Mr. Speaker, certain hon. members of the opposition were invited to a briefing on the budget well in advance, a briefing that was not provided to government members. I had no idea what was in the budget until I walked into the House and heard the budget being delivered.
That was not the case with certain members of the opposition who were invited to a briefing. That is standard practice and there is no suggestion in the answer that was given by the hon. member for Guelph-Wellington as explained in the memorandum that she has tabled here that there was anything but that procedure followed. She has explained that the procedure she was talking about when she answered the question dealt with events long before budget day.
I refer once again to citation 31 of Beauchesne's which has already been quoted. I need not read it again. I want to remind the Chair that when we had a case of a budget leak with the hon. Michael Wilson during the last Parliament, a major leak in which the whole document got out, there was a question of privilege raised and debated for an entire day in this House on that very issue.
There was never anything referred to a committee. The Chair never made a finding that there had been a breach of the privileges of the members of this House, even though there had been a complete leak of the budget. I think the hon. member for Sherbrooke was in the cabinet at that time.
What I am saying is that there is no evidence of any leak here today in respect of the budget. If there were, according to the citation of Beauchesne's and in accordance with the practice followed in respect of Mr. Wilson's major leak, the whole thing went out. In light of the precedent established then, I submit there is nothing that the House should do to take note of this unless the hon. member for Sherbrooke wishes to set down a motion condemning not the member for Guelph-Wellington but the Minister of Finance for allowing any information to get into her hands.
In the face of the denial, I suggest such a motion is not supported by any evidence and it would be a waste of the time of this House, as is the question raised by the hon. member.