The next time police want to arrest an MNA, they should advise the National Assembly ahead of time.
That's the ruling of Speaker of the National Assembly Jacques Chagnon following last month's arrest of Guy Ouellette.
UPAC, the province's anti-corruption squad, arrested Ouellette while investigating the leak of confidential information to reporters.
Ouellette has not been charged, and he has accused the police of trying to intimidate him as he was investigating collusion between police and the province's financial markets regulator (AMF).
In the National Assembly on Thursday, Chagnon said that UPAC "showed no sensitivity to this unusual situation" in arresting the person leading a committee that was overseeing police.
Chagnon added that electronic devices used by MNAs were subject to parliamentary privilege and so could not necessarily be used as evidence
Chagnon said that although members of the National Assembly are in no way above the law, they should be subject to certain guarantees allowing them to perform their jobs as elected representatives. Among those guarantees and privileges is being able to speak in the National Assembly without fear of libel and having access to certain privileged documents.
