I'm sorry. I was eating my dinner.
Thank you for your public service and thank you for working with this committee to find a solution to protect the privacy of individuals, which we want to do as parliamentarians—this is an act that we passed—but also for providing us with information so that we can better understand the situation at hand. We recognize that this is a balancing act.
Thank you for raising the operating document, “Open and Accountable Government”. As Mr. Chong said, it may not have the force of law; however, it is an operating document that has been quite a rerouting from the previous Harper government, which actually did not want to do open and accountable government and sought various ways to thwart that. I speak of that very knowledgeably, as someone who was an opposition MP during those times. I understand that moment in history.
We are attempting to have an open and accountable government. At the same time, we have questions that we want answered.
You have raised the issue of being in compliance with the Privacy Act as public servants, which you are compelled to do. As you know, this committee is a committee of Parliament, and parliamentarians have certain rights and responsibilities as well. We're trying to square that off. I would like to know a little bit about the legal advice you got with respect to the redactions you put into the documents, which are quite real. We recognize that, and I find them frustrating myself, even as a member of Parliament from the government benches.
Could you explain? You're very welcome to turn to legal counsel from the Department of Justice as well if you're not feeling comfortable. I'm very happy to hear either of you outline the criteria you used as public servants who are obligated to follow that law as well.