PRHA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, December 1, 1998

• 1223

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): We are now in public.

If we could proceed to the second agenda item, colleagues, you'll see that it says “Consideration of a request” by four members of the committee. Under Standing Order 106(3), and this is—what I'm doing now is a pro forma thing. I don't think it's a matter of discussion; it's something we can do very quickly, but it's something we have to do.

Standing Order 106(3) states:

(3) Within ten sitting days of the receipt, by the clerk of a standing committee, of a request signed by any four members of the said committee, the Chairman of the said committee shall convene a meeting—

This is requesting a meeting.

—provided that forty-eight hours' notice is given of the meeting. For the purposes of this section, the reasons for convening such a meeting shall be stated—

As chair of the committee—

Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough, Lib.): Why? What's the—

The Chairman: I'm getting to it, George, as quickly as I can.

Carol received a letter from Randy White, Chuck Strahl, Gurmant Grewal, and John Solomon, and it says:

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(3), a meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs shall be convened within ten sitting days for the purpose of examining the problem of leaked committee reports prior to tabling in the House

This was raised under a point of privilege in the House of Commons. By the way, having received this letter, we have to deal with it within 10 working days and we have to give 48 hours' notice of consideration of it. As I understand it—and Carol or Jamie can advise me—I am giving 48 hours' notice that on Thursday we will be considering this matter.

Carol, am I correct? What I've said is correct.

Randy White, briefly, because Randy was one of the signatories.

Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Ref.): Just to relieve any concerns you have, when this point of privilege was brought up in the House last week, the Speaker actually said this issue keeps coming up and nothing is being done about it, so it would be a matter more appropriately covered by Procedure and House Affairs. I stood up on unanimous consent and said let's take it there, and that went down, for reasons other than the issue coming here.

This has to be dealt with, because our members are at the point now where they're saying, listen, if this is going to continue, there will be no confidentiality on reports. This is properly the right committee to try to deal with this issue. I'm not asking—

The Chairman: And by the way, I agree with Randy on that point. As chair, I'm required to deal with this. I'm required to give the 48 hours' notice so that on Thursday, in addition to consideration of the draft report, which will be in camera, we will consider this matter.

Essentially, Randy, my understanding is that we're dealing with the consideration of this request, and the request is that we look at leaks of committee meetings in which draft reports are being considered—for example, the one we had here this morning. We'll be checking, by the way, to see if there are leaks from this morning.

Randy, on Thursday the committee is going to consider the request. The committee then decides how it deals with the request. Are you comfortable with that, Randy?

Mr. Randy White: Yes. Our members do not leak.

The Chairman: Gurmant? Okay. Chuck is gone and John is gone, but John knows of this.

Colleagues, Thursday in camera we'll deal with the draft report on televising committees; in public we'll deal with the consideration of this request before members of our committee.

Thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.