I've now gotten compliments from the NDP, and from Ms. Jansen on the tone of my voice, and Mr. Fragiskatos jumped to my defence. If only we had a Green Party member here, and of course our representative from the Bloc, whom I don't see because it's darkened, but I'll wait; perhaps I'll receive one in French before the meeting is done.
Mr. Chair, look, I will wrap up here. To Ms. Jansen's point, this is very much debate, but this is debate on the subamendment, which I think is appropriate.
The crux of my point is this. The transmittal letters are the subject of this subamendment. As it stands, under the main motion or the proposed amendment, the transmittal letters and other documents that specifically explain why the government made the redactions it did are being sought to be excluded by members of the opposition. I think if this motion goes anywhere, it should include the government's explanation before this committee declares the government to have violated its privilege as a result of the redactions it has made.
Specifically, the motion before the committee, as I've repeated a number of times, as was pointed out, to address Mr. Julian's point, to the people who prepared my presentation...are the non-partisan public servants who've written those letters that are sought to be excluded from the committee's record right now. But the points made by each of those letters are largely these. The committee never asked for anything that was subject to cabinet confidence or that would compromise national security. To the extent that any redactions touched on cabinet confidence or national security, those are really not an issue for this committee. In fact, there were no redactions made on the basis of national security. We know that because the transmittal letters say so. The committee may not formally know that if they don't include the transmittal letters in the record.
The second category of documents that were not subject to a request by this committee is the category of cabinet confidences. Similarly, if the argument is that a failure to divulge cabinet confidence constitutes a violation of this committee's privilege, there would be no basis...and in fact I don't think that would be disputed. Nevertheless, the government actually did disclose material that would ordinarily be subject to cabinet confidence.