Madam Speaker, I was at the committee meeting this morning with the chairman who just raised this question of privilege. I thank him for raising it in the House. I will only take a minute to lend my words of support to him.
I am somewhat reluctant to blame the newspaper. I am pretty upset with the person who leaked the report. The newspaper man somehow levered it out of somebody who had a copy of the draft report who felt there was some political mileage to be made from leaking it. It is really unfortunate, but it is not unlike what has happened to most committee reports this fall.
It would be a rare exception when the reports have not been leaked. I do not know who is doing it, but it is a very disturbing trend.
What it means, of course, is that parliamentarians or someone in the system is saying that the committee does not deserve to be able to deliberate and, if it does, they are going to cut it off at the knees by leaking the report to the media.
Secondly, it tells parliament that its work is not that important, because before parliamentarians get to see it they are going to put it in a national newspaper. Someone is saying that and it is a shame.
Lastly, it is a concern especially for backbenchers. I am certainly not blaming the cabinet; I am just saying that often the only meaningful work for backbenchers is the work they do in committee. They bring a report to parliament and ask for a government response.
Someone is laying down the trump card. They are saying “I just trumped all of your work by leaking it to a newspaper”. It is no wonder that backbench MPs from all sides of the House get up some mornings and say “What is the point of going to committee if that is the way someone is going to treat the work?” The work is secondary. It is not important. I do not know who is saying it, but someone is saying “It is not nearly as important as the headline I might be able to get”.
Members of the committee discussed this morning the hope that, at the very least, the Chair would refer this matter to the liaison committee. The liaison committee is made up of all of the chairs of all of the committees of the House of Commons. This is a systemic problem. All of the chairs are facing this. All the work they do is being undercut by these constant leaks.
I would urge the Speaker, at the very least, to refer this to the liaison committee for immediate study to see if there is some better way to draft reports so that material is not available to reporters or to some unscrupulous person who may want to leak it to them.
At the very least, I would hope that the Speaker would find it a question of privilege and refer it back to that committee for immediate study. Perhaps it could come up with a better solution that will gain the respect of this side and backbenchers on that side of the House, so that we can move forward with confidence and so that the House and committees will come first and the headline seekers will be put in their place.