Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Nicholson continued by adding:
The government wishes to provide members with the information that is necessary for them to perform their duty of holding the government to account. Ministers and public servants will always strive to provide parliamentarians with information in a full and transparent manner, but we must balance this obligation with our fundamental duty to protect information for reasons of national security, national defence and foreign relations. This has been our approach in relation to the issue of the transfer of Afghan prisoners.
Mr. Chair, as you will recall, the December order called for uncensored documents. It listed eight different categories of documents to be produced. The order did not specify exactly when such documents should be produced, who should produce them or whom they should be produced for. The order made no reference to the confidential information being protected or that the Security of Information Act or other laws would be respected.
In light of this I would like to take the opportunity to note the following facts for your information and for the information of the House:
In dealing with matters that must legitimately be kept secret for reasons of state, there is a dilemma in establishing a system of control. At some point secrecy must end and publicity begin, and at this juncture there must inevitably be a gap in knowledge and power 'to send for persons, papers and records' between the controllers and the controlled. If Parliament shares the secret knowledge, then the press and public must accept Parliament's viewpoint on trust; if Parliament is not privy to the secrets, then Parliament must accept some other person's conclusions on trust. There is little evidence in Canada that either Parliament or the public would accept Parliament as part of the inner circle of control, privy to the secrets of state. Crown privilege is part of the common law that recognizes that Parliament has a duty to protect these and other public interests.
While the member opposite may wish to invoke the idea of parliamentary supremacy to support this point it must be remembered that the Crown is as much a constituent part of Parliament as is the House of Commons and the Senate. These parts can act to define the powers of each through statute but the House alone cannot make law nor extend the scope of its privileges. The government wishes to provide members with the information that is necessary for them to perform their duty of holding the government to account. The government, of course, has great respect for the work of the House of Commons and its committees. Ministers and public servants will always strive to provide parliamentarians with information in a full, transparent manner. However, we must balance this obligation with our fundamental duty to protect information for national security, national defence and foreign relations. This has been a consistent approach by successive governments.
He ends his remarks by saying the following:
In 1887 Alpheus Todd, the former Librarian of Parliament, explained the principle as follows in his treatise on parliamentary government: Considerations of public policy, and a due regard to the interests of the State, occasionally demand, however, that information sought for by members of the legislature should be withheld, at the discretion and upon the general responsibility of ministers. This principle is systematically recognised in all parliamentary transactions: were it otherwise, it would be impossible to carry on the government with safety and honour.
Those are the relevant points that I wanted to read into the record. It is important for us to consider, particularly for our Conservative friends across the way, because members of their own party have voiced positions that now contradict the current perspective and position of Conservative members on this committee and the current Conservative leadership, might I add.
This will make Mr. Julian happy, I think, if I could have read into the record the quotation from Mr. Poilievre that comes from 2014 in which he voiced a position that mirrors very much what we have heard tonight from his previous colleagues. I won't do that because I've done it in previous meetings and in keeping with what you've called for here, Mr. Chair, to stay on topic because I always do. I see Mr. Julian nodding his head in agreement and I appreciate that.
The fact remains that we have a contradiction in position. The Conservative Party, when they were in government, held a particular point of view that now does not at all align with the take they have taken in opposition, the position they have put forward at these meetings, in Parliament and in the public. In my mind, this raises a fundamental question, and that relates to democracy itself.
The opposition has a fundamental role to play in any democracy, in any meaningful democracy. Citizens must trust their government, but they must also trust their opposition to raise matters of importance and to be consistent in their perspective on the issues.
When the opposition, in this case, is not maintaining consistency, then it raises a particular problem, one where, I would say, the faith of citizens is called directly into question. That itself—