Mr. Speaker, I will talk briefly about the agriculture situation because we did verify today that it is in fact a leak from the committee. The media have the full report in their hands. I will not bore the House by quoting the rules. By now we have seen enough precedents in the House in the complaints we have had to last a lifetime. I will get right to the details of the issue.
I will quote exactly what was said in a Canadian Press story of today: “In a report obtained by the Canadian Press, the agriculture committee calls on the finance minister to provide farmers with a safety chute to save them from the market free falls like the one currently threatening to drive thousands of families off the land”.
That actually exists in the report.
Later on CP accurately quotes the report even further. Some members were named in this story but I do not want to get to that. I do not think the issue is who. It is the fact that it is even being done. I want to put this in context.
To date and without combing through every clipping since September, I came up with quite a list of leaked reports. I mentioned some of them the other day, the defence committee's third report, the fisheries fourth report, the sport committee report, the prebudget finance committee report, the child custody report, the foreign affairs report and now the agriculture report.
I am sure there are members in the House who have knowledge of other reports. I could provide more I am sure. Leaking a committee report is technically contempt of parliament. However, there are similar examples of making announcements outside the House that are not considered contempt.
For instance, Beauchesne's sixth edition, citation 31, lists a number of things that are not considered contempt. Section (10) of this citation states:
The question has often been raised whether parliamentary privilege imposes on ministers an obligation to deliver ministerial statements and to make announcements and communications to the public through the House of Commons or to make those announcements or statements in the House rather than outside the chamber. The question has been asked whether Hon. Members are entitled, as part of their parliamentary privilege, to receive such information ahead of the general public. I can find no precedent to justify this suggestion.