Mr. Speaker, my question of privilege will address two issues. First, the reporting of this report in the media before being tabled in the House is an attack on the dignity of the House. Second, the premature release of this report in the media is an affront to the authority of parliament since the finance committee made a specific decision to prohibit the publication of this report until tabled in the House.
The CBC network last night reported on the details of the report. The CBC in its response to this report used words such as “the key recommendations are” and “the emphasis will be on”.
On the front page of the National Post an article says that the Commons finance committee will ask the federal cabinet to put in place a productivity covenant as one of its key prebudget recommendations to the finance minister. Other statements in the paper are:
In its prebudget report to be tabled tomorrow, the committee calls on the... government to—
At this point the paper used quotation marks, giving the impression that it was quoting the actual report:
—“subject all existing government initiatives to an assessment which evaluates their expected effects on productivity and hence the standard of living of Canadians. Every budgetary initiative should be judged according to this productivity benchmark”.
What is more disturbing is that on December 2 in the National Post Paul Wells wrote about the issue of leaked committee reports and made this comment:
The catalyst for yesterday's round of soul searching was Reform's House leader who rose to complain that yet another committee report—this one from the subcommittee on pro sports—was leaked to a newspaper. The Toronto Star got that one, but we've scooped a couple of reports here at the Post.
Journalists are now publicly bragging about obtaining leaked reports. The impression left with the public is that the authority and dignity of parliament is a joke. On page 41 of Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada it states that parliament:
—has the right to control and to prohibit the publication of its debates or proceedings.
In the finance committee there was a discussion about the potential for this report being leaked to the media. There was a consensus among all members of the committee that this report ought not to be published in the media before it was tabled in the House. Since the committee has the right to prohibit the publication of its report, the publication of its report by the media is an affront to its authority.
In contrast let us consider the authority of the courts. When a court orders a ban on the publication of certain elements of a trial the media respect that order. When the House or its committees order a ban the media ignore it.
Maybe we have this situation because committee members do not have confidence that the government will seriously consider their recommendations. They go to the media and hope at least to get some recognition from the public for their work. At the same time the government views the committee process as a communication exercise reducing parliament to a minor bit player in the legislative and policy making process.
The use of parliament by the government is not subject to conventions or law or the Constitution, but it is subject to decisions by the communications department of the Prime Minister's Office.
We had a case this morning when a number of members were complaining about how the minister of public works chose to make an announcement outside the House regarding the renovations of the parliamentary precincts. It is an example of how the Prime Minister's communications department makes decisions based on what is good for it, and the traditions of parliament be dammed. The media that published the recommendations from the finance report should be brought before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and asked how they received copies of the report. The other matter to be determined would be whether the media deliberately disobeyed an order of the committee and whether there is any dignity left for the House to salvage.
