A debate that has clogged the House of Commons for nearly two months shows no sign of ending, as neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives show any signs of backing down.

The parties blame each other for blocking Parliament in a debate on privileges that began at the end of September. This debate stems from a House order directing the government to turn over unredacted documents related to a now-defunct foundation responsible for distributing hundreds of millions of federal dollars for green technology projects.

On Monday, Government House Leader Karina Gould accused the Conservatives of “holding Parliament hostage.”

“It’s time for conservatives to stop playing their silly, partisan procedural games and get us all back to working this place,” she said.

But Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer said Tuesday that it’s the Liberals who are holding things up by refusing to turn over all the relevant documents.

Scheer pointed to a letter from the House law clerk – tabled in Parliament on Monday – which indicated that some of the documents had been redacted or withheld.

“This is clearly a decision that the Liberals made to continue to keep Parliament paralyzed rather than handing over documents,” Scheer told reporters Tuesday. The Conservatives have committed to continuing the debate until the remaining documents are produced.

WATCH | Gould says the Liberals released documents related to the green technology fund:

Gould says Liberals released documents related to green technology fund

Government House Leader Karina Gould says the government has provided nearly 29,000 pages of documents related to the Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) file.

On Monday, Gould said the government had turned over nearly 29,000 pages to the law clerk “in a manner consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” The law clerk’s letter indicates that the deletions were allegedly made to comply with access to information laws.

Because this question is considered a question of privilege, it takes precedence over all other business of the House. As a result, the government has been unable to move forward with any bill for weeks.

The debate also prevented the Conservatives from introducing motions on designated opposition days – motions the party recently used to trigger votes of no confidence in continued attempt to bring down government and force an election.

In June, the Auditor General released a report revealing that Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) had violated its conflict of interest policies 90 times, awarded $59 million to 10 ineligible projects and frequently overestimated environmental benefits of his projects.

Following this report, Opposition MPs voted for the government to provide all documents related to SDTC to the House Law Clerk for forwarding to the RCMP, who will investigate.

A few the documents were handed over to the RCMP. But the government redacted information from those documents and hid other documents entirely, citing privacy laws, attorney-client privilege, and Cabinet confidence to explain the exclusions.

Speaker Greg Fergus ruled in September that the government “clearly failed to fully comply” with the House order. But he also said it was “unprecedented” for the House to require the government to produce documents for the purpose of providing them to a third party — the RCMP, in this case.

At the time, Fergus suggested the issue be studied further by the House Procedures Committee. But because the debate has continued for weeks, a vote to send the issue back to committee has not taken place.

RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme has warned that police may not be able to use documents received by order of the House in a criminal investigation.

“Before taking investigative steps to access records that may give rise to a reasonable expectation of privacy, the RCMP must comply with applicable legal standards to preserve the validity of any potential criminal investigation or prosecution,” Duheme wrote to the coroner in July.

“There is a significant risk that (the House order) will be interpreted as circumventing normal investigative processes and Charter protections.”

A separate privilege motion waits in the wings

Even if the debate on the documents ends soon, the House will not return to its usual activities immediately.

MPs must still debate and resolve a separate privilege motion regarding Employment Minister Randy Boissonault’s former business partner, Stephen Anderson.

Anderson is at the center of a House Ethics Committee investigation that was launched after several texts were released as part of legal proceedings. These texts show Anderson referring to a person named “Randy” during business conversations with associates, raising questions about whether Anderson was still consulting Boissonnault on business matters while the latter was at the firm.

In his own testimony before the committee, Boissonnault denied any involvement in the company since his re-election in 2021.

Conservatives accused Anderson of not answering questions during his appearance before the ethics committee and of not providing documents related to the case.

Conservative MP Michael Barrett introduced a motion in October calling on the House to declare Anderson in contempt of Parliament, a motion which is currently being debated. Since this is also a privilege motion, the government will not be able to introduce any bill until the debate is over.