Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 26th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'll call the meeting to order. We certainly have enough quorum for listening to witnesses.

Today's meeting is pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(a)(v), on matters relating to webcasting of the House and its committees. We are in public today.

I'd like to welcome Madam O'Brien and Mr. Walsh, good friends of this committee.

We're happy to have you here today. I guess we'll start with opening statements from you and see if you can help us along our journey.

[Audrey O'Brien, Clerk of the House of Commons]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear today as it reviews the various issues regarding Internet broadcasting, or webcasting, of proceedings of the House and its committees. My staff in its usual remarkably diligent way prepared a very long opening statement that reviewed the history of things and what not. Rather than subjecting you to my reading of this, I've simply tabled that with the clerk. I'll give you a summary of that, and that will be available. Perhaps you might want to append it to the proceedings of today, because it has a lot of historical information that I don't think is necessary for me to go through personally with you today, but it might be helpful, ultimately, for the researcher and the staff of the committee when they draft the report, if that's okay.

I'm accompanied today by Rob Walsh, Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. I'll be speaking to the question more generally, notably on procedural issues involved and with regard to practices in other jurisdictions. A lot of that material, I confess, is in the document I've tabled. I will ask the law clerk to speak on questions of copyright law and privilege.

As you know, this issue arose in the spring of 2007. An organization, the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, was webcasting audio and video proceedings of committees on its website. On March 23, 2007, the Office of the Law Clark and Parliamentary Counsel wrote a letter asking them to cease and desist webcasting, podcasting or otherwise broadcasting the House of Commons proceedings. The Parliamentary Counsel advised the group that, and I quote:

broadcasting committee proceedings without permission of the House of Commons could be raised in the House of Commons as a breach of privileges...broadcasting of excerpts of the proceedings of the Standing Committees of the House of Commons without authorization may also be considered a contempt of Parliament since the publication of a partial report of the proceedings may be considered by the House of Commons as an obstruction.

On April 16, 2007, a spokesperson for the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting replied to the letter by stating they did not wish to remove any of the material from their website but that they would be pleased to follow any reasonable procedure that the House would suggest to obtain the necessary permissions, and they would welcome the guidance of the House in that regard.

Later that month, the chairs of the Standing Committee on Finance and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage wrote to the chair of this committee to inform him that an organization, namely the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, was offering to its subscribers for download the webcasting of proceedings of the respective committees without authorization. They asked this committee to look into the policies and recourses available to prevent this infringement on the House's control over the record of its proceedings. In its meeting of February 10 last, this committee agreed to hold a meeting today to look at the issues surrounding webcasting, such as establishing rules and/or adding new standing orders determining the authority responsible for this matter here at the House and how other legislatures deal with the issue.

In reference to the authority for dealing with this issue, as you know, pursuant to Standing Orders 108(3)(a)(v) and 119.1(2), this committee has the mandate to review and report on the radio and television broadcasting of the proceedings of the House and its committees and to establish guidelines governing the broadcasting of committee meetings. Consequently, in the absence of a reference from the House of Commons on a question of privilege dealing with the case outlined above, the Standing Orders do certainly give you the authority to deal with this issue more generally.

I don't want to review the history of broadcasting at the House of Commons or the role played by this committee and its predecessors in supporting this committee in this area. The document I tabled, as I said, briefly summarizes that whole history dating from 1970, when the general question of radio and television broadcasting of the House of Commons was referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization—as it was then called in 1970—following debates in the House in 1967 and 1969, through to 2003, when ParlVU was launched initially in April 2003 on the parliamentary Intranet site for members and their staff. The Canadian public has now been able to view ParlVU through the parliamentary website since February 2, 2004.

As this history has indicated, as the environment has evolved, so has the House, and the challenge has been to use the electronic media so as to exploit the opportunities they offer without compromising the integrity of Parliament. This is the same challenge you face today in grappling with the issue of information dissemination.

Again, for ease of reference, I've left with the clerk and asked that there be distributed these two sheets, eight and a half by fourteen, which are basically a chart of the audio and video of parliamentary proceedings. It just explains how these are made available today.

It is in both languages, of course. It is really an at-a-glance summary that explains the options available for those who want access to the audio and video recordings of the proceedings of the House and the committees.

I am ready to take your questions. This was of course prepared by Television and Radio Services, part of Information Services. My thanks go to them.

The House therefore controls the broadcasting of its proceedings; its intention has clearly always been that control of the entire system, especially maintaining the concept of an electronic Hansard, should continue to lie with the House, specifically with the Speaker, as the representative of all members.

The following licence to broadcast appears at the beginning and the end of all broadcasts and webcasts made by the House of Commons as well as on labels displayed on DVDs and tapes that are provided on demand.

It reads as follows, and I quote:

The Speaker of the House of Commons hereby grants permission to use this video content in schools or for purposes of private study, research, criticism or review. Television and radio broadcasting undertakings, licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, may make use of recorded excerpts of these televised proceedings in their news and public affairs programs. Any other commercial use or rebroadcast of these televised proceedings requires the express prior written approval of the Speaker of the House of Commons.

In its 40th report of the first session of the 39th Parliament (March 30, 2007), you may recall that this committee made permanent guidelines for broadcasting committee meetings and, if I may, I would like to quote from the report the following:

The committee will continue to monitor the broadcasting of committees by the electronic media, and retains the authority pursuant to Standing Orders 108(3)(a)(v) and 119.1(2) to recommend changes to these guidelines.

I think the committee right now is facing something of a dilemma. On the one hand, it should be relatively straightforward to draft guidelines or standing orders to limit the exterior use of any kind of broadcast of the proceedings of the House and its committees. On the other hand, enforcing such guidelines will pose a major challenge.

The original objective of broadcasting proceedings, it's important to remember, was to disseminate to as wide an audience as possible the work of the House and its members. But those decisions were made in a much simpler time. Some of the 1972 report on broadcasting is downright quaint when you reread it. Paragraph 70, for example, reads, in part, “If it is decided to televise the proceedings of the House, it will then have to be decided whether to do so in colour or in black and white.”

We live today in a very different time. Many members have their own websites where they regularly make available streaming of their own participation in the House or in committees. As technology grows daily easier to manipulate, it's only natural that concerns are raised about controlling how House proceedings are used.

What the committee needs, I think—again, this is a personal opinion, and obviously one that I've thought about—is to consider very carefully whether all of those concerns are entirely well-founded. In the great majority of cases, there's no malicious intent in the onward dissemination, if one can call it that, of these proceedings. In those specific cases where genuine concerns exist--where, for example, people might feel that their privileges have somehow been affected--then the House can always reaffirm its control and reassert its authority, for example, by punishing misuse as a contempt of the House.

As I said earlier, I'm joined by my colleague Rob Walsh, Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. In order to round out this discussion, he will address the legal issues surrounding the reproduction and distribution of the recordings of House and committee proceedings by third parties and the means now available to the House to limit or control third parties in the use they can make of recordings or records of House and committee proceedings.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll pass it over to Rob.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Mr. Walsh.

[Rob Walsh, Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'll briefly provide some background to the committee and then leave the rest of the time for questions from members.

Since 1993 a series of statements was included in several House of Commons publications to indicate the manner of reproduction permitted for the particular record to which it was attached. It is sometimes referred to as the “Speaker's licence”. The licence in each case is specific to the kind of record to which it is attached.

There are currently three variations of the licence in use by the House. I have copies for members, if they would like to see them, of three generic licences...or not-so-generic licences currently used by the House.

On behalf of the Speaker, the Office of the Law Clerk deals with requests for permission to reproduce, for commercial or other purposes, recordings of House proceedings and other documents for which the House holds the copyright. These requests are made by private individuals and organizations. They are sent to us by the Crown Copyright and Licensing section, by the Library of Parliament, by committees and by other areas of House administration. Requests for use in documentaries, manuals and so on are usually granted.

Most requests are authorized without cost, but some examples of requests that may be denied are uses that would commercialize the proceedings, ridicule the proceedings, or enter the proceedings in evidence in court.

In considering such requests, reproductions of the records of the proceedings that are intended solely for dissemination on the Internet are also generally not authorized by my office, since, one, they may not facilitate the Speaker's control over the material, and two, they are not consistent with the limits to broadcast set out in the Speaker's licence, which limits broadcasting to CRTC-licensed broadcasters for news and current affairs programming.

Since the eventual encrypted webcasting by the House was anticipated and is now available, it was anticipated that this would ensure that the House maintained control over the integrity of the proceedings and would permit users to link to the official version of the proceedings available in both official languages.

The kinds of uses for which permission might be denied, such as for political or campaign purposes, for satire or ridicule, or for commercial purposes, follow the guidelines proposed to control broadcasting when the possibility of broadcasting proceedings was studied in 1972. These uses also match what is done in other legislative assemblies in the Commonwealth.

Beyond this, I am prepared to discuss what the options are to the House relative to going forward in respect to webcasting versus the rather antiquated technology of television. But I will stop here and respond to members' questions as they come forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you very much.

Madame Jennings, would you like to lead us off?

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you.

I see from the report our researchers have produced, doing a comparison of other jurisdictions, that there are other jurisdictions that allow for the use through webcasting, and the copyright or intellectual property is asserted but there's no charge. They can use it without any problem as long as it's for non-commercial purposes.

In some of those same jurisdictions, they also exclude the use of the proceedings in any medium for political advertising or election campaigning, except with the permission of all members shown—satire, ridicule or denigration, commercial sponsorship, or commercial advertising.

I would like your opinion, your best advice. Do you think we should come into the 21st century and allow for the downloads of whatever information is available on the House websites and the search engines, as long as there are these exclusions?

[Audrey O'Brien]

Madam Jennings, I have to say that I realize there is a certain unease with the idea of sort of throwing open the doors in that way, but my own feeling is that I think the time has come. I think we are at a point now where the technology makes this possible and where, really, we have to remember that the basic objective of all of this broadcasting was the idea of making this work and the proceedings available.

I know that the Hansard, the gavel-to-gavel, is a concept that is very dear to members. At the same time, I think that now, given how technology has evolved, it's perfectly appropriate that the House provide the gavel-to-gavel coverage, but it is also, I think, quite sensible that people would say, for example, “Okay, we are appearing as an NGO before a committee and here is our testimony”. That's not gavel-to-gavel. It's much more restricted, perhaps, but it makes the point to their interested parties, their stakeholders.

So for the purposes of discussion, I think it's a good starting point. I would invite my colleague to comment on this, because again, looking at the notices that appear in other jurisdictions, he has prepared a draft of a notice--or we can make that available later, if you like--where such exceptions would be made, where you say, “This is available except for purposes of thus”. I think that is a protection that's quite reasonable. You keep the control in principle, but you don't put upon yourself, in a sense, the absurdity of trying to police the thing; I mean in a proactive kind of sense. Obviously, you have to be able to address specific issues if there is flagrant abuse of the thing, but otherwise I think it's one of the few occasions when I'm inclined to depend on the goodwill of the people involved.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I like the advice you're providing. I think we should be bringing our communication systems into the 21st century. I also like the idea of presumed good faith on the part of everyone, but also that there would be clear exceptions. I would say that in those guidelines it would be the first thing somebody would see when they go to the site; that is, what, if any, are the consequences if, for instance, these exceptions are not respected?

Now I would like to ask you this: do you believe that one of the exceptions should be the use of the coverage of the proceedings in political advertising and election campaigning, etc.? A number of jurisdictions precisely exclude its use unless there is prior authorization.

[Audrey O'Brien]

Obviously this is an eminently political question, and it's an issue, if you will, so I think it's really you, as the elected representatives, who would have a better sense of that than I would. Again, I think what they're trying to do is to make available, for instance.... Again, assuming the positive side of this, where one has, for example, members downloading their participation in statements by members or in question period or in debate, I think what they want to exclude is ostensibly something where you would be downloading another member to argue or to in some sense take issue with what that person said.

It strikes me that this kind of protection is not a bad thing to put in, simply because, in a sense, it says to members that we are going to police ourselves as we ask other people to. We're going to treat each other with the respect that we ask other people to use in terms of the actual proceedings; we won't use the proceedings for purposes of the political side of things, the party politics, if you will.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Unless the member shown has given express authorization.

[Audrey O'Brien]

Yes, exactly--has agreed.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Because not all of the jurisdictions allow it, even if there's authorization. If one looks at British Columbia, it simply says it's not allowed to be used by any political party “for political party advertising, election campaigns or any other politically partisan activity”.

So it doesn't matter if Marlene Jennings says “Yes, you can use that clip of me in the House or in committee” and if I tell my party or my official agent they can use it: I'm not allowed to do that in British Columbia.

[Audrey O'Brien]

And it might be that you want to look into that to see why they've decided to exclude it completely and not leave it to the individual decision.

I think my colleague would like to comment on this question.

[Rob Walsh]

What restrictions you do or do not want to include, of course, is obviously a decision for the committee to make. It's not a choice that I should make. But there are issues that go with the choice you make. The general notice that has been handed out is my attempt to draft a notice applying to all of the reproductions that may go out. Right now we have three—which I think have also gone out to you. There's one that's used for broadcasting; there's one that's used for minutes and evidence of committees; and another for journals, which you get copies of.

Well, we're attempting to do something that would apply to all of them. And if I may say this, what is fundamental here is that you have to ask yourself where you want to be on the range. The Americans put it all out in the public domain, which means you can do anything you want with it. You can turn a member of Parliament into a talking kangaroo, whatever. You can do what you want with it.

The other extreme, of course, is to impose all kinds of limitations, preventing those sorts of absurdities, certainly, but also preventing other misuses, including commercial ones. Then the question becomes, how do you enforce that? Now, in this general notice I provided to you, you'll see in the second paragraph an italicized sentence. That's there simply to suggest a catalogue or listing of the various exclusions, some or all, or none, of which you might apply.

And I know, Ms. Jennings, you've pointed out that other jurisdictions include a restriction on the use of the material for political purposes. I just raise one question with you. It seems to me that this fundamental restriction that exists elsewhere ought to be thought about again, as if for the first time. In other words, in an institution like the House of Commons, where members are debating political issues, or debating them at committee, it would seem difficult to me to justify those debates not being used for political purposes. It's like taking an academic's lecture and saying you can record it, but you can't use it for educational purposes.

So that's a question that I think the committee ought to ask itself. Having said that, that's not necessarily to say it can be used for any political purposes. But in terms of electoral purposes, that's the issue for the committee. There was an incident—I can't remember in which election, but it might have been in 2006 or 2004—where there was a very short clip taken from a committee of a witness, a former minister, saying “I'm entitled to my entitlements”. You may recall that, and it was the gist of an ad. Clearly, there was a partisan purpose put to that, but you must ask if that was a misuse of what the witness said. The witness did say it.

These are the kinds of questions that the committee has to ask itself, because how do you control that happening? There wasn't anything that could be done about it. The electoral officer controls elections. Yes, the House of Commons could have launched into a series of processes leading to contempt, or whatever, but these are all very cumbersome, and even copyright action is cumbersome.

So I think at a practical level, you have to ask yourself to what extent you can insist that this material not be used for political purposes and still enforce it. Commercial gain and these other ones are the easier ones, if you want to include them. But that general notice is meant to indicate in the italicized portion that you could either take that sentence out altogether, or you could include it in some variation, selecting from those exclusions the ones you want to apply. But ask yourself the question of enforcement.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Okay, that's very good advice.

Do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

No, you're at ten minutes.

Mr. Reid.

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

Thank you.

I want to start by making a general observation. Our clerk came here this morning and described the staff as being diligent, which is high praise indeed, given its source. It's a bit like the Buddha appearing and telling you that you are contemplative.

I was going over this stuff, and I was trying to think of when House of Commons copyright rules have ever come into effect that have had some kind of influence in causing it to banish the Internet. The example that occurred to me was this. I believe that on the Wikipedia pages, all of us have articles written about us, with varying degrees of relationship to the truth. At any rate, we all have articles about us on Wikipedia. Pictures are posted. On my own there was a picture put up that I'm pretty sure was the House of Commons photograph of me in probably the 38th Parliament, and then it disappeared. I think it was because they were going along trying to get themselves fully compliant with the various copyright rules. I suspect that this happened, although I haven't actually gone through and checked, to many members of Parliament on the same basis.

Several thoughts come from that. One is that what would seem to be a reasonably harmless use of copyrighted information is now being prevented. The second thought is that still images are, in some respects, different from video. There may be cause to consider these things separately as we design some kind of generic notice. There might be cause for having several of them.

That was just an observation.

In terms of questions, though, with regard to the italicized words in the proposed generic notice, it does refer to distribution or use for electoral or partisan political purposes, and also for satire, for that matter. Doesn't that represent an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? I realize that there is no protection for commercial speech. That's a matter that could be debatable in the United States but is not under our charter.

It is one thing to go from general copyright restrictions to saying that we are now moving to a different world. You can use this for all kinds of purposes, but not when it comes to actually trying to influence people's behaviour in voting. And that does not apply just during a writ period, when you have the normal rules about attaching approval based on official agent criteria. It is actually saying that I can never use this if my goal is to influence people's behaviour. Surely what we say and do in this place is a relevant consideration. If I want to refer back and explain that this person deserves your vote or doesn't deserve your vote, or that the content of what they are saying deserves or doesn't deserve consideration, it seems to me that if it were taken before the courts, it would be seen as being a restriction on freedom of speech. And I would argue that section 1 of the charter would not save it.

[Rob Walsh]

I will respond in two respects. You have to look at the question in terms of parliamentary privilege or in terms of copyright. There is a decision of the Federal Court dealing with crown copyright. The argument was made about freedom of expression, and the court held that freedom of expression under the charter did not override the copyright entitlements of the holder of the copyright, which in that case was the crown.

On the question of parliamentary privilege, freedom of expression is one part of the Constitution; parliamentary privilege is another part of the Constitution, and the courts have held that one will not trump the other. So if this House were to decide that it shall, in fact, restrict freedom of expression when its material is being used in some manner that is contrary to its policy, I would think that the courts would uphold the privilege of the House to so restrict the use of their material. They are not restricting the comments someone wants to make about that material but are stricting the use of that material for purposes of comment.

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

What I'm getting at here is that if you go from generally saying that this is all copyrighted material to saying that it's usable for certain purposes but not for the purposes that lie at the heart of what this speech is for.... It's designed to be persuasive. So to say that persuasive speech cannot be used for persuasion and can only be used for....

What on earth defines a non-political use of political...? That's unless we're putting it up to say that, you know, I'm doing a study here on the fashion sensibility of members of Parliament: “Look how ill-dressed this person is. That one over there can't match colours”. The very essence of this is to be persuasive in one form or another by referring to it either favourably or critically. Showing it either favourably or critically would seem to be appropriate. I can't see how paraphrasing the speech improves it. Nobody thinks that my drawing extensively on quotations from the House of Commons and publishing chunks of Hansard or republishing it in the newspapers, even if I do it out of context, is in any way a breach of any law or rule or copyright. I'm having trouble distinguishing how this would represent something different.

[Audrey O'Brien]

If I may, Mr. Reid, I agree that speech is meant to be persuasive, but I think there is something vivid about video broadcasting. It's one thing to say you want to object, for instance, to the policy position being taken by a member in a given speech, but we can all imagine how readily something could be just....

I think the gavel-to-gavel protection initially put in when the House decided it was going to broadcast its proceedings, both in committees and in the House, was to avoid the possibility that there would be things taken out of context that could be terrifically damaging to a person. You can't unring the bell once that impression has been left.

I think it's more in that context, the idea being that if you're using a full exchange between people, then people can make up their minds for themselves. It's part of your argument about your position.

I think it's very easy to take things out of context and hold somebody up to ridicule. It's the same thing with the still images that are sometimes made from video. We've seen that, and it's not uncommon, certainly in--

[An hon. member]

Frank.

[Audrey O'Brien]

And perhaps in more reputable publications as well.

It's a difficult question.

[Rob Walsh]

To go to your earlier point on Wikipedia, we can't monitor all the outlets on the Internet where material from the House could be used. We get reports that something is on YouTube, and we've called YouTube and had it taken off. We'll endeavour to do that whenever we get a call saying someone doesn't like what they're doing or that something shouldn't be there or whatever. We use the tool of copyright for that purpose. The response usually is favourable and the material is removed.

To go back to your other point, I was essentially saying the same thing to Ms. Jennings. You can talk about ridicule and satire in terms of being offensive to the dignity of the institution, but you can talk about satire and ridicule as being political comment. Members themselves may bring the House into disrepute in the minds of Canadians. We all know about that debate. I leave it to you to untie the knot. Where do you draw the line between use of material that is disrespectful of the institution and use of material that is disrespectful of the person making the speech?

I would draw your attention to the generic notice and the general proposition in the beginning of the second paragraph that you can use this material in any medium as long as the reproduction is accurate and not presented as official. Having said that, once you start changing the record in some manner, even to make a point, you're offending this permission. You can't change it. That's not to say necessarily that you have to go from gavel to gavel, but you can't change it.

Some of you may have seen--I saw it on YouTube the first time--a video of a committee meeting where the witness had words or sounds put into the witness's mouth, and that also happened to one of the members. In our view, that clearly was a distortion--even though it may have been ridiculing or satirizing the institution--but others might have argued that it was political comment. I don't want to go there. It was a distortion of the product, so it would fall outside this permission and we would take action.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Madame DeBellefeuille.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for having come here this morning to discuss a topic that seems simple at first sight, but that is quite complex. I share Ms. Jennings' sentiments when she says that we have to bring ourselves up to date, that we have to move into the 21st century, the technological age. We have no choice. Even if we wanted to, we know that it is out of our control. Things move in all different directions on the web or via other technologies and we have no control over it.

I am quite concerned. It is all very well for us to pass a series of regulations, but, as Mr. Walsh said, we have neither the means nor the tools to control what happens on all the search engines. Even the police and the RCMP cannot detect sexual predators, for example. That is the difficulty we face. If we establish tighter regulations and stricter rules, we will have to give ourselves control mechanisms so that we can surf too, and react to each complaint and lay contempt charges and so on. We would make things difficult to manage for the people who would be looking after those activities.

Parliament is a public place and, if we make our proceedings and our discussions more and more accessible, we may also be able to have an indirect impact on people and interest them in politics. When Mr. Mayrand came to see us this week, I was struck by his remarks about the lack of interest in exercising their right to vote shown by Quebeckers and Canadians. He had a number of recommendations, including using the web as a tool to attract young people. They are more connected than you or I and they use the web everyday. If a Chief Electoral Officer is thinking of using the web to get young people to vote, we can think of making our proceedings accessible too.

This debate today notwithstanding, there has been more and more manipulation since the Internet has been in existence. You can take a photograph of a Member of Parliament or a public figure, you can change his nose, or put it at different angles. That is life and we have to get used to it. If an MP's words are changed, or if he is made to say things that are really unacceptable, there has to be some way for the MP at least to remove the words that have been attributed to him or to complain.

Like Ms. Jennings, I would tend to have some trust and to hope that the proceedings would be used in good faith. Mr. Guimond shares my view on the matter.

In the last general election, we were surprised to see things posted on party websites that were unacceptable. Subsequently, they were taken down. “Boys will be boys“ is not a sexist comment, it applies to girls too. We all know that abuses can occur. There were abuses before our debate today and there will always be abuses. But I rather like the idea of giving people wider access to our proceedings. We will have to establish rules so that we have some recourse and that remarks can be withdrawn after they have been broadcast and pointed out.

As for this case of the site that used discussions back in 2006, that organization clearly made unauthorized use of the information.

Mr. Walsh, even though we are beginning a process of modifying the regulations today, what are we going to do about that organization? No question of privilege has been raised. What will happen to this organization under our old regulations?