I want to suggest to the committee the following procedural point, that if it insists or wishes on operating knowingly outside its committee mandate, outside of the House's authority that's been given to the committee, there are the following three implications.
First, it might, depending on how the thing goes, bring the committee's procedures and the House's procedures into some disrepute.
Second, the committee will lose its ability to report to the House. The Speaker has very clearly identified this as a direct implication, saying that he will not receive reports from committees that act outside of their mandate.
Third, the committee will lose its own ability to pursue an inquiry publicly, and it would likely lose some or all of the privileges that attach to our work in the committee, including the privilege of immunity—especially where there is knowledge and malice. In a political context, you can get scenarios like that.
In my view, and I am not offering you a big legal opinion here, I think those are pretty evident implications of our rules and procedures.
I'm going to put my situation in the hands of the chair now and ask if the chair and clerk have managed to identify the mandate from the House of Commons authorizing this committee to take up this inquiry today.