Finance committee  Well, I thought the thing to do was to have these documents reviewed by a panel of members in secrecy so they could choose which ones should not be made public, because making them public would cause a breach of national security. That was the purpose of it. My understanding was

Finance committee  I don't recall any such lawsuit when I was there, no.

Finance committee  I can't imagine how they could if they've exercised their authority properly.

Finance committee  I think Don's comments are absolutely correct. The Speaker can make a decision on this matter if it's raised there, but whether it would be raised is another issue. Matters do come that way, occasionally, before the Chair. The Chair can decide whether Parliament's privileges have

Finance committee  I'm not sure how this all began. I assume it was not a cabinet decision to suspend the bill's immediate application. I assume it was something that was recommended to them or dealt with by public servants, who said, “We don't want to do this right away. We can delay this for a wh

Finance committee  No. Right.

Finance committee  Thank you for inviting me to appear. I haven't done this for a long time. I'm sorry we're not meeting in person on Parliament Hill or in the other building that you now meet in, but I hope all goes well. I was interested to read in the media about the problems with this bill and

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I was not aware of that. Certainly hearing witnesses I don't think has been restricted from what you've said; providing documents is another issue. I'm surprised that's the case, but certainly the House could demand production of the documents and then the committee could look a

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't think there ought to be limits on a committee's power to call witnesses and stuff, regardless of how they're sitting, whether it's in person or whether it's a screen like this, because they can perfectly easily hear witnesses as you've just done this afternoon from us her

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You mean motions to move what?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It was just done by changes to the rules of the House?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't know. I never had to deal with this kind of issue when I was in office. I never saw it happen. I'm sure I would have taken the advice as—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, that's accurate. I'm not opposed to having them but I think they're going to be very difficult to manage properly. So that's why I suggested maybe one or two sitting days a week max where the House would sit and deal with very limited stuff and send a lot to the committees a

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It would be a matter of privilege if they couldn't get into it. I hadn't thought of that as an issue, but they don't have to do it from their own riding; they could go to the provincial capital or a nearby city in their constituency and do the work from there. They don't have to

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I agree. Almost all of my meetings have been Zoom meetings, and so I feel fairly familiar with this in some ways. But, as I say, when it's a much bigger screen with potentially 10 times as many people at least on there, it's going to be very difficult to examine it and see w