Mr. Speaker, for the record, we have an agreement between parties that we will give enough advance notice with documents for ministerial statements. This has been respected in the past. I want to assure my colleague that it will continue to be respected.
Sometimes situations arise which we have to deal with immediately. This is the case, as was already explained to the hon. member previous to the opening of the House. We understand his concerns and we give the assurance that we will continue to respect the agreement we have.
This is an exceptional circumstance as the minister will explain to the House. There are some parts already public. We believe it is important to do this as soon as possible since it seems there was no agreement before the House opened that we could have done it during question period. We are proceeding. We will have the statement now.