Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege concerning several matters which arise from the report which was just forwarded from the Standing Committee on Finance.
By an order of this House I am a member of the standing committee. The committee, in obedience with Standing Order 83(10), undertook consideration of proposals regarding the budgetary policy of government. The staff from the Library of Parliament assisting the whole committee prepared a draft document which was to be considered in the formulation of our report.
It is well known that there have been media accounts of the contents of this committee report. I want to express my regret that our report was not first given to all members of the House. That part of the draft report started to find its way into the media before the opposition members of the committee had access to the draft material. We were not given access to the draft material until 10 a.m. last Friday and we were required to prepare a report for today. We had less than three hours to consider that material. Obviously some other members had earlier access.
The premature disclosure of a report or the disclosure of confidential committee documents is a long established ground for contempt proceedings by the House. I was unsuccessful in having this matter reported to the House by the committee so that actions could be taken by the House. I am aware that you are therefore restricted in the actions you can take.
However, I was further obstructed in the discharge of my obligations to this House. On several occasions I requested access to the document which was to form the basis of our draft report. I made my request known to the chairman of the committee and was repeatedly told that I could not have access to these papers which were prepared for the entire committee by staff. This included descriptions of the hearings, summaries of the testimony of witnesses, history of past government policies and so forth.
I was then informed that my opinion about our hearings or the government's budgetary policies could be included in a section of dissenting opinions. In other words, no matter what I may have wanted to propose, I would not be given a chance to have my opinions considered by my colleagues on the committee for inclusion in the report proper.
Opposition views would not find their way into the committee report. I would not have a chance to see a draft report within a reasonable timeframe nor to debate its accuracy and merits and any views which I might have. Whether or not I agreed with the draft report would be relegated to the status of dissent opinions.
Mr. Speaker, this contempt for the maintenance of a legitimate process is troubling to me. These hearings cost Canadian taxpayers over $400,000. Are they to be nothing but a public relations show for the Minister of Finance? Did they go through this exercise just to save the minister the time of having to meet with the groups that addressed the committee while he met with the select groups of his choosing?
Certainly there will be a division of opinion about which budgetary policy the government should follow. However, the one-sided nature of this process is a mockery of this House. The Liberal attitude was that there was no need for debate, no need to defend their position, no need to do anything other than to tell the Minister of Finance what he wanted to hear.
The only people on the committee who could offer opinions for inclusion in the main body of the report were the Liberal members of this committee. All other members were denied access to the draft material and their views were held to be not worthy of debate. They were told their opinions would be slapped into the report as dissenting views. Dissenting from what? We committee members were never to know. Nor were the Liberals to consider our views and debate them in committee. We on this side of the House, we are not to be participants. By virtue of where we sit, we are labelled as dissidents from the revealed truth of the Liberals.
The old Liberal arrogance is back. Stop opposition members from participating in discussions, deny them access to draft reports. “They couldn't possibly agree with us so don't waste time letting them in the door”. The finance committee of the House of Commons is nothing more than an organ of the Minister of Finance and the Liberal caucus. Certainly this was the view of several witnesses after their experiences before the committee.
Mr. Speaker, I ask you to consider whether or not the denial of my access to committee draft papers available to other members of the committee constitutes an obstruction of a member and therefore constitutes a prima facie question of privilege.