Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order at the first opportunity to clarify remarks I made during question period on Thursday and Friday of last week during which time I cited a memorandum, an e-mail from the deputy secretary of cabinet from the Privy Council Office, dated September 21.
The interpretation of this memorandum has been a point of debate in the House. I had an opportunity to reflect on the memo over the weekend and to recognize that I may have inadvertently misinterpreted one aspect of the memo. If that was the case, I would like to apologize, Mr. Speaker, to you and the House.
I would like to emphasize that if I did misinterpret the memo, it was done in no way deliberately. The evidence of that is that as soon as I first cited it on Thursday afternoon in question period, I insisted that the full memorandum be released to the media in the belief that it fully supported my contention and that of the government.
I also understood and interpreted the memo in the context of a series of facts related to practices of the previous government. I believe this matter will be coming before the access to information, privacy and ethics committee of the House, which will have an opportunity to study this matter at greater length. I believe that my principal contention about previous practices will be confirmed at that study.
However, I would certainly like to clarify that if I did misinterpret an operative paragraph of that memorandum I did so inadvertently and I regret it.