The question of privilege raised by the hon. member for St. John's West is one that on its face would appear to have some basis in argument.
The hon. member for Edmonton Southwest has indicated his dissatisfaction with the fact that the answer was given as it was.
The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader and the government House leader have argued the contrary position.
It seems to me that in this case the sequence of events was that there was a question placed on the Order Paper and it was answered. So technically the matter was finished. There was some discussion and argument as to whether the answer was accurate so an undertaking was given by the former House leader that he would get additional information to try to make the answer more accurate than it was in response to some suggestions from the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest.
Parliament was prorogued and the information came to light at some time after the prorogation and before the new session began this week.
For reasons best known to the government House leader, the information was released last week. The hon. member for Edmonton Southwest and the hon. member for St. John's West are suggesting that amounted to contempt of Parliament because somehow the undertaking that had been given in the previous session made it a parliamentary procedure rather than simply information that might otherwise be in the public. It seems to me that the argument is not well-founded on that basis .
It seems to me that proceedings in Parliament are not necessarily questions that have been answered or undertakings that are given when the minister is no longer there or the minister has been replaced. The undertaking, it seems to me, ended with the session. Many things do end when sessions are prorogued in this place.
We have new rules relating to private members' business but all other bills, motions and so on that were on the Order Paper died. Questions that were on the Order Paper are gone. Members may wish to reinstate them or re-pose the questions and put them on the Order Paper today, but the ones that were on the Order Paper at the end of the last session are no longer on the Order Paper. Everyone will have noticed that the Order Paper is clean as a whistle in that respect. Therefore it is up to members to start their question over again.
In this case, before the session began an answer was made public. The hon. government House leader said that he sent it to all the House leaders as a courtesy.
As pointed out by the hon. member for Calgary Centre, however, that courtesy did not then help him or any of the other members who are not members of a political party in this House. It seems to me reasonable to expect that perhaps the answer might be tabled in the House since it was made available to certain members but not to others. It seems to me, in fairness, that if it is going to be treated as something of importance to the House and sent to House leaders, it ought to be made available to all hon. members, which was clearly not the case, and the obvious way to solve that problem is to table the document in the House.
However I do not see that there has been a contempt of the House in the actions in answering the question between the time of the prorogation of the previous session and the commencement of this session.
In the circumstances, I think we can move on to the next item which of course is tabling of documents.