Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just want to make one point and I don't want to belabour it. I think we all agree that confidentiality on this issue is essential and paramount. It is absolute. Obviously we're at the tail end of possible submissions coming in, and the bidding is coming forward.
Reading from Marleau and Montpetit, confidentiality is not assured simply because a matter is heard in camera. That is something that's an understanding of committees. This whole idea that we can discuss in camera confidential matters that the bank has signed on to and the government has signed on.... Even Marleau and Montpetit has guaranteed us that this can't happen. That's the first point.
The second point is one Garth made earlier. He said that even though he wasn't in the meeting, he had been briefed on what happened in the meeting. That is an indictment of somebody in this committee who divulged information that was categorically confidential and was to be kept in this committee meeting. It essentially speaks to just the severity of the issue: that you cannot have the minister coming here divulging all of the information and then expecting to keep it in this room.
I understand that conversations happen, and that's exactly what Marleau and Montpetit identified, and it is essentially what the minister identified as being the necessary insurance to ensure that this confidentiality is not broken.