Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak on this matter, since this is not the first time the same thing has happened in the Justice Department.
The minister need not wonder why sometimes bills get off on the wrong foot. That is the way things are done, even by the Minister of Justice.
How do they justify, even if it was only a briefing, even if the government did not hand out the entire text to the journalists—which I doubt, and we will look into this—how is it that the journalists knew all the ins and outs of this bill before the parliamentarians, before those who are elected to represent the public?
Knowing the officials of the Department of Justice as I do, in the case of the Young Offenders Act, I question the accuracy of the information. What the minister did today is very serious, and what she did in the past with other extremely important bills is also. It is not even a matter of finding out whether the bill is complex or not, because we can all read.
The Minister of Justice was very kind. She gave me the bill as she came into the House at 2.00 p.m. for Oral Question Period. It was as if I, a member of the opposition, did not have Oral Question Period, as if it was not important for me to follow what went on in it and I had to read between 79 and 85 pages of the minister's text to keep up with the journalists at 3.00 p.m. That makes no sense. It is treating the opposition members, in fact all members with disdain.