Mr. Speaker, I attach myself to many of the remarks that have been previously made. I share the indignation of the government House leader that this has once again burdened the House with this ongoing saga of information being released in advance of members of the House being given the opportunity of due respect that they deserve in reviewing legislation, particularly legislation of such great importance.
I think the House leader for the official opposition stated that there is a great deal of irony in the fact that this information deals with secrecy and security, yet the government is still unable with all of its resources and powers of persuasion to prevent this from happening.
I take the government House leader at his word that he will go back to cabinet and once again reiterate the importance to the ministers themselves, to the deputy ministers and to their staffs associated with those offices that this information is to be held privileged until such time as members of the House of Commons are given the opportunity to review it.
I also would look further for some form of an undertaking that the minister will himself look into this particular matter and see if he can ascertain the source. It was a senior official. I do not know what powers of investigation he has at his disposal, but we would hope that he would try to suss out the individual, the culprit who was involved in the leaking of this information.
Finally, we hope that there will be a strong admonition from the Chair itself expressing the concern and the outrage that the House and the Chamber has for this type of leak because there is a pattern. This is not the first time. We have seen time and time again information being sent out to journalists in advance of this place. Surely the lust of journalists to have this type of juicy information should not outweigh the necessity and indeed the respect that should be held for the Chamber to in the first instance have an opportunity to see, digest and debate this type of legislation.