All right. “Jack, Gregory”; I think the name is Gregory Jack, in any event. I think he's a public servant at the public safety ministry. All members will have a chance to see this, and they've already read summaries in the media. It's effectively just minutes of a conference call between officials of the public safety ministry on March 15 dealing with a number of issues, particularly related to security. It's called the “security and pandemic” call.
The one operative line here that has caused so much concern says: “Noted there will shortly be another Bronskill/CIA Planes article, as new ATIP info is going out from PSEP.” I gather that means Public Safety and Emergency Planning. “The info essentially reiterates that normal procedures were followed and nothing abnormal was discovered.”
This e-mail was then circulated to departmental staff and communications officials on the politically exempt staff side of both PMO and the Minister of Public Safety's office.
When the government made inquiries about this, we were told that the circulation of these minutes of conference calls of officials on communications issues was a standard practice, and that political staff had not requested this information and certainly hadn't requested Bronskill's name, and furthermore, according to the deputy secretary of cabinet at the Privy Council Office, that the officials who used Bronskill's name did not actually know for certain that he was the requester but simply made a deduction or drew an inference from the fact that he had written a series of stories on this issue.
I'm just asking you, if you accept the facts as they've been presented to us and have been presented publicly, is that a plausible explanation of how this name could have ended up being circulated?