I think it's important, Mr. Chairman, to make sure the committee is aware that there is a requirement on the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner to report publicly at the conclusion of an investigation if the commissioner has determined that there has been wrongdoing. There is certainly a public reporting requirement on the commissioner.
In terms of distinctions between the motion proposed by amendment NDP-21.2 and the motion proposed by amendment BQ-31, there are a couple of questions to note about BQ-31.
I'm not sure if this was the intention or not, but as we read and analyzed it, it appeared that this particular amendment was creating an exemption for information obtained or created that would apply only during the year that follows the conclusion of the investigation, but not during the investigation. It has a bit of a temporal application that I think raises an issue, in that the protection on records obtained or created applies only for the year after the investigation is completed, as opposed to during the actual conduct of the investigation. That may be just an error in drafting, I'm not sure, but it's something to point out.
The other thing is that the NDP amendment is very specific about the nature of the timeframes in which the head of a government institution is protecting information.
That's an attempt to be helpful to the committee. There are some areas of distinction.