Thank you. I appreciate my colleague's intervention. There's certainly no vinegar over here this morning; we're all honey.
I'm surprised we had overlooked the issue of technical briefings. I thank my colleague for examining that, because I look at the way our committee has worked. Certainly some of the reviews we've done have been extremely technical, and it's incumbent upon all of us to really know the file. Sometimes that's difficult when we are in the issues of the traditional cross-examination. It's the issue of trust we're talking about, how a committee works. Certainly, there has been a lack of trust regarding the issue of meeting in camera because when it's overused, it makes people feel that it's being abused, and then people become defensive.
Towards the end of last spring our committee was starting to work fairly well together. We could actually sit down and say there were issues we all probably needed to delve into more deeply. We would agree to sit down and go through an issue. One time we had technical people come before us. Sometimes even among ourselves we feel there's maybe something we're not hitting accurately. I think it's well worth adding technical briefings. We're not trying to tie the hands of our committee here. We're just trying to make sure we have basic rules of accountability so that anyone from the public who's looking will say that this is a committee that is meeting the criteria of accountable democratic processes.
I was on a very small rural school board, the Northeastern Catholic District School Board. We had many rules that seemed to be much stricter than those existing in Parliament. I find that shocking. We had only 13 schools from Cochrane down to Cobalt. There was little St. Pat's in Cobalt which I represented. We had really clear rules. When you come here it sometimes seems to be a little bit of a wild west situation. The rules are whatever the majority makes. That's not really accountability. I'm sure my colleagues in all parties would agree.
I'm worried about how we would interpret the term “technical briefings”. We get technical briefings that deserve to be in public. Certainly, when departmental staff come, when a minister's staff comes, those are technical briefings.
For the goodwill of the committee we would be willing to accept this amended motion within the spirit in which we all understand it. This is about our sometimes being able to dig deeper as a committee working together to make sure we fully understand an issue before we come back on a report, because it is about our ability to do due diligence. I'm certainly trusting that my colleagues on the government side wouldn't be using the words “technical briefing” to allow for all manner of in camera work that wouldn't be in the spirit of this.
So, in the spirit of the honey with which it was given, I will add it to the tea we're making here this morning and offer everyone to have a cup of kindness.