A few MPs ate up about 30 minutes in the the House of Commons Tuesday because they were vexed that we were too accurate in our first reports Tuesday about the government's spending plan:
Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor—Tecumseh, NDP): Mr. Speaker, … I stand in this House to raise a question of privilege both for myself, as an individual member of Parliament, and for all other members of Parliament as well. My question of privilege arises from the estimates tabled today in the House by the Treasury Board President. In an article by reporter, David Akin, who is part of the parliamentary bureau and the QMI Agency, that appeared on a web site earlier than the time the estimates were tabled in this House, it is clear that Mr. Akin had specific knowledge of what was in those estimates.
I would draw your attention specifically to the fact that in both the written article and in what was up on Mr. Akin's blog [ed note: There was nothing on my blog just the news story and, as you'll see in a minute, a Tweet] on his site as of 9 o'clock this morning, the estimates not being tabled in this House until after 10 o'clock this morning, Mr. Akin says:
The government's spending plan, to be tabled today, shows that the [Prime Minister] plans to write cheques for at least $250.8 billion in 2011-2012.
On page 7 of the main estimates that were tabled today, in the table titled “Comparison of Main Estimates”, it says that the total net expenditures of the Government of Canada for 2011-12 is estimated to be $250.8 billion, which is exactly the same figure that Mr. Akin had in his article before the estimates were tabled here.
Mr. Akin has a number of postings on Twitter, a social media network, and one was posted about an hour before 10 o'clock this morning, before the House was sitting and before the estimates were tabled. The posting reads, “Govt will table spending plan for FY 2010 today: Total $250 billion, about $10 billion less than this year”.
With the facts I have provided in two different formats, there is no doubt that the journalist had knowledge of what was in the estimates before they were tabled in this House.
Mr. Speaker, on the issue of our privileges as members of Parliament, you have ruled on a number of occasions that, both individually and collectively, we have an absolute right to expect the government of the day to provide information, whether it be on a bill or, as in this case, the estimates, to this House before they are provided any place else.
Just to headline this, Mr. Speaker, I will quote you on a couple of occasions when you have said this more explicitly. The basic concept is that if we are to do our jobs and we are to perform our responsibilities as members of Parliament, we need to be able to respond to inquiries based on the knowledge that is tabled in this House, whether those come from the media, from particular sectors of the economy, society or individual constituents. We need to be in a position to present responses but we cannot do that if material is getting out into the public, in this case in the form of a journalist, without us seeing that in advance. We have no ability to respond and in fact we cannot do our jobs.
…. there was a finding of prima facie breach of privilege.
If you do so find in this case, Mr. Speaker, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion to have this matter referred to the appropriate committee.
Click on through to read what Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski had to say in response and what Liberal MPs Kevin Lamoureux and Paul Szabo and Bloc Quebecois MP Daniel Paille had to say in support of Comartin.