Mr. Speaker, first, I want to say to the hon. member that I totally agree with him that it is inappropriate for this information to find itself in the newspaper. That is the first proposition.
It is true that he approached me personally yesterday and asked me to get an advance copy of the bill, to which I responded that a bill of course is cabinet secret until introduced in the House and therefore it would be a breach of the cabinet secrecy to offer him a copy of the bill unless it had been so decided by a decision of cabinet.
Later yesterday afternoon the hon. member in question came back to me again and made the allegation that the bill was now in the possession of the media or that at least the contents of the bill were known to the media.
It is quite obvious that he was correct at least in terms of the content of the bill, because the bill was in the media before I, as the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, had a copy myself. I am not amused by this any more than the hon. member is.
I am stating the obvious here. This is not something that I participated in and hopefully no one else in the House participated in this. I am quite confident that no one who sits in the House participated in this.
Be that as it may, the material, I must admit, found itself in the hands of the media. It is almost 24 hours before the bill is to be introduced and some elements of the contents have been alleged to be in the media. Tomorrow of course we will be able to compare the accuracy of the information in question. Certainly one does not have to be a genius to understand that there is a significant portion of it that is accurate.
First of all, in regard to the notice I signed, it is not respective ministers who sign all the notices of motion, it is I as government House leader. The notice I tabled yesterday of course describes a little of what the bill does, at least in its title form. I had of course also given notice to the opposition House leaders of the fact that there was to be such a bill. I actually gave notice at approximately 3.15 yesterday afternoon, and the table would know this, of the introduction of this bill, which is to take place no earlier than tomorrow. It could take place later but it will not. It is still our intention to introduce it tomorrow.
In summation, I want to indicate to the House that I do not believe there was any deliberate attempt on the part of any member of the House for this information to find itself in the media, however regrettable that may be.
On the issue of whether or not this constitutes a question of privilege based on the principle of a committee report, I do not think it does. The issue of a committee report is a report of a committee of the House being available to someone other than a member of the House before the House has knowledge of it. That is the principle behind it. I am sure all hon. members are quite familiar with it. This is not an issue of a report from the House. The government could issue a draft bill when the House is not even sitting; that is perfectly legal.
However, I made a commitment yesterday that this issue was cabinet confidential, which it was, and I am personally insulted at the fact that this document was made public before it was made available to the House, particularly when I personally refused to give it to a member of the House prior to its introduction. It is my duty to refuse prior to a bill's introduction in any case.
I feel just as much aggrieved as the hon. member. I know the member has a very particular interest in the subject and has worked very hard on this issue. I appreciate that. We are all in agreement when something like this happens. The fact that I may feel personally offended and the hon. member, having an interest in the issue, might be similarly offended, if not more, is of course of interest to all of us, but it is not the same in that it does not meet the threshold of the parallel of a committee report and I do not believe it is a case of privilege.
That said, I will do everything I can as a minister to ensure that bills that are to be introduced in the House and are not scheduled to be announced elsewhere before they reach the House are not announced before the House sees them first.