Thank you.
Madam Chair, first I'd like to thank the committee for its collective wisdom in agreeing to keep the matters in camera. Specifically, I'd like to thank the members from the NDP for supporting that motion. As I mentioned yesterday, I really did feel—and I still do feel—that we've opened the door to a practice that I believe, sooner than any of us think, will be regrettable. We might want to close that barn door later.
That said, the committee chose to adopt this motion. I salute the committee, in particular the NDP, for agreeing to try to limit the scope of the information that is going to be collected from private individuals. I think, Madam Chair, that this is giving us an opportunity.
Mr. Barrett raises a fair point. I'd like to reassure him that no one is calling into question the rectitude of members to respect the in camera process. What Madam Shanahan has actually raised is, frankly, nothing more than spelling out the practice. It's making explicit what usually has been implicit in the practices of the House, in terms of dealing with in camera material.
This way, you're really ensuring that this kind of information doesn't, through whatever means, get distributed beyond the members around this table, and it doesn't impede us in any way, because it allows us to continue to do the work. It allows us to examine the material that has been requested. It allows us to make a report, and to make that report known. You can accuse me of many things, but I think one thing you can't accuse me of is not being consistent. I remain consistent on this point. This is now politicians investigating politicians, and I think this could lead to some real trouble down the line.
I'd be happy to engage with any members who would at least give this a fair listen, fair consideration, to see if this is something that we can agree to. We should take the time that is necessary for people to have the opportunity to consider this and to consider what we're trying to do.
Madam Chair, if someone wanted to consider this and set forward a time by which we could come back and make a decision on this shortly, I'd be open to that. We would need to make sure that before this information comes in and gets distributed around.... We really should think about what we want to do here and try to preserve the integrity of our committee. As I said, it could start off with this particular situation, but this could easily—
This can easily get out of hand, Madam Chair, and we could start investigating a lot of things, such as the private lives of members or their families. That is not desirable.
If the committee decides that this is the route it wants to take, we will do so, but we can at least set up some guidelines, some safeguards, so that we stay on the rails. It needs to be explicitly stated that we must work in camera. I think that would be a good thing. No one would talk about it and all privileges would be maintained. The precedent that we are going to set must be crystal clear for the future work of various committees.
Thank you, Madam Chair.