The parliamentary secretary, in his submissions, requested that the matter be deferred for a while to permit ministers who have submissions on the issue to make them to the House, and I am quite prepared to do that.
I will deal with one issue at the moment, and that was the question of timeliness of the request to raise a question of privilege in the House. I note the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River filed his request before the session of the House began, which was the first opportunity he could do that following the prorogation of the previous session, and therefore the fact that the order could not be complied with and that tablings might not be done during a prorogation.
Accordingly, in my view there is no lack of timeliness in this case. The hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River had not made his presentation in the House because I asked him to hold off so we could see what would happen with the inquiry that Mr. Justice Iacobucci is carrying out.
When the matter came to a head yesterday and everyone else indicated they would go ahead, I indicated I would hear arguments from all three members who had submitted letters on this point, but I do not believe timeliness is an issue, and accordingly, I will dispense with that one now.
I am prepared to hear other arguments on this matter from the ministers who were mentioned in the questions of privilege raised. I will then come back to the House with a ruling.
I thank all honourable members for their comments today, which will be of great assistance in dealing with this difficult matter.