Privilege / Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous; budget briefings

Journals pp. 1105-6

Debates pp. 9379-80

Background

When the House met, Mr. Saltsman (Waterloo) rose on a question of privilege to complain that opposition party representatives were being denied the opportunity to receive confidential briefings on the Budget prior to its presentation in the House by the Minister of Finance. On two occasions, requests had been made to allow such briefings similar to those provided to news journalists on Budget night. Mr. Saltsman stated that he was prepared to move the appropriate motion if the Speaker agreed to the question of privilege. The Speaker ruled immediately.

Issue

Is the decision of the Minister of Finance to deny party representatives access to advance budget briefings a breach of parliamentary privilege?

Decision

While it may well be that the whole practice should be reviewed, that cannot be done by way of a question of privilege.

Reasons given by the Speaker

It has been long-established that budgetary information is made available to the press under the terms of the strictest secrecy some hours before the same information is made available to the House. The suggestion that this should be a practice of the Government cannot be raised as a question of privilege. There is no prima facie right on the part of the House to insist that the Government shall not give a summary of the budget information to the press prior to its presentation in the House. As a suggestion, it might be useful for the executive to consider whether there should be any advance briefing at all.

Sources cited

Debates, January 26, 1961, pp. 1429-30.