Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my colleague's question of privilege with respect to the report being provided outside the committee before it was released to the members.
I was an associate member of that committee, Mr. Speaker, when the House was in session. As you will recall it was leading up to the election campaign. There was a great deal of problem with respect to maintaining a full complement of members in the House the day before they called the election.
With respect to the point of privilege, I want to add two points. The government House leader indicated that the member who just raised the question of privilege was not here and her personal privilege was not in question. She has raised this on behalf of the New Democratic Party caucus. We believe that the privileges of all members of the House who were members at that time and continue to be members have been breached. We feel this has to be reviewed by you, Sir, and that you should report back to the House at your leisure.
With respect to whether this happened in committee, obviously there was a request for this information. It really falls outside the realm of the committee because it was external to the committee. The people who requested it were not members of the committee. Therefore the committee is partially responsible but we do not know for sure.
Mr. Speaker, you might recall that the minutes of the industry committee which reviewed this particular document that was leaked in advance of being provided to members of Parliament were in camera and were destroyed when the election was called and dissolution of Parliament took place. We really do not know for sure what happened but that, in my view, is a breach of the privileges of all members of Parliament as it pertains to this issue.