Mr. Speaker, I am rising to comment very briefly on a question of privilege raised on March 19 by the deputy leader of the Official Opposition.
I first want to rebut the comments made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.
In speaking about notices of motion being made public, he elided a critical distinction between a notice of motion and a motion moved without notice.
The parliamentary secretary referred to the practice where some publicized a notice of motion filed with a given committee clerk. It is important to understand that those motions could, in theory, be moved at a future in camera meeting, or a future public meeting or they might actually never be moved. Every committee member goes into each meeting in possession of the same facts and the same opportunities to comment on the draft proposals.
To quote my hon. friend, the member for Milton, the motion of concern was “table dropped” at the meeting itself. It was moved without notice, which is a common practice at House committees for meetings convened to discuss “committee business”, such as the March 19 justice committee meeting had been. The problem is that the motion was moved at a private, in camera meeting of the committee, while government staffers, perhaps under PMO direction, were busy telling the world at large what was going on inside the room.
My second and final matter is to quote a few additional authorities for the benefit of the Chair. Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, sixth edition, citation 877(1), states:
No act done at any committee should be divulged before it has been reported to the House. Upon this principle the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, on April 21, 1937, resolved “That the evidence taken by any select committee of this House and the documents presented to such committee and which have not been reported to the House, ought not to be published by any member of such committee or by any other person”. The publication of proceedings of committees conducted with closed doors or of reports of committees before they are available to Members will, however, constitute a breach of privilege.
This principle traces back to Erskine May, the pre-eminent British authority. I would refer, for example, to page 153 of the 20th edition. In the United Kingdom's House of Commons, on May 28, 1968, Mr. Speaker King found, at column 1541 of the official report, a prima facie complaint in respect of the leak of committee evidence heard in private.
It is important to note in that case that no preliminary report was presented from the select committee on science and technology, which had originally taken the leaked evidence. Instead, the complaint was made directly to the House by the committee's chairman. The committee of privileges investigated the matter and recommended that the offending member, Tam Dalyell, be admonished in his place and the House concurred.
The subsequent words of Mr. Speaker King, at page 362 of the Journals for July 24, 1968, speak to the importance of maintaining confidentiality. It stated:
The Committee of Privileges itself, whose Report the House has adopted, has pointed out that Select Committees and indeed Parliament itself depend largely on mutual trust and confidence between members of Parliament and those who appear as witnesses before them and that this confidence would be greatly imperilled by any failure to observe the rules of the House by all those concerned in the work of the Committees. That you have broken such confidence is a matter of high concern to the House and to all who cherish it. I, therefore, as Speaker of the House, and upon its instructions, reprimand you as guilty of a breach of privilege and of a gross contempt of the House.
In another British incident, on October 14, 1975, at column 1134 of the Official Report, Mr. Speaker Lloyd found a prima facie case of privilege concerning an Economist article about a draft report prepared for future consideration by the Select Committee on a wealth tax.
This complaint, too, was raised directly in the House of Commons without any preliminary report originating from the committee. In fact, I understand that it was raised by a member who did not even sit on that committee.
In closing, I support the arguments raised by our hon. colleague, the member for Milton. The precedents are clear that a leak of committee proceedings may be treated as a breach of privilege and that, in serious circumstances like these at hand, there are clear precedents which allow the Chair to make a prima facie finding in the absence of a report on the matter from the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.