I think I have heard enough on this point because, in my view, it is quite easily disposed of from the House at this stage.
I would like to thank the hon. members who made submissions on this point.
However, the issue here is a report from this committee, not a report that is before the House. We are talking about a report from this committee.
In my view, if there is a question of privilege here, it is one that has to be dealt with first in the committee whose subcommittee's report got leaked. The normal practice in these matters is to raise the matter in the committee. If there has been a breach of the privileges of the committee, or if some member has breached the privileges of the committee, the committee will do a report to the House. Then we can have a motion for concurrence in the report here in the House and a ruling from the Speaker can be sought as to whether the matter constitutes a question of privilege in the House when the report from the committee arrives.
In the meantime, we have not heard from the committee. The committee may not regard this as a breach of its privileges. Until the committee reports on that, since it was a subcommittee, I do not feel it is a matter for the Speaker to adjudicate upon, especially when the Speaker has not seen the report and cannot tell whether there has been a leak or whether this is something somebody has made up.
In the circumstances, I would suggest the hon. members who have this complaint raise the matter in the committee. If the committee finds there is a breach of privilege, we will hear about it in the House when the committee reports back. Until that time, I do not feel that it is a matter for a decision from the Chair. Accordingly, I feel there is no point of order or question of privilege arising out of the alleged, and I say “alleged” deliberately here, leak from the subcommittee.
Accordingly, we will move on to orders of the day.