“The powers, like all the powers enjoyed by the House of Representatives collectively and individual members, are essential to fulfilling their duties,” Rota said. “When obstruction or interference hinders its deliberations, the House of Representatives has the power and, in fact, the duty to reiterate them.

“As the guardian of these rights and privileges, this is exactly what the House of Representatives asked me to do today, ordering the Speaker to condemn your contempt for the Public Health Agency of Canada and refuse to submit the required documents.”

Stewart was also ordered to carry unedited documents requested by opposition lawmakers. The speaker said that Stewart’s lawyer contacted Rota’s office earlier in the day and said he was unable to produce these documents.

According to the third edition of the Procedure and Practice of the House of Commons, calling someone to the House of Representatives lawyer is a rarely used procedure designed to publicly humiliate those who have committed an “infringement of the dignity or authority of the Parliament”.

Since 1913, it has not been used against private citizens. It was used twice in 1991 and 2002 to punish members of Congress who seized the ceremonial scepter in fierce House of Commons lawsuits.

The opposition parties joined forces to pass a motion in the House of Commons earlier this month requiring PHAC to hand over all unedited documents related to the firing of scientist Qiu Xiangguo and her biologist husband Kending Cheng, who were escorted out of the venue in 2019. Was officially fired in January of this year.

The motion calls for these documents to be handed over to parliamentary legal clerks, who will review them secretly and modify any content that he believes would endanger national security or an ongoing police investigation.

The motion stipulates that the Canada-China Relations Committee may choose to disclose any edited material after consulting with legal assistants.

The minority Liberal government ignored the orders of the House of Representatives and provided unedited documents to the party-wide National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, NSICOP, whose members have the highest security clearance and must be kept secret.

NSICOP was established by the Liberal government in 2018 to review Canada’s national security and intelligence activities.

The Liberal government argued that NSICOP is the appropriate agency to review documents and will not endanger national security or harm any ongoing investigations.

Last week, Rota ruled that sending the document to NSICOP was an unacceptable option because it is a relatively new institution and not a parliamentary standing committee.

The free government must obey the House of Representatives order: Chong

Today, the leader of the Liberal Party Pablo Rodriguez said that the government is still worried about the possible impact of the release of sensitive intelligence.

“Although the government recognizes that parliament and parliamentary committees have appropriate security clearances to review this information, we believe that he does not have the necessary training or expertise in national security-related information to make the necessary assessments of the information that can be released”, Rodriguez Say.

Rodriguez said that the disclosure of sensitive information could endanger the secret investigative methods used in intelligence gathering, or put human sources of information and their families at risk. “This will have a serious impact on Canada’s reputation as a responsible security partner,” he said.

Rodríguez suggested two possible methods to enable members of Congress to review documents.

The first involves cracking down on a special committee composed of members of Congress, As it was done during the debate on the detainees in Afghanistan Under the leadership of former prime minister Stephen Harper. Members of Congress who participated in the committee swore an oath in exchange of trust for the opportunity to obtain documents.

The second suggestion is for legal clerks and parliamentary committees to jointly review documents with the assistance of national security experts to determine which documents can be issued.

Conservative MP Michael Chong argued that the House of Representatives cannot stand by and let the government refuse to deliver documents legally ordered by the House of Commons.

Rota said he would consider these arguments and then return to the House of Representatives to make a ruling on what to do next.