Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The point I was raising was about the irony. Earlier in the meeting, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe had raised the problem of the minister who proactively referred these documents to the NSICOP, yet he was concerned because there was not a member of the Bloc Québécois on that committee.
I wanted to raise the irony of that, because there was a member of the Bloc Québécois nominated by their party, appointed by the order in council on recommendation of the Prime Minister, yet this member, the member for Saint-Jean, quit the committee. That's a matter of public record. There is no longer a member on the committee. She was appointed in 2020 following the election. She's not a member.
Because I'm not privy to this, I have no idea what the situation is, but the reason there's not a member of the Bloc Québécois on NSICOP is not that we didn't appoint one as a government. The Prime Minister did appoint one, but she quit.
That was the point I was attempting to make. The criticism of the minister referring these documents to that committee was simply inappropriate if the basis was that the committee didn't have a member of the Bloc Québécois on it.
That was that second irony that I wanted to raise. That was all I wanted to do with those two points. The minister has proactively given all of the documents, even though, if demanded, she might have had grounds to refuse based on the legislation, but she chose to give all of the documents to ensure that a full hearing is made.
There was another issue raised. Because she referred them to NSICOP, that was absolutely taken as a breach of national security.
I want to ask the minister this. Did she refer the documents to NSICOP to request if there was a breach of security, and if so, was it handled appropriately? Would that be a reason to refer something to such a committee?