Mr. Speaker, first, I appreciate the apology by the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Works concerning Bill C-52. However, as I said this morning, I have the impression that the message has not been adequately understood on the government side. It seems to me, with respect to Bill C-53 which was made public at a press conference by the Minister of Public Safety, that we had the same problem as with Bill C-52. The Minister of Public Works also took part in that media event.
Essentially, the Minister of Public Safety is telling us two things: first, when he held the press conference, the bill was on notice. What I contended in my point of privilege on Thursday, if I recall correctly, is precisely that when a bill is on notice on the order paper it must not be disclosed publicly until it has been given first reading in this House. As a result, his argument completely fails to address the argument I made. I had referred to a number of decisions and quotations, some of which came from your decisions, Mr. Speaker. I am still wondering about that initial aspect, that is, that it seems to me that a press conference should not disclose the content of a bill before the bill has received first reading. That is his first argument.
His second argument is that the press conference did not give explicit details of the content of the bill. However, Mr. Speaker, I would still like to refer you to a document that I sent you this morning, entitled “Backgrounder—Government of Canada to Fix the Problem of Early Parole for Criminals”. It contains some very short phrases that give the essence of the bill, “Changes to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act… towards the abolition of statutory release”.
They are announcing that, essentially, the bill will deal with that. When we read Bill C-53 we can see that, in fact, the purpose of the proposed amendments is to eliminate accelerated parole review in the Corrections Act. The issue is not the quantity of details but the quality of the details provided in that backgrounder. In the news release, which I have not had a chance to read as carefully, the Minister may have stuck to the ins and outs of the environment in which the bill is being introduced. However, in the technical information sheet that accompanied the news release, it is very clear that the essence of Bill C-53 is being disclosed to the public and the media before being disclosed through first reading in this House. I believe that is contempt of the House.
I defer to your decision, Mr. Speaker.