SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 298 - Apr/11/24

Apr/11/24 10:04:53 a.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the government has just moved a motion, but the Chair had given notice that a ruling on a question of privilege would be forthcoming. Because it is a question of privilege, that always supersedes everything else that goes throughout the day. I was wondering if the Speaker would be delivering his ruling on the question of privilege before entertaining this motion.

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Context: House Hansard - 298 - Apr/11/24

The Speaker

Apr/11/24 10:06:02 a.m.
Watch

I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary and I would like to thank the hon. House leader for the opposition for raising the point. Questions of privilege, once accepted, do supersede other considerations, but the Chair has not given his response to the question of privilege. Yes, the Chair did give indication to the opposition House leader that we will be providing a response to the question of privilege, and I will endeavour to do that as soon as possible, once this matter is dealt with. If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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Context: House Hansard - 298 - Apr/11/24

The Speaker

Apr/11/24 3:22:57 p.m.
Watch

I thank the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford for his intervention on this question of privilege. The Chair has duly noted his question of privilege and will come back to the House in due time.

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Context: House Hansard - 298 - Apr/11/24

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Apr/11/24 4:59:36 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I have been looking for my moment to also comment on the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for La Prairie. I think the Bloc Québécois member's argument was very strong. When he presented his question of privilege, I thought it was solid and clear. I thought it was a violation of privilege to start seeing budgetary information shared in advance. In the last while, in digging into my own research, I have come to the view that it is less clear than that. The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby has also pointed this out, and we have heard this from a number of other presenters in this place, including the hon. Liberal House leader. I agree with the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby that it is troubling to see that there is not a clear set of rules around protecting budgetary information from early leak. It appears to me now that, as much as I was convinced by the argument from the hon. member for La Prairie, we probably do not have a convincing argument for a point of privilege here. We do have a clear need for more work to be done, perhaps at PROC or elsewhere. We have a very clear tradition. Over the years, people have faced criminal sanction for leaking budgetary information. However, now it appears we can differentiate between the kind of information that could be used in the sense of insider trading, to create a financial benefit for someone who leaked the information, and public policy, which the government can of course discuss in advance. We have seen, more than one time, information released in an attempt to create some razzle-dazzle effect in advance of the budget. We are seeing more public relations material than we are seeing a budget. In the Harper years, I started calling it the “big, thick spring brochure” as opposed to a budget, because it very rarely actually had a budget in it. We could not compare this year's spending to last year's spending. We could not work through the work tables at the back of the budget department by department and compare what was happening. That tradition of big fat brochures has been continuing without access to an actual budget. Canadians need to know that, and they need clarity around how much of this is now promotional materials, with governments explaining what they want to do. There is less and less rigour around whether the money has been spent, whether it can be tracked, whether it can be compared to previous years, and whether we are comparing apples to apples or apples to oranges. In other words, my advice to the Speaker, for what it is worth, would be that this is not a point of privilege. However, there is an issue here of substance for which greater clarity would be helpful and to which I would urge the Minister of Finance to actually bring some rigour to the budgetary process and make sure that Canadians who pick up the budget can actually find, in the big fat spring brochure, an actual budget.

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