Thanks, Chair. There was a lot said there.
We've gone back in our time machine to 2010 to find an incident of a staff member leaking a document. I don't know; maybe they got fired, maybe they didn't.
Mrs. Shanahan asked about secret clearance. None of my staff have security clearance. I don't think there's a provision for MPs' staff to have security clearance, nor are MPs cleared, unless it's a requirement. I had a top-secret clearance when I served in the military, but it's not current and it's not required. The clearance that we require is the one that we take on the day we officially become members, and that's the oath of office. It's that we “solemnly and sincerely promise and swear that [we] will truly and faithfully, to the best of [our] knowledge, execute the powers and trusts reposed in [us]. So help [us] God.” That's the clearance we use. With respect to our staff, they handle all kinds of information from our offices.
In this case, we have members who are not able to come to Ottawa. We have a situation here where people need to put a little water in their wine. This is not the original motion that I put forward in the summer. But some things have changed, folks. Prorogation has happened. When we put this forward at the time, in the summer, there was a second motion. There were restrictions put on it. I'm not creating some kind of structure to allow a leak.
If you like the motion, vote for it. If you don't like the motion, vote against it and propose a different one. Everyone was in a big hurry 50 minutes ago to leave this meeting. Everyone has seen this motion before. Everyone can see it now. The change that I've suggested is eminently reasonable. With respect, how would your staff talk to you? There's never any limiting factor on what we can talk about, for me to be able to call another member of this committee on the phone, having viewed these documents in the clerk's office with them.
Mr. Dong, you and I can attend the clerk's office together, look at them. You go back to your constituency; I go back to my Hill office. We pick up the phone and we talk about it. We're allowed to do that. There's no requirement for use of encrypted devices. This isn't national security. We're talking about an issue of someone's first name and last name, and on what date they attended an event and how much they were paid for it. It's not in my interest to leak any of this. I'm not sure in whose interest it would be.
For members who were in a mad rush to get out of here 50 minutes ago, let's just put our hands down and call the question. You can vote against it.
Mr. Fergus, you talked about the will of the committee. Well, guess what? It's a new session of Parliament. The Liberal Prime Minister prorogued to avoid accountability in dealing with corruption in his government, so now the committee has to take new decisions. Well, based on that, some of those decisions that the committee made before, in a previous session, might be different.
I will slow my pace down because I know in the past I've been asked to be respectful of the good work our interpreters do. My apologies to the interpreters and to my colleagues who are listening through translation services. They offer me the same courtesy when they're speaking.
I'll leave it there. To my colleagues, we can drag this out over a couple of meetings, or we can vote on it today. If the will of the committee is similar to that of the committee from the previous session, then the motion will be defeated. A new motion can be put forward. If it's in the interest of members of this committee to get the information, my goodness, wouldn't it be a pleasant surprise to see a Liberal member of the committee put forward a motion to order the documents from Speakers' Spotlight and have them produced under conditions that they believe are favourable, and then see if members of the opposition vote with them?
I encourage all members that we move swiftly to calling the question.