Mr. Speaker, I was the acting chair of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs today when this issue was raised. This is what occurred at the committee: The member for Okanagan—Coquihalla was attempting to deal with a document obtained through access to information that was only in one of the official languages.
The member for Joliette had some difficulty with that because it was the first time he had seen the document in English. He had no previous knowledge that it was coming forward. As a courtesy to the member for Joliette, as the parliamentary secretary has indicated, in terms of the previous practice of the committee which has been dealt with by motion in the committee, we agreed as a committee that this matter would be deferred until the document could be translated.
The member indicated that he tried to table the document and that the chair refused to table the document. That is not the case. The document was tabled with the committee and will be dealt with presumably at a later date.
As I indicated, it was solely a matter of courtesy to the member for Joliette, who is not as functional in English as are the other members of the committee. It was done as a courtesy.