Mr. Speaker, I think it is now eight or nine times I have been up in the House on leaked documents and the government proceeding to notify the public and members of the House do not even know what they are talking about.
I hear comments from the government House leader like “endeavour to rectify” and “ensure that it does not reoccur”. That is what we hear time and time again. We have sent the matter of leaked reports to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and the leak report has been leaked. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, it was not this person who leaked it.
When politicians are leaking these things and taking irresponsible action as far as notifying the press before we get them, what has to happen is that the Speaker himself has to make some rulings.
I would suggest that two things occur here. First, we should make it somehow in the House so that it takes two-thirds of the members of a committee to vote to go in camera. I think that would help the situation after looking at it seriously for some time now. I also think that some action should be taken in situations such as described here today. There has to be some concrete action, not a referral to a committee but something more tangible, if we can get down to whether or not in fact the press had copies of that document ahead of the members.
I might remind the Speaker that on June 13, 1991 when the current Minister of Foreign Affairs was in opposition he sponsored a supply motion in the House which read:
That this House affirm that ministers are individually and collectively responsible to the House of Commons for the activities of government including the management and conduct of the public service—
It goes on and on and on. The intent of the motion was to say that the ministers are responsible, even if their employees make a mistake.
I am at the point now where the topic of leaked reports quite frankly is not even of interest to bring it up in the House of Commons because nothing is getting done. I for one am not the least bit concerned about sharing documents from committees with the public. It seems like there is a rush for public knowledge and what happens is the first person to the media gets the hit. That is unfortunately what we have degraded to in the House. It is very unfortunate indeed.
I hope sincerely, Mr. Speaker, if we cannot deal with it as members of the House of Commons, that you will deal with it.