Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege in regard to a leaked report of the Standing Committee on Finance. Beauchesne's sixth edition, citation 877 states:
No act done at any committee should be divulged before it has been reported to the House. Upon this principle the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, on April 21, 1937, resolved “That the evidence taken by any select committee of this House and the documents presented to such committee and which have not been reported to the House, ought not to be published by any member of such committee or by any other person”. The publication of proceedings of committees conducted with closed doors or of reports of committees before they are available to Members will, however, constitute a breach of privilege.
Today in an article written by Rob Carrick of the Globe and Mail , a portion of the contents of the finance committee's pre-budget report was revealed. The first two paragraphs state:
The foreign content on RRSPs and registered pension funds should rise to 30 per cent from the current 20 per cent, the House of Commons finance committee says. The limit should be raised by two percentage points annually for five years, the committee says in a pre-budget report to Finance Minister Paul Martin that will be released Monday.
This morning at the finance committee members of the government admitted they had talked to the press concerning some issues in the matter of the work of the committee in preparing this report.
Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada on page 188 states:
A prima facie case of privilege in the parliamentary sense is one where the evidence on its face as outlined by the member is sufficiently strong for the House to be asked to send it to a committee to investigate whether the privileges of the House have been breached or a contempt has occurred and report to the House.
The evidence regarding this alleged leak of the pre-budget finance report is more than sufficiently strong. The article in the Globe and Mail would have us believe that the journalists either had access to the report or was told in detail of the report.
We are getting a little tired of the lack of respect this government gives this House and, in particular, those matters concerning finance and the Department of Finance.
Need I remind this House that only recently there was a complaint in this House concerning the government with respect to the setting up of the CPP board before the bill to authorize the board was passed by Parliament. The Speaker commented on this on November 6, 1997 on page 1006 of Hansard . He said:
This dismissive view of the legislative process, repeated often enough, makes a mockery of our parliamentary conventions and practices. That it is the Department of Finance that is complained of once again has not gone unnoticed.
Once again, it is the same group of people making a mockery of our parliamentary conventions. They view Parliament as a nuisance. They have little respect for Parliament and it is time we take them to task.
Mr. Speaker, if you rule this to be a prima facie question of privilege, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.