Thank you.
I had intended to speak to the motion, but I am happy to speak to the amendment.
I support the idea that the motion isn't complete, but I think the amendment is presupposing something that we don't necessarily need to presuppose at this time. I don't think that's about consequences; I think that's about tying the committee's hands too early. We want to take time to do this well.
I won't be supporting the amendment as is, even though I'm not totally against it. What I think I would do if we were to defeat the amendment is amend the motion differently to very explicitly ask for the law clerk to review the documents, which I think was in Mr. Harris' mind, with an eye as to the appropriateness or validity of the redactions and to advise the committee on that.
The law clerk could have two sets of documents, one redacted and one unredacted. He's our lawyer, our legal adviser. He could look at them, review them and give a report to us, and we could then bring him back. At that point, if he advises us that he thinks the documents are inappropriately or overly redacted, we could move a motion similar to what Mr. Genuis would move. I think it's a motion I've heard before. It could make sense, but it presupposes an outcome from an event that hasn't taken place yet.
I don't know whether seven days is appropriate, but I don't see anything wrong with that. I can't really give notice for an amendment, but I'll signal to my colleagues on the committee that I think we should defeat the amendment, as it is premature. It changes the nature of this quite a bit and does something that I think the committee might want to do or might not want to do. Let's take our time and do this one step at a time.
I think that is in the spirit of where we were on the first motion. We now have a fuller set of documents and we brought back the agency. I'm a little nervous that they haven't had full time to explain things, because I think very important questions could be asked by members, but that's okay; we are where we are. Still, let's take our time.
I would advise again—and I'm sorry that I'm repeating myself a third time—that it would be important to defeat the amendment. However, let's very clearly ask the law clerk to do a task for us and advise us. Then we can entertain the kind of motion that Mr. Genuis has in mind.