Mr. Speaker, the fisheries committee with which I have been involved for the past year and a half has been plagued with this problem. In fact, some of the reports that we have done in the past have gone out of there by the truckload, by various people in various departments. We are never given a chance to respond and I agree it is a very serious problem.
In this specific case, the day before this report was in the public domain. It was in the media. It had been released.
Members never seem to get an opportunity to respond. In fairness, once this was in the public domain and I started to receive calls from reporters, I first of all notified the parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Malpeque. I also notified the member for Burin—St. George's in Newfoundland. I told them that my phone lines were burning up with media interviews and it was just to let them know that I was speaking to the media.
Out of courtesy I advised them that the report was out there. Of course we knew that. We talked about the committee. It was in the Globe and Mail . The report was already in the public domain.
When I did these interviews, what I talked to the media about was the comments that I had brought forward to the committee, not what other members of the committee had said. I talked about my comments, what I was pushing for in the committee. I made it very clear. I said “This report is not completed. We will be meeting next week. These are the areas that I will be pushing for and I hope to get a recommendation”.
I was speaking only on behalf of myself; but out of respect for the member, and he will verify it, I notified him prior to that, that I was making these comments.
With respect to the CBC interview, that person also informed me when she called that she had received calls from other members of the committee whom I will not name and said “This is what they are telling me. Would you like to comment?”
It was in the public domain the day before. As a courtesy I notified the members. I only did interviews with respect to my comments. I made it very clear that the report is still not final at this time, that it can still be changed.