I think I can deal with the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Saskatoon--Rosetown--Biggar.
I have in hand the notice for the meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health for Tuesday, April 16, today.
The notice was published before second reading of the bill in the House.
I think I have to differentiate between the cases that the hon. member has cited in her no doubt able argument. Those referred to advertisements published by the executive, that is by the cabinet or by a minister, concerning the activities of the minister that would follow passage of a bill in this House.
This particular notice is a House publication. It was done no doubt by a zealous committee chair or committee clerk in the Standing Committee on Health who was aware that this bill was coming forward and who decided he or she may as well get ready to publish the notice that there would be a meeting on the bill. There is no doubt in my mind that had the bill not been passed at second reading the meeting would have been cancelled and we would have heard about it.
The fact is that the publication was an internal document published by parliament for use in parliament. It was not published by the minister. It was published by the House. Obviously it was done prematurely. Perhaps someone was a bit overzealous in anticipating the passage of this legislation but I suspect the enthusiasm by the members of the committee to get at the study of the bill brought them to a point where the clerk or the chairman of the committee felt they had better get on with it because everyone wanted to get at it with such haste and, accordingly, the notice was published.
It is hard to find that there has been a breach of the privileges of the House when the House itself published the document. Accordingly, I am afraid I do not find there is a question of privilege in this case.