Then the mind starts running. Your mind starts running when you're up. It's hard to get back to sleep.
If you were the source of the leak and you knew that you were going to be called before the committee—because we will find out who has the access—I don't think you'd want to do this again. However, rewarding bad behaviour.... If you were the source of the leak and you knew the investigation wasn't going to go very far and you knew that there was a very good chance you were not going to be called before the committee to answer questions about this leak and the actions you may have taken, why wouldn't you do it again?
If privilege is so important, and I think we all agree it is, and if we all don't want it to happen again, how is ending this investigation going to solve anything? It will solve nothing. You might as well take this book and say, well, it only works in certain times, in certain circumstances.
It's like the rules of hockey. As a referee, you don't get to choose the rules. You're there to enforce them. You may not agree with certain rules, but that's not your job.
We have a job. There are rules. Our job is to get to the bottom of this. Our job is to make sure the rules are enforced. To basically give up goes against everything. How many times can this happen or will this happen until we stand up and say enough is enough; at what point? Some could argue, and I would actually say that this bill is probably the most important, as I said before, but how many times do we say, “It's okay, that bill doesn't have much magnitude”? Do we just start leaking legislation to the media beforehand? That's what will happen. That's what will happen because we are not clamping down on it, because we are not taking these steps to find out why.
I can't remember who said it last time, maybe Mr. Richards or Mr. Reid. We might not get to the cause of the source, but to put some fear into that person I think is one way to make sure they think twice about doing this again.
Again, Chair, I'll mention this, and I know you don't want me to read the whole thing, and I understand why. Here we go. This is from chapter 3, at page 85:
By far, most...cases of privilege raised in the House relate to matters of contempt challenging the perceived authority and dignity of Parliament and its Members. Other cases have involved charges made by the Member about another Member or media allegations concerning [other] Members. The premature disclosure of committee reports and proceedings has frequently been raised as a matter of privilege as has the provision of deliberately misleading information to the House by a Minister and the provision of misleading testimony by a witness before...committee. Finally, the denial of access of members to the Parliamentary Precinct.....
That obviously doesn't have relevance here.
I think this goes to show, Chair, that we take parliamentary privilege very seriously. Do we, though? If we don't pursue this, do we actually take it seriously? Do we just say, “We had one witness; that's good enough”? As Mr. Reid pointed out, we have one source for sure, because that was the first one, in The Globe and Mail article. Do we have a possible second source?
If yes, were they working together on a way to get the message out before the legislation was tabled in the House in order to shape the discussion the way the government wanted it? If you're looking at it as that serious, which I believe it is, why shut it down? Why not let us go and continue to ask these questions?
As I pointed out, Mr. Chair, when I read those names, I believe I said there were 57 in the Prime Minister's office. With the Minister of Health, I can't remember exactly. There were 20-odd people who obviously cared, but not all of them are going to have access to this legislation. The ones who would have an advantage to leak this information would have access, and that's who we want to talk to. That's why it's so important that we see that list. If we're talking about the openness and the transparency of the government, and how they're going to do things differently, okay. I wasn't here in the last Parliament, but okay, let's say we're going to do things differently. How is shutting down this investigation going to prove that we are open and transparent?
There's a quote here in the Ottawa Citizen mentioning that the opposition has been unable to offer any evidence that there was premature disclosure. I sincerely disagree with that. I think we're laying out our case bit by bit here on how important parliamentary privilege is, why it's so important, why journalists strive for accuracy and fairness, why they keep their promises, why they are accountable, and why members of Parliament need to have these rules in place in order to do their jobs properly.
If we're not taking it any further, then why would we go? We need to have these rules in place for a reason. There's a reason why. I'll quickly quote here:
The manner in which questions of privilege were raised following Confederation was vastly different from today’s procedure. Dozens of cases between 1867 and 1913 followed the same, simple course. A Member would rise, explain the matter of privilege and conclude with a motion calling on the House to take some action—usually that someone be called to the Bar or that the matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections for study and report. At that point, without any intervention on the part of the Speaker, debate would begin on the motion, amendments might be moved and, finally, the House would come to a decision on the matter. The House would then take whatever further action was required by the motion. Perhaps because of the immediate recognition given to Members rising on “questions of privilege”, it was also common throughout this time for Members to take the floor ostensibly to raise such a question, but in fact to make personal explanations. Members used the claim of a breach of privilege as a ready means to be recognized by the Speaker and to gain the floor in order to state a complaint or grievance of whatever kind. Here, too, they met with little interference from Chair Occupants.
That's good. Thank you.
From 1913 to 1958, while the number of “questions of privilege” blossomed for such purposes as the recognition of school groups in the gallery, congratulatory messages, complaints, grievances and a plethora of procedural matters, in addition to the continued “personal explanations”, the number of legitimate matters of privilege dealt with by the House declined dramatically with only three being referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections and one to a special committee.
Let's look at my point. How do you stop this from happening again? We have direction from the Speaker to look at this.
I think everyone wants to make sure this doesn't happen again, and I'm sure that when the members opposite, or possibly over on this side.... I don't think they would appreciate its happening. I know we don't, so let's start looking at ways by which we can stop this from happening again in the future, so that we are not dealing with it over and over again.
We're also looking at committee time, Chair. How many times could this be referred to us, so that we just keep dealing with it and dealing with it? Otherwise, we would just say, “What's the point of the rules? It doesn't matter; they're not going to be enforced. Nobody is going to be called on it.” Then what happens? That's probably a very extreme case, but these rules are here for a very good reason.