Opposition MLA Steven Myers says he believes the Liberal party of P.E.I. violated the rules of the legislature when it posted details of the capital budget on social media Friday morning.
As Finance Minister Allen Roach was delivering his budget statement in the legislature Friday, the Twitter account run by the Liberal party of P.E.I. began posting details, including dollar figures, contained in the capital budget address. The tweets were almost identical to tweets also being posted almost simultaneously by an account managed by paid employees of the government caucus office.
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MLAs on all sides of the house, media and stakeholders are often provided advance copies of budgets under embargo.
But Myers says the rules of the legislative assembly dictate details are to be kept unpublished until the budget document is tabled in the legislature.
Myers says he wants the speaker to investigate how the Liberal party of P.E.I. was able to obtain and publish details of the budget before it had been tabled by the finance minister.
“They had intimate details that they were tweeting real-time that no one else knew except a handful of MLAs on the Liberal side… I’m pretty sure they broke the privilege of the legislature,” Myers told reporters Friday.
“The Liberal party of Prince Edward Island is a separate entity that should never have intimate details of a budget prior to it being tabled in the legislative assembly. It shouldn’t have privilege that any MLA doesn’t have.”
He raised a point of order about this concern, which Speaker Buck Watts said he would take under advisement and report back to the legislature at a later date.
