One of the most recent scandals in the political field of Ontario revolves around the gambling addiction of former Liberal MP Rajvinder Grewal and the actions and discoveries which took place since the initial public announcement a couple of weeks ago. This Monday saw Nathan Cullen, New Democrats Party MP pointing out the game-changing impact of MP Grewal’s decision to remain on the political scene, even though he exited the Liberal caucus.
MP Cullen has been deeply involved not only in the most recent turn of events but also with previous controversial happenings around MP Grewal as a public figure. Now Mr. Cullen stated that the recently announced decision of the former Liberal MP to postpone his ultimate decision until the early months of 2019 might directly interfere with the ongoing investigation into the gambling habits he has demonstrated.
MPs Privileges Have Protected them for Centuries
For many years now a special policy protects Members of the Parliament and guarantees them special privileges when it comes to probes into their personal and public lives. It is commonly referred to parliamentary privilege and it has been protecting MPs through the years. As a result of this special set of immunities and powers, the Senate, the House of Commons, and provincial legislative members have an umbrella of sorts around them.
The initial purpose of this set of privileges was to guard parliamentarians against an invasion of their position, as they were protected from detention or imprisonment. All of them stem from a fundamental necessity of protection which allows members of the parliament to conduct their work in an appropriate manner. In this sense, the fact that he remains MP of Brampton East automatically means that the probe into his gaming habits is going to experience some difficulties.
Moreover, a parliamentary committee will not have the right to obtain information from him as a witness. It could be recalled that the former Liberal MP recently announced he has reconsidered his original decision to resign from his leading position, as he had paid all his debts. Mr. Grewal states that he is going to take his time and focus on working on his mental health now, but his final decision about exiting the political scene will be taken once the Parliamentary winter break.
RCMP Probe into His Gambling Habits Projected to Continue
Mr. Grewal’s position in the field could remain intact until the federal election in 2019, as the House is going to return a couple of weeks into January. It should be taken into account that the decision is entirely his own and the Liberal Party simply does not have the power to remove him from the Chamber.
The House could unanimously decide to evict him through voting and ink an order, but this is a highly controversial move at the end of the day and could still be nixed. For the time being there are no speculations that the former Liberal MP has decided to remain in his position in order to take advantage of the parliamentary privileges.
Nevertheless, this set of protections is going to obstruct the ongoing Royal Canadian Mounted Police probe into his gambling habits. As it was discovered his debts reached millions of Canadian dollars, generated via high-stakes, high-limit Blackjack. His gambling venue of choice was the one in the vicinity of the Parliament Hill, Casino du Lac Leamy which proved to be the most convenient one location-wise.
