Mr. Speaker, I want to comment briefly on the question of privilege, at least the alleged question of privilege.
The hon. member for Yorkton--Melville alleges that the Minister of Justice has, in his view, misled the House of Commons concerning the findings of a report by KPMG on the financial records of the firearms program.
On February 3 the Minister of Justice tabled a report in the House of Commons. We all recall that. When tabling the document, the minister stated:
...the KPMG study assured the department that the information compiled about past spending was accurate and corresponds to the figure submitted to this House in the public accounts.
The member for Yorkton--Melville relies upon the letter dated February 14 from the assistant auditor general to the deputy minister of justice to support his claim that the minister, in his view, misled the House. However the letter from the assistant auditor general does not state that the minister misled Parliament. I am sure Mr. Speaker will become acquainted with that. Rather, the letter is focused on a potential misinterpretation that the KPMG report is a so-called attest audit of the program.
At most, the Auditor General states that “there may be insufficient information in the KPMG report”, and that the Office of the Auditor General “would like to be able to respond to any parliamentary concern about the KPMG report that may be raised in forthcoming hearings”. And of course the Auditor General regularly testifies before a committee of Parliament.
I submit that this is a matter for debate and not at all a question of privilege. The Minister of Justice tabled a report in the House so that it is available for the scrutiny of members. The minister tabled a report to meet his commitment to be open and transparent with the House on firearms issues. That is not the responsibility of another minister of the crown.
The member for Yorkton--Melville, thanks to the minister, was provided access to that information. If he disagrees with the minister's interpretation insofar as the result of the report is concerned, of course he is free to do so. That is what debate is all about.
MPs can question the government over findings of the report, or any other report, in question period, in committee or in subsequent adjournment debates at the end of the day, and MPs are able to seek the views of the Auditor General on the scope of the report all the time, as I indicated a while ago.
In fact, the public accounts committee already investigated this matter on February 24 when the minister and the Auditor General appeared on the firearms program. At that meeting the Auditor General clarified the fact that the study was not an attest audit. That was clarified on February 24 and presumably has remained clear since then. The Hansard or the committee report will attest to that.
On the basis of this information, it is clear that no question of privilege exists or at least not in this matter.