Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll be brief. Very respectfully, if a particular member wants this committee to work well and in a collegial fashion, that member should not engage in secret negotiations with the government, with respect to the process of these documents allegedly being handed over, that do not include all the parties on this committee.
I agree that the work of this committee on many fronts is critically important. The right of this committee to access documents is also critically important. The rights of parliamentary committees and the conventions that are core to the rights of parliamentarians in our Constitution are also critically important.
We could have taken time tomorrow. We could have set aside time today. The reason this was necessary in particular this week, the matter of urgency, was the revelation of the secret negotiations that required this committee to pronounce on this issue.
My final point is that comparisons were made to the situation of the Afghan detainee documents. Let's remember that in the case of the Afghan detainee documents, Speaker Milliken made a ruling. That ruling said that Parliament had the right to access those documents but that he would allow time for dialogue between all parties. That dialogue occurred and it was done fully in accordance with the ruling of Speaker Milliken—Speaker Milliken who, ironically, was elected originally as a member of the Liberal caucus.
When Speaker Rota, who unlike Speaker Milliken was elected by the party of the government at the time, made a ruling, the government did not follow his ruling, and in fact subsequently took him to court. The way that the government of Stephen Harper acted towards Speaker Milliken and the way that this government acted towards Speaker Rota could not be more different: in one case, abiding by the ruling; in the other case, taking the Speaker to court.
The arguments are there and I'm prepared to proceed to a vote, but let me just say that of all the issues that we deal with as a committee, everything is ultimately downstream from our recognition of the rights of parliamentary committees, their ability to compel documents, to compel evidence, and the substantive role of those committees to act from those particular rights. That is our prime directive as a committee: the ability to use those rights to access documents and information and to inform government through that access in ways that other people studying the same issues don't have the powers to do.
We cannot cede that and we cannot accept the solution that takes as its premise that the government doesn't have to comply with the orders of parliamentary committees. On that point, we firmly stand.