Privilege / Miscellaneous

False representation of House proceedings

Debates p. 4213

Background

On October 17, Mr. Clark (Leader of the Opposition) rose on a question of privilege and maintained that the Government publication entitled "The Canadian Constitution 1980" contained false information which constituted, in his view, a false representation of the position expressed in the House by the Ministers of the Crown. After hearing comments from two Members from each side of the House, the Speaker took the matter under consideration and ruled several days later.

Issue

Are erroneous or inaccurate statements concerning House proceedings sufficient to constitute a case for a question of privilege?

Decision

No. There is no prima facie case of privilege.

Reasons given by the Speaker

To amount to contempt, statements relating to proceedings of the House or the participation of Members should not only be erroneous, but rather they should be deliberately incorrect and improper and import an element of deceit. Moreover, the document in question does not lend itself to "such a distorted" interpretation of the events or of observations which have characterized proceedings of the House in such a way that they could be labelled as "false".

References

Debates, October 17, 1980, pp. 3782-6; October 22, 1980, p. 3933; October 23, 1980, p. 3972; October 24, 1980, p. 4066.