Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As I said, I reluctantly bring forward to the committee this point of privilege in regard to the article in today's Globe and Mail referring to the study we spent many hours on. We've travelled to the western coast of Canada to undertake part of this study.
I'm trying to do this so that I'm not going to confirm or deny or lend any credibility to the article, but it refers in the article—and of course I believe everything that I read in the papers—to someone who is “a source close to a report expected as early as this week”. It talks about someone “who spoke on condition of anonymity”.
I bring this up because I had a similar situation about a year and half ago where I inadvertently discussed something with a reporter, and I then had to apologize to the House. One of the members of this committee at the time, the member for Windsor--Tecumseh, quickly went to the House of Commons to talk about his privilege being breached.
I bring this up more because we've spent a lot of time on this report, and it is quite disappointing for members to not have the ability, when the report is released, to have their say on it when others are talking about it beforehand. So if in fact the comments in the article were true and did reflect what went on in this committee, someone who is party to this study was then discussing it with reporters.
So I don't know where we go from here. I really want to bring it to your attention, Mr. Chair, to ensure that members don't do this after all the work that has been brought into it. I understand first-hand that members can inadvertently breach other members' privilege, but it was this committee that dealt with this, and you would hope that wouldn't be the case.