Mr. Chairman, the problem is that if you hang on to the document for any period of time, at some point you are making use of it. You're not simply informing yourself as to your legal position and returning it, if that's the obligation. At some point you're making use of it, whether or not you actually do something. You may just enjoy reading it, and you're making use of it for your own purposes. You're not entitled to make use of the document if it's one that's covered by this act.
The second question relates to a particular member of the committee. As I indicated to the member, I prefer not to reply with specific reference to any member of this committee.
The third question is on whether or not the circulation of the document in a committee meeting room, but not as part of the official proceedings of the committee, means the document somehow falls or moves outside the act. In my view, no, it doesn't.
The privileges for documents with regard to committee proceedings turn on those documents becoming part of the committee proceedings at some point. Until that point, they are no different from any other document. The person in possession of the document, including members of Parliament, is in no different position from any other person in possession of those documents. But once they become part of the proceedings of this committee, they are then privileged. In my view, the committee is at liberty to look at those documents and deal with them. That's not to say the committee shouldn't take some precautions about public disclosure and should maybe go in camera, and that kind of thing.
How does it happen? Well, I think it would happen, Mr. Chairman, if the document were given to you and you, as chair, asked the committee if they wanted the document circulated, and so on. The committee could by resolution say the document should be circulated and they would look at it at the next meeting. From that point, in my view, the document is now part of the committee's proceedings. It took place within a committee proceeding.
But I don't think the fact that the document shows up in a committee room and is somehow shuffled about among members, but it's never properly introduced to the committee, brings it within the proceedings of the committee. I don't think it thereby acquires the protection of parliamentary privilege.
The fourth question is on what further obligations committee members face with regard with to the examination of these documents to ensure they do not commit any new offences. Once the document is part of the proceedings of the committee, I don't think you're susceptible to any offence for studying the document in the course of your committee proceedings.
What a committee member might do with the document outside this committee room could well give rise to a problem. The privileges apply to that document for the purposes of the committee proceeding, not for any other purpose. It's not to be taken as a licence to take the document elsewhere and use it for other purposes.
It's not to say the document won't get into the public domain by virtue of the committee proceedings. It may well happen. But the privilege attached to that document is not itself a licence for an individual member, or an individual staff person, or a person in the room to take the document and go elsewhere with it.
The privilege is for the purposes of the committee proceedings. I would think the law would say that's the limit to which any protection enjoyed by the document applies.
Those are the answers to the four questions.