Mr. Chair, I will read it into the record. Let me read it into the record, and then I do have some comments. It reads:
That the Committee report to the House an apparent breach of privilege of members that has resulted from disclosure of the confidential draft report on the migrant workers and ghost consultants; that the report indicate that a media report included a direct quotation from the confidential draft report; that a reporter has indicated that he has a copy of the confidential draft report; and that the Committee request that the House and the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs investigate this matter further.
I'll say one thing. I did have a chance to speak to Mr. Bevilacqua about this yesterday. I'm not quite sure about how detailed an investigation we can do. I don't know if there's an additional option, whether it's an affidavit sworn by each of the members on this committee that they did not release, or perhaps our staff signing one, that would certainly put us in good standing.
There is no question that surrounding the report, we did a lot of work. We did a lot of sometimes painful work in terms of our dialogue with each other and our work with each other. Nonetheless, despite our perspectives on the report itself, whether it be content, whether it be recommendations, or whether it be direction, this committee actually works extremely well. The fact that there has been a breach.... We've had this happen once before, and perhaps I was a little too aggressive in the motion that I moved at that point, and I took some good advice from my colleagues on that. The fact is, we have a report. There is no question that the folks around this table have seen the report. It's been reported on in the media. It's been released to at least one individual in the media. I think that despite our differences on the content or the result of the report, there is one thing I believe this committee has, and it's the confidence in each other to work in a fair and open-minded way, in a confidential way.
I think we have to make a mark here in terms of where we stand on this. I've certainly moved the motion. I hope we have unanimous support on this. I actually hope we have a recorded vote on it, quite frankly. I would just put it out there that since I moved the motion, I can't make an amendment to the motion. I understand that this has happened at another committee, where the members of that committee signed the affidavit indicating that they had not released the report. So that would at least put us in confidence with each other in terms of moving forward.
It's unfortunate. It's regrettable. I have no reason actually to understand why the report would have been leaked. Frankly, you're going to be introducing it into the house on Wednesday--tomorrow. It's just a matter of a couple of days and the report would have been made public. I do not understand the importance of having it out there earlier than tomorrow.