Mr. Chair, I would like to deal with something that Mr. Christopherson didn't say but must be on his mind.
It is not my intention to put the reporter in the kind of position that has occurred in the past, where an assertion is made that if they fail to reveal their source, we're going to take some kind of...they're in contempt of Parliament or something like that. That's not my purpose. My purpose is to try to get more information about how this happened.
This is, I fear, the first of what might become a pattern if it's allowed to go on—that is, not the revelation of all information in the bill in advance but rather of select details that help frame the debate, so as to effectively mislead the public and redirect debate, through the selective release of information, to a body other than Parliament.
There's a reason why bills are introduced in Parliament first, and there's a reason why the entire bill is released, not just the bits the government wants to get out in order to set the stage so they can get the best publicity when dealing with a piece of legislation. That's without reference to the actual content of this bill. I'm trying to be agnostic as to what I think of the bill itself when I make this explanation.