It is, “Usual Order of Business for Committee Study Leading to a Substantive Report”. Decisions to study.... We have here in this figure a list of steps that are involved in carrying out a study of the kind in which we are now engaged. What I have learned by looking at this figure is that the way in which you are carrying out this meeting is in violation of that order of business.
The steps are as follows. A decision to conduct a study is made. The drafting of a work plan, schedule, and witness list is established. Briefings to committee members are provided. Hearings of witnesses and gathering of advice and opinions are produced. There are proceedings relating to the draft report, which will come later. There are review, revision, and adoption of the draft report, and presentation of the report to the House of Commons. Finally, there is the government response if the standing or special committee has requested one.
Now, the most important step of all in this is the second-last one, which is the presentation of the report to Parliament. That is because this committee is an arm of the House of Commons and it works for the House of Commons.
The House of Commons has established an Information Commissioner through legislation, through statute, through law. That Information Commissioner has issued an order. That order has been provided to the witness in writing.
To counter that, you have produced a rough regurgitation of a conversation that you claim to have had this morning at 9 a.m. You have not produced any documentation to support either the existence of that conversation or its contents.
Right now,you are in the process of demanding that the witness violate an order provided to him by an officer created through statute of the House of Commons, and if that House is supreme, then so too are its laws, and we as a committee cannot instruct the violation of those laws.
So I would ask that in the interests of the rule of law, you advise members to cease all questions that would violate a written order from an officer of Parliament whose powers are laid out in statute adopted not only by the House, but by Parliament itself. That is my point.