the houses of Parliament, but I think we have a problem if there is an overlap, if there is an uncertainty of who is reporting to whom.

Ultimately, I hope the committee looks into this, and it may require more than just a simple looking at it, and perhaps the committee would have some recommendations that there be further work done on this, that there be further study, as someone pointed out earlier, looking at first principles as to how a parliamentary democracy protects itself and how it operates within the parliamentary precinct, because it is not simply a matter of getting to the House.

People were talking about getting to this House for a vote, but it is not simply a matter of that. The parliamentary precinct includes the offices of members of Parliament. Some are in this building and some are somewhere else. Mine happens to be in this building, so if I am denied access to this building temporarily or for an event, then I am denied the ability to go to my office to use the tools of the office to perform my duties as a member of Parliament.

The parliamentary precinct exists in other parts of the Hill, but they are all under the ultimate control of the Speaker. The Sergeant-at-Arms reports to the Speaker. So if we have an external police force, which is the national police force, playing a role on security other than advisory, then the question becomes to whom does it report. This committee really should be looking at that.

It is one thing to say that the RCMP can be in charge. I was not here for that debate, and frankly, I do not agree with it. I think it is something that should be through the Speaker. If the expertise resides in the RCMP, then obviously there is a case for secondment to the parliamentary security service, either for advice or command and control functions in particular circumstances or emergencies or in general to deal with emergencies.

However, in terms of who has the expertise, the tradition, the understanding, the institutional memory, and the knowledge, that resides in the Speaker's office, as does the role of the keeping the primacy of Parliament in the place that it should be under our Constitution. If we start with the principle that the parliamentary precinct should be under the control of the Speaker on behalf of all members of Parliament, then the question of what the buildings are used for can be answered by the Speaker with whatever advice he or she would get from Parliament itself.

We have heard about the heads of state. I think it is a perfect part of this tradition, which we have here, that leaders of other governments address the House, including heads of state, such as the President of the United States, who has addressed the House. That person is both the head of state and the head of government. That is not our tradition. The Governor General is the head of state, symbolically, on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, and Her Majesty the Queen is the head of state. Rideau Hall is the residence of the head of state of Canada. When foreign dignitaries come to pay their respects on a visit to Canada, that has traditionally been the place where they go.

If they are speaking to Parliament, that is a different matter, but we see the parliamentary buildings being used as a backdrop for a press conference, if we want to call it that, a photo op, or a welcoming ceremony for a foreign head of state who is not speaking to Parliament. Parliament has no role whatsoever. Parliament is not involved in it. It is basically being used as a venue for a public meeting and public statements by a foreign dignitary, whether it be a head of state, as in the case of the President of the Philippines, or a prime minister coming here.

If the House is not in session, there are a lot fewer problems, because we do not have the House of Commons or the Senate in session. However, these are questions that really are a part of what is going on here.

It has been questioned whether or not the people who are engaged in security know who the members of Parliament are. The question becomes who they are here to protect. They are here to protect the members of Parliament, the senators, and the staff who work here. It seems to me that there is an obligation that the people who are doing the protecting should have some knowledge of who they are protecting.

I was here that day, walking up to the Parliament building to my office, which happens to be in this building. There was nobody on the roads of Parliament. I was crossing from one part of the road to the other, and I was ordered to get off of the road. I looked around, and I did not see any cars, but I was told to get off of the road. Why would I get off of the road? I was crossing the road to get to my office. Again, there was no distinction being made as to who is who, who is what, who is coming, who is a tourist, who is a visitor, who is here on business, and who is wandering around. That seems to be wrong. I am not blaming any individual who may have been giving instructions, if we want to call them that. They sounded like orders to me. I am not blaming any individual for doing that, but it is clear that we have a systemic problem here if we have not figured that out.

The people who are here are doing the best they can, but they need to have proper rules, proper protocols, and proper understanding of their role, the role of members of Parliament, and how this all fits together. This is not simply a crowd control issue. It is an issue of democracy and how we have a democracy when members of Parliament and their staff who are going about their business, providing the mechanism of democracy in this country, are not able to do that.

On the one hand, the government plays a role in the House, but when the Prime Minister is meeting foreign heads of state, that is not a parliamentary function, unless they are being brought into Parliament, as we had when President Poroshenko came here to Parliament. He was greeted at a reception for members and other guests, and he presented a speech in Parliament. That is a parliamentary occasion, and it is one that we welcome and appreciate. We understand the value of it as part of the traditions of the House. I think the earliest one, or the earliest one most people remember or remember hearing about, is the visit of Winston Churchill during the Second World War.

I think that is something we recognize as part of the traditions of this House and part of the important role that this House plays in the life of the nation and our relationships with other countries. That, obviously, has to continue.

However, to get back to the question before us, whether this matter should go to the committee—that is the motion before us, should the matter go to the committee for discussion, for recommendations, for debate, for recognizing the depth of the issue and coming up with some solutions—I think that is the proper place for it. We would all benefit from an in-depth look at these questions, perhaps, with a calling of experts, getting people to come before the committee to talk about these traditions, to talk about how this could be done, and to perhaps even raise questions as to whether, or how, one could still have a system with the Speakers of the House of Commons and the Senate in charge.

That has to be the top of the pyramid, because the Speakers of the House of Commons and the Senate actually do act on behalf of all of us as parliamentarians in maintaining those traditions and ensuring that the democratic traditions prevail. We saw that in the last Parliament when Speaker Milliken made a ruling that, in fact, the Parliament was supreme over the executive, in terms of getting information. We were talking about the Afghan detainee documents and, Mr. Speaker, you yourself were part of that debate and discussion. It is one of the most important and significant rulings in any parliamentary democracy in the commonwealth—the kind of democracy we have—because it said that, ultimately, it is the House of Commons that decides what information of the government, of the state, it is entitled to.

That is a significant ruling, indeed, but it also underscores the importance of this institution being in charge of its own affairs—and the security of its members and the operations of the parliamentary precinct, are part of that.

We have to find a way to ensure that whomever is in charge of the security services of the houses of Parliament actually answers to the Speaker, not to a minister of the Crown. This is what we have now. The RCMP, God bless them, are the national police force and they have an important function to play, but to whom do they report? They do not report to Parliament. The head of the RCMP is not an officer of Parliament. There is no parliamentary oversight of the RCMP. It reports to theMinister of Public Safety, who reports to the Prime Minister. That is not the way a House of Parliament is supposed to operate. We have 1,000 years or more of tradition behind getting to the point where we are now. We should not be taking steps backwards. If we have a problem that needs to be solved, we should solve it consistent with our Constitution and our constitutional traditions.

This is an extremely important question. It is not simply whether somebody can get here 50 seconds or 30 seconds or a minute and a half late, potentially missing a vote in the House. That is just the context for bringing this forward. The reality is that this is a most significant question that requires a thoughtful, thorough, and comprehensive study and, hopefully, a report back to this House that would solve some of the questions we have been discussing here and that have been put forth.

That is really the point I rose to make. I want to make that point because I think it is of very high importance. I would be happy to respond to any questions or comments my colleagues have. I do not think this is a partisan issue. I think this is an important constitutional issue about the future of parliamentary democracy in Canada.

Jack Harris

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Routine Proceedings

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