Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment briefly on the question of privilege raised by the House leader of the Progressive Conservatives.
I have two or three comments. First of all, we of course are kind of half way through the due process to be followed on this. As the government House leader has already mentioned, this has already been referred to not only yourself but also to the House leaders for discussion and hopeful resolution before it comes to a prima facie case of privilege and a full-blown debate here in the House.
We are already in the midst of dealing with this in whatever fashion is deemed appropriate and the due process I would say would be improperly interrupted at this time, to start a debate when that process has not had a chance to come to fruition.
Second, I kind of agree with the hon. House leader of the government that this speculation that today you were going to make a ruling again is, was, is, was, still is speculation.
I see in the other reports today that you are going to make another ruling tomorrow on this and you may not have even known that yet. The facts of the matter are not as printed in the article in the Ottawa paper.
Third, I have faith that when the time comes you will make a judgment and a ruling. I am not supposing that a single article in a newspaper is going to be the one that sways the Speaker one way or the other.
You will make a ruling, I am convinced, on the proper legality of the arguments and the soundness of the arguments. I do not think a newspaper article by anyone is going to particularly sway you.
I think we should take a bit of a breather on this thing, discuss it as was agreed during the last week the House was in session and I think we can come back with an agreement that will settle this once and for all.