The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld a federal law preventing members of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians from invoking parliamentary privilege in proceedings concerning prohibited disclosures of information obtained through their committee work.
In Alford v. Canada (Attorney General), 2026 SCC 14, decided May 1, Justice Rowe wrote for an eight-judge majority that Parliament’s constitutional power to define its privileges includes the power to limit them. The majority concluded that section 12 of the committee’s governing statute imposed a narrow restriction within that authority.
Justice Côté dissented. She agreed that Parliament may alter its privileges by ordinary legislation, but found this particular restriction went too far because it allowed government departments to determine what information parliamentarians could disclose and courts to punish them for crossing that line.
A committee of parliamentarians, not a parliamentary committee
The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act established the committee in 2017. It consists of MPs and senators appointed by the Governor in Council, but is a statutory body within the executive branch rather than a committee of either House of Parliament. Its mandate is to scrutinize Canada’s national-security and intelligence framework and activities.
Members must obtain security clearance and undertake not to disclose information received in confidence. Section 11 prohibits knowing disclosure of information they obtained or had access to in the course of their statutory work that a government department is taking measures to protect, subject to exceptions for carrying out statutory functions or disclosures required by another law.
Section 12 removes the ability of members and former members to claim parliamentary-privilege immunity in the proceedings it identifies, including proceedings concerning a breach of section 11. It also makes their statements in either House or a parliamentary committee admissible in those proceedings. The case concerned that restriction on immunity, not the guilt of any parliamentarian accused of making a disclosure.
Ryan Alford, a law professor who was neither a parliamentarian nor a committee member, challenged section 12. After initially being denied standing, he obtained public-interest standing from the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2019. The Superior Court subsequently declared the provision unconstitutional in 2022, but the Court of Appeal reversed that decision in 2024. The Supreme Court dismissed Alford’s appeal.
A constitutional power to define—and limit—privilege
Parliamentary privilege protects the independence of legislative bodies and their members from undue interference by the executive and courts. Freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings ordinarily shields members from legal liability for what they say in those proceedings. The majority traced that protection to the historical struggle of the English House of Commons for independence and its place in Canada’s constitutional structure.
Alford argued that essential, inherent privileges such as freedom of speech could not be curtailed through ordinary legislation. On his reading, section 18 of the Constitution Act, 1867 permitted Parliament to add privileges or modify privileges created by statute, but a constitutional amendment was required to restrict an inherent privilege.
The majority rejected that distinction. Section 18 gives Parliament an ongoing power to define the privileges, immunities and powers of the Senate, House of Commons and their members. Its language does not separate inherent privileges from legislated ones. Defining a privilege includes identifying its boundaries, not simply adding to it.
Justice Rowe also drew on the provision’s history. Before 1949, the federal Parliament generally lacked authority to legislate changes to its own constitution; section 18 expressly supplied authority over parliamentary privileges. Its purpose was to let Parliament determine the protections needed to perform its legislative role. Exercising that constitutionally granted legislative authority does not itself amend the Constitution.
The majority nevertheless identified three constraints. Parliament cannot confer privileges exceeding those held by the British House of Commons at the time of the grant. It cannot use section 18 to fundamentally undermine its own role as a Westminster-style legislature. And it must act consistently with other constitutional provisions expressly governing Parliament’s operation.
The power therefore does not permit Parliament to abolish privilege altogether or fundamentally impair the Houses’ ability to deliberate, make laws and hold the executive accountable. Courts retain responsibility for enforcing those constitutional boundaries while respecting Parliament’s autonomy.
Why the majority considered the restriction narrow
For the majority, the restriction was tied to a specific oversight arrangement. The committee’s statutory access to government information is connected to its national-security mandate. Section 11’s prohibition requires both a connection to the member’s committee work and departmental measures to protect the information.
Justice Rowe explained that the restriction would not apply to a committee member disclosing protected information obtained outside that participation. Nor would section 11 prohibit disclosure merely because information came through committee membership if the government had taken no measures to protect it. Other parliamentarians’ privileges were unaffected.
Parliament had chosen to allow courts to hear proceedings over conduct that privilege would ordinarily shield. Canada characterized that arrangement as a trade-off: additional oversight and access to information in exchange for limits on disclosure. Without endorsing the policy choice, the majority found a clear connection between confidentiality and the committee’s national-security oversight purpose.
The Court also rejected the argument that the law required provincial consent because it changed the Senate’s constitutionally protected powers. In this context, those powers concern the Senate’s legislative role in Canada’s two-chamber Parliament, not every privilege of senators. The limited disclosure rule did not alter that legislative role or provincial interests.
Nor did the law change the Supreme Court’s constitutionally protected role or independence. The majority said a prosecution would require the Crown to prove the elements of an offence beyond a reasonable doubt, as in other criminal cases. A case involving a parliamentarian would not, simply for that reason, become an improper political dispute for a court to decide.
Côté’s dissent: the information covered was too broad
The disagreement was not over whether Parliament could ever limit free-speech privilege. Justice Côté expressly accepted the majority’s three-part constitutional framework. She disagreed with its assessment of the statutory scheme and its effect on Parliament’s ability to function independently.
In her reading, section 11 was not confined to information specifically implicating national security or whose disclosure would harm the national interest. It extended to any information a member obtained or could access while performing committee duties, provided a department took steps to protect it. The committee’s wide mandate could expose members to a broad range of government information.
She considered the absence of substantive criteria for protecting that information especially important. A department could, in her view, prevent disclosure of material because it was politically embarrassing rather than genuinely harmful. That was a concern about the law’s potential operation, not a finding that a particular department had used it to conceal misconduct.
The dissent also emphasized enforcement outside Parliament. The law permits criminal consequences, including possible imprisonment, and allows parliamentary statements to be used as evidence. Justice Côté found no mechanism allowing either House to prevent a penalty where disclosure exposed wrongdoing, or allowing a member to avoid criminal responsibility simply by raising the matter in a closed parliamentary session.
Voluntary committee membership did not resolve her concerns. Members would not know in advance what information they would encounter or what departments would protect. More fundamentally, she reasoned that suppressing information needed to hold government accountable could impair Parliament as an institution, not merely the individual member who accepted the appointment.
Justice Côté pointed to alternatives, including Parliament’s own confidential procedures and disciplinary powers, and a more carefully defined statutory restriction with safeguards. She would have allowed the appeal and declared section 12 beyond Parliament’s authority. That was not the Court’s disposition: the eight-judge majority dismissed the appeal, leaving section 12 upheld against this constitutional challenge.