Parliamentary Privilege / Rights of Members

Access to parliamentary precincts: access by taxi of certain members of Parliament to the Parliament buildings—prima facie

October 30, 1989

Debates, pp. 5301-2

On October 30, 1989, the Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West) rose on a question of privilege concerning the matter of access by taxi of certain Members of Parliament to the Parliament buildings. Mr. Gray explained that at noon that day “several thousand Canadians” rallied on Parliament Hill to protest the government’s goods and services tax. Among them were a number of Members of Parliament and “several hundred taxi drivers who had driven to the Hill in a procession” in the hope that “they could drive their cabs around the driveway in front of the Parliament buildings and out again.” The taxis however were prohibited from proceeding by a road-block of Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) cars near the Centennial Flame.

When Mr. Gray and several other MPs inquired of the officer in charge why they were not permitted to proceed in the taxi cabs, the officer indicated that he was acting on instructions; however, he refused to say who had given such instructions. Mr. Gray acknowledged that the RCMP officers were in all likelihood acting with the best of intentions, but he submitted that the incident raised the issue of parliamentary privilege.

In response to the Speaker’s request for clarification as to whether Members had been allowed to approach the building on foot, Mr. Gray affirmed that this had indeed been permitted. Other Members also intervened on the matter.^[1]

The Speaker ruled immediately, and his words are reproduced in extenso below.

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: The honourable Member for Windsor West and others have addressed the Chair on a question of privilege. Basically, the fact, as explained here in the last number of minutes, is that indeed certain vehicles carrying members of Parliament were stopped at least for a while.

There was also some suggestion that Members were denied access to the front door. I think that the honourable member for Windsor West mentioned that. The honourable Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader has made a suggestion which seems to be quite sensible. There is some difficulty with respect to jurisdiction outside the walls of these buildings and under the circumstances, I am going to find that there is a prima facie case and I would hope that the appropriate motion would be put.

The motion of Mr. Gray (Windsor West), seconded by Stan Keyes (Hamilton West), was immediately put and adopted without debate. Accordingly, it was ordered that the matter of access by taxi of certain Members of Parliament to the Parliament buildings be referred to the Standing Committee on Elections, Privileges, Procedure and Private Members’ Business. This Committee did not present a report to the House on this matter.

F0126-e

34-2

1989-10-30