Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's difficult without any preparation to respond to some of the arguments that have just been presented. It would seem to me that, perhaps, we're making a mountain out of a molehill.
In the first instance, as to the point of privilege, my argument would be that there is no point of privilege in that this has not been presented to the House at the earliest possible moment. The Minister has been back in the House for two and a half days now, and this point was not raised when it was first possible. That would be my first argument that there is no point of privilege.
As to the other concerns that have been expressed, Mr. Speaker, the statement was made on behalf of the Ordinary Members' Caucus. So, obviously, ordinary Members were not aware that the Minister was going to be away. While normally this House has a timely process for information about Ministers' travel and Ministers' absences from the House, that did not take place. If the Minister has some quarrel with the House Leader as to that information not having been presented in the House, then I suggest that that quarrel should be taken up directly with the House Leader, it should not be taken up here.
We have, in fact, on many occasions had the chairman of the Standing Committee on Finance advised by a letter from Ministers of their intent to travel in order to make sure that the scheduling of consideration of departmental budgets in this House is done in a cohesive and coherent manner. That may be an unofficial manner of communication, but it is one that has taken place. In this instance, the Minister's budget was the one that was before this House. The other two Ministers who were absent did not have their budgets in front of the House, and therefore were not in the same sort of situation to be responsible to this House to respond to questions which may have come up as a result of their budget being considered in committee of the whole.
Mr. Speaker, I would also argue that the public perception or the media response to statements made in this House are not matters that would necessarily bear in this argument. If the media should choose to interpret a statement one way or another, that is their right. And the Member has the ability to stand and make a Member's statement to counter that impression that may be taken. But this House has no control over the writings or the broadcastings of media undertakings, therefore, can't be seen to be reacting necessarily to them.
I think, Mr. Speaker, not having had a lot of time to research it, that basically outlines the points I would make to refute the Minister's argument that he has a point of privilege.