Yes, Mr. Chair, I feel a little remiss in regard to my duty last time. When you were elected chair, we didn't get an official chance to congratulate you. We're looking forward to working with you. We have a very good committee here, and we work on all matter of things. I'm looking forward to working with you as chair. I'm glad to see you at our committee. You probably know this file better than any of us.
I would like to suggest that we move forward in a collegial attitude. I think one of the key issues will be how we deal with the in camera issue. I would like to move a motion regarding the rules for meeting in camera, which we should be debating here.
I was on a school board. Some people come from municipal boards, school boards, or municipalities. We have very clear rules in regard to in camera in all manner of things except, it seems, the House of Commons. Even in the dodgy old Senate they actually have rules for meeting in camera that are superior to ours, and I'm saying as an elected member of Parliament that I am rather shocked, a little let down, and perhaps a little embarrassed by that.
I would like to move the following motion:
That the Committee may meet in camera only for the purpose of discussing:
(a) wages, salaries and other employee benefits;
(b) contracts and contract negotiations;
(c) labour relations and personnel matters;
(d) a draft report;
(e) briefings concerning national security; and
That all votes taken in camera be recorded in the Minutes of Proceedings, including how each member voted when recorded votes are requested.
I think you'll find that this is basic for democratic accountability. Certainly, I have heard you in the past, Mr. Chair, say about openness and transparency are the lifeblood, the oxygen, of democracy. As a student of that, I think this would be a good way. I just want to go through it.
Certainly, it's a standard when you're dealing with municipalities, provincial.... Even on the issue of wages, salaries, and employee benefits, certainly, that has to be done in camera out of respect for the employees in question. Certainly, for issues of contracts or contract negotiations, that's obviously something you would want to deal with in camera. If you're dealing with personnel matters, or labour relations, or issues about someone, we would have to actually walk through this and try to figure out a way to deal with someone's reputation, perhaps, and we would want to go in camera as colleagues to discuss it.
On the work of our draft reports, it's very important that we be able to speak freely to each other within the form of a draft report so we can actually make sure that we come to the best conclusion. Sometimes that's better done in camera. We've never had a practice, as far as I can recall, of doing that in public for the work of all parliamentarians.
Obviously, on the issue of anything to do with a sensitive briefing, for example, national security, we would certainly, as parliamentarians, go in camera.
I think the issue of making sure that in the Minutes of Proceedings the votes are recorded is important, because what happens is that we're seeing the suppression of discussion. A motion comes before committee, then we go in camera, and then the public never knows who supported and who opposed the motion. I think that's very, very problematic, because what ends up happening is the actual privileges of the members, I believe, are interfered with when you go in and you have a very clear position on how you want to vote for something but you're not allowed to tell people how you voted. If your vote is defeated or the other...you are left giving the public the impression that perhaps you supported a vote you were opposed to, or that you opposed a vote you think is important. On the issue of how we are recorded, even if we are in camera and have an in camera discussion, the recording of the vote and releasing that publicly I think allows a little amount of transparency for the public in understanding how their committee is working.
Also, Mr. Chair, no committee I think is more important for accountability and transparency than the ethics and accountability committee. We're charged with the issue of ensuring fair, open, and accessible government. It seems to me that if we run a secretive, paranoid club where every time there's an issue that comes before a committee we go in camera and the public never knows what we're doing, then obviously this is not much of an ethics committee at all. It would be a rubber-stamp committee, so we perhaps would be compelled to change the name of the committee.
If we are going to be the committee that deals with the four officers of Parliament—the lobbying commissioner, the ethics commissioner, the privacy commissioner, and the access to information commissioner, who's coming before our committee on the issues of the accountability of government, and particularly on the issues of transparency—then I think this motion on where we meet in camera is a very reasonable one.
I certainly am open to debating it with my colleagues right now, and I'll put forward the motion.
Thank you.