Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank the Chair for giving me this opportunity to address the question of privilege on the premature and unauthorized disclosure of the minority report of the Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs, which was tabled before Christmas by the hon. Bloc Quebecois member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve.
The hon. member claimed that, based on a number of newspaper articles, of which I did not receive a copy, it is clear that certain members of the committee gave interviews which, to a large extent, enabled reporters to learn the contents of the report before it was tabled in the House of Commons.
I asked to see these articles, and yesterday I was sent a three paragraph article published in the daily Le Droit . I do not know if you have other articles in your possession, but I assume that this is the only one that was tabled to support the motion of the hon. member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve.
The first two paragraphs do not quote anyone, but in the third paragraph my name is mentioned and I am said to have made the following statement:
The committee wanted to send a clear message to young people aged 12 to 18 that it is not legal to smoke marijuana.
First, I want to say that I am extremely proud of the work done by the Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs. We had our work cut out for us because, as you know, right in the middle of our public consultations, the House referred a bill to us on the legalization of marijuana. From the outset, we set this hot button issue aside to allow the Senate committee, which was finishing up its report on the matter, to publish its recommendations.
You will recall that the conclusions of the Senate report were quite controversial and left us with a hot potato in our hands.
As a result, our committee was well aware of the importance of properly defining the priorities in the area of addictions. It therefore decided to split the committee report into two parts to be made public.
We decided to publish the first 39 recommendations in an interim report on December 9 and to save the last two recommendations for the final report, made public on December 12.
On December 9, the interim report was greeted with a great deal of attention from the media. We proposed 39 recommendations on addictions and our approach to solving the problem in Canada.
Each and every one of us, including the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, was interviewed on television and had journalists ask every possible and relevant question, as their job requires them to do.
All week, they tried to fit the pieces of the puzzle together so they could break the news about marijuana before the report was tabled on December 12.
I gave interviews all week long, and I felt it was my duty to do so. I even took part in a television show with the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. Then, on December 12, our committee tabled its final report. The report contained the first report and also the two final recommendations that dealt with cannabis. Allow me to read the recommendations out loud.
Recommendation number 40 specifies:
The Committee recommends that the possession of cannabis continue to be illegal and that trafficking in any amount of cannabis remain a crime.
Recommendation 41 stipulates:
—that the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Health establish a comprehensive strategy for decriminalizing the possession and cultivation of not more than thirty grams of cannabis for personal use.
This strategy should include:
Prevention and education programs outlining the risks of cannabis use and, in particular, the heightened risk it poses to young persons; and
The development of more effective tools to facilitate the enforcement of existing Criminal Code prohibitions against driving while impaired by a drug.
This is the full text of the recommendations set out in the committee's final report released on December 12. So, it would seem that the allegation made by the hon. member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve does not hold. Let me explain why.
Although I am in fact quoted in the article, I do believe, with all due respect, that what I said was nothing new. The headline of the article I received from your office simply said “30 grams of pot, no more!”
I have sent to your office two other newspaper articles where the quote about the 30 grams is attributed to another member of Parliament. A number of articles were published during that week. I would remind the House that any reporter who had read the interim report would have easily come to the conclusion that we were not about to legalize marijuana; it was right there in black and white.
That is the first part of my answer. I am referring to the article I sent to your office, which says:
As a member of the special committee, the member from the Canadian Alliance... supported the cultivation of not more than 30 grams—
I would also point out that an anonymous source is quoted in this article. Would that be the hon. member for Hochelaga--Maisonneuve? Or maybe the Alliance member right across from me? They just mention an anonymous source.
The article also mentioned that on December 9, the minister and member for Outremont indicated his intention to go ahead with a bill on decriminalization. Moreover, the Minister of Justice and member for Outremont has never stopped—since taking up his duties at the Department of Justice—saying that he is for the decriminalization of marijuana for recreational use. In the Speech from the Throne, there was a reference to this measure, which was felt to be imminent.
I also remember having heard the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve on a program on RDI, revealing—on the subject of marijuana—the basic position we would all take as a committee, which is, and this is my recollection of what he said, that it should remain illegal, but that recreational users of small quantities should no longer have criminal records.
My colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve also published two articles in Quebec last summer setting out his position.
I agree with my colleague, the member for Langley—Abbotsford, that we are not prohibited from talking to journalists in circumstances such as I described. Nor does it in any way constitute divulging the contents of a report.
From the moment an interim report is tabled, the eyes of the media are on us. As a member of the committee, the Alliance member opposite knows that we did all we could to publicly reflect the recommendations contained in the special committee's interim report.
At no time was the text of recommendations 40 and 41, in the form they appeared in the report, made public, which demonstrates that there were no leaks of the report before it was published.
I therefore submit that the report was not leaked. My comments reflected my concerns about the use of marijuana among young people, aged 12 to 18. This is a concern, incidentally, that I expressed publicly on numerous occasions during the committee's public hearings.
If I am guilty, then the other members of the committee are equally so, because each and every one of them, unless I am mistaken, was quoted in newspapers, starting with the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve.
I am tabling the article from December 12, which I brought to your attention, where the member for Vancouver East is mentioned. In it, she is quoted as saying:
But another member of the committee, New Democrat, Libby Davies, believes the opposite, that the committee, made up of a majority of Liberals, does not go far enough, because possession of cannabis is still considered illegal—