Mr. Speaker, I want to point out a couple of things. I received these opinions on Friday afternoon.
There are some problems. The chair of my committee was circulating documents. There is a procedural motion in our committee that we not distribute unless documents are in both official languages.
The second problem is that these opinions were not ordered as a result of activity on our committee. In other words, our committee did not ask for these opinions. It was the minister acting on behalf of the government who asked for these opinions.
The three opinions came from lawyers, retired judges, who were in fact retained by the government, by the administration, by the cabinet, by the Minister of Justice, to render those opinions.
I suggest the argument of the House leader for the Conservative Party does not hold because there is no obligation on the government to share legal opinions that it pays for and obtains in the normal course of its business with members of this House.
However, the Minister of Justice elected to do that and she did so commencing on Friday when she undertook to distribute those opinions.
Let us keep in mind that our committee reported on this bill a week or two ago. There was a very strong vote in the committee with respect to this bill. I do not think there was any wavering. There was no backtracking after by the committee, no other concern.
We can still take this up under Standing Order 108(2) which allows us to look at anything within the jurisdiction of those departments for which we have responsibility in our portfolio.
The argument of the justice critic for the Reform Party falls because if the committee decides to undertake that further study, it can do so under Standing Order 108(2).
We are at report stage now but the Senate, whether some of us may like it or not, will also study this. Presumably we will have access to these opinions which have been made public.
The parliamentary process will continue and it will unfold as it should. I submit the government is under absolutely no obligation to provide these opinions to other members of parliament or even to government members of parliament. However, it has done so.
I suggest therefore that this is not a point of privilege and even if it raises a prima facie point of privilege, I suggest it has been answered.