Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There are one or two members who weren't here at the last meeting, so I'll just do this quick overview.
I and Mr. Lemay had asked for certain data from Mr. Don Head, Head of Corrections Canada. He in fact had provided that. I now have information, which I didn't have then, that on November 13, having committed to do that for us in advance of the clause-by-clause meeting on Bill C-36 on November 16, unfortunately he sent the letter, although it was addressed to the clerk of this committee, to the minister's office of Public Safety and National Security. That letter then sat there until it was handed to me yesterday; I received a copy of it from the government House leader yesterday. I believe it has been now delivered today to all members of the committee. This is the advice from my office this afternoon, anyway.
So we have finally received it. Of course, we received it after clause-by-clause and after the debate took place in the House on Monday and Tuesday of this week. There was absolutely no reason given, either by Mr. Head or the minister's office, and the minister himself, as to why the material wasn't provided to us as had been promised and undertaken by Mr. Head in the meeting when he attended on November 4.
There is, I think, ample precedent, Mr. Chair, for the fact that when that type of undertaking is given it is to be complied with by a public servant. If Mr. Head felt that he was under some compunction or compulsion to give that to the minister before it got to this committee, I'm not sure where he would have come by that. That's not the proper process. But at the very least, if he passed it on to the minister's office, the minister's office should have been responsible for getting it to this committee in a timely fashion, as had been committed to this committee.
If they couldn't have done that, Mr. Chair, they should have advised the committee and the committee could have taken appropriate steps to ensure that the material was before us before we conducted clause-by-clause by adjourning clause-by-clause to a later date until the information was received.
The information clearly was pertinent. I say that from having only had some time to go over it. It was clearly pertinent to the issues that were contained in Bill C-36 and it would have been very much pointed to, at least by me and Mr. Lemay, as to why Bill C-36 should not have proceeded as prepared.
Mr. Chair, again, for maybe a couple of the members who weren't here on Monday, what is required at this point, if I can go ahead with my point of privilege in the House, is for this committee to send a report to the House to advise the Speaker, who has authority to determine whether in fact there has been a breach of my parliamentary privilege and that of Mr. Lemay's, and I think of the committee as a whole. In order for the Speaker to be able to determine that, the Speaker has to have a report from us as to what in fact occurred. And, again, I had given the committee a summary of the report that I thought was appropriate. I read that into the record on Monday afternoon at our last meeting.
In addition, there is some urgency on this, as I again made the point on Monday. If you are going to pursue a point of privilege, you have to pursue it at the first opportunity. For me, that opportunity arose on Monday morning when I found out that in fact this material that I and Mr. Lemay had requested and committed to receive had never been delivered to us, as I had been informed previously, and as I understand some other members of the committee had. We in fact never got it. We were advised that it had been given to us. We thought we had simply misplaced it or we had simply not seen it.
I became aware that it had never been received and that the minister's office had somehow intervened in this process. My time in bringing my point of privilege started running on Monday. I think the general rule is that you should get this before the House within a day or two. This is now the second day, I suppose you could argue maybe even the third day. The Speaker has made it clear in the past, not only this Speaker but others, that you must move on this quickly.
So it's absolutely essential that we deal with this today, that we issue the report, get it back to the House either tomorrow or Friday, so I can bring my point of privilege before the House.