Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think it's clear among everyone in this committee that there is more information that we require. It's definitely needed, and we are well within our rights as a committee to request the presentation of documents, contracts and so on.
My concern is in the request for them to be “unredacted”. While I can appreciate that we really are pushing here to get the transparency we need, it's a precedent that we have to consider in terms of other committees. If it's tabled here, then it will have impacts elsewhere.
There are times when contracts and information do need to be redacted. I've had my own experience on the foreign affairs committee, where we had initial documents presented to us that were redacted. Once we reviewed them, we asked for additional clarifications.
We always have to be mindful of security concerns and of privacy concerns of corporations and so on, and also the precedent. If we always ask for unredacted documents, then witnesses will not necessarily co-operate.