Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 1st, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Monsieur Godin, I appreciate that, and obviously we have recorded that opinion. It's not just your opinion, it's the opinion of other members as well.

The issue I have before me is deferring this discussion. It sounds to me as if we need to discuss this further, and I'm suggesting we do that at another meeting, because I'm not sure we'll get it done today. There seem to be some very good arguments all around.

Is it okay with the committee that we put this on and discuss this again thoroughly at a future meeting?

Monsieur Proulx.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I have a point of clarification, Mr. Chair. You mentioned a few seconds ago that you understood, or at least I understood that you understood, that in a case of perjury we could make the testimony public.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

No.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

How do you see this? What's our position on this?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I don't think we have developed a position on it. I was simply reminding colleagues of some of the members' opinions as I wrote them down. One of the opinions was that we could adopt this policy, but I don't think the committee has made any decision on that.

These are the options. Perhaps what we could do is defer this to our next meeting, and for that meeting our analysts and clerks could have an options paper for us, the options based on the testimony we heard and the opinions. These are the options for us, ranging from never do we make public anything in camera to these being the reasons where we would or could or should, and reviewing what other jurisdictions do around the world.

Mr. Owen, please.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Chair, perhaps I could ask that we also have some options around the restricted use of in camera hearings, simply to narrow the scope of the problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Good point.

We've heard testimony about educating members as to the calibre of in camera and what that means. Also, listening to members, I thought about what we do about staff in in camera meetings. What do we do with notes that are taken by members during in camera meetings? We also heard the topic of sanctions. I think we're at a point where the clerks and our analysts need to prepare some document for us with our options and listing to remind us of all these topics. We should discuss this perhaps at the next available opportunity.

Mr. Reid, have you any other comments on this?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Following up on Mr. Owen's point on the possibility of restricting circumstances, I'm not aware of any problem with this within the Canadian Parliament, but I have seen it with municipalities in some cases, such as school boards, library boards, and so on—the use of habitual in camera meetings as a way of essentially silencing dissent, making it impossible to discuss anything that was brought up in committee and then making sure that everything gets brought up there.

I don't want to impose an unreasonable burden on our researcher, but perhaps we could take a look at the potential for abuse of in camera by making too much in camera. That's really, I suspect, what Mr. Owen would like to guard against, and I would like to guard against it too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Are we comfortable with that? I'm seeing all kinds of nods.

Thank you very much. It seems we've had a lot of movement on the SO changes for division bells. We'll have that at the next meeting, and we'll have a proposal on our options regarding in camera meetings. That's what we'll have for our next meeting as well.

Colleagues, we are at the end of our public meeting. We need to go in camera now to discuss future business. So if I could have one minute to do that, I'll suspend the meeting for one minute and we will go in camera, and the witness will stay.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]