Thank you.
Very briefly, Mr. Chair, I want to rebut two points that Bernard made.
The first involves his concern that it would be impossible to codify or list every eventuality whereby we might want to go in camera. There's nothing stopping the committee, by unanimous consent—or even a majority vote, I suppose... no, it would have to be by unanimous consent—to bypass the rules as they are, in an emergency exigency such as the example he used.
Second, the issue is not whether we're televised or not televised and about how the actors might behave differently if the TV were turned on. Most of our committee meetings are not televised, even when they're public. The issue is the secrecy associated with an in camera meeting: that no one is allowed to ever find out who said what or how people voted; they only learn the outcome of the meeting, but with none of the detail and none of the content associated with the meeting. That's the secrecy that I think should offend people's sensibilities. The people I represent have the right to know how I conducted myself at a committee meeting and how I voted on certain issues. Now all they know is the end result.
Those are two of the points that were made that I disagree with. I don't think there's any justification, for instance, to go in camera on the clause-by-clause analysis of a bill. We see that happen all the time. The public is probably interested, as we deal with clause-by-clause study and amendments that may be put forward. That door has been closed habitually at most committees that deal with legislation.
Our government operations committee rarely deals with legislation as such. We're dealing mostly with government operations or Treasury Board issues; we don't go clause by clause on bills quite as often. But the same reasoning and the same logic applies: the public has a right to know what their elected officials are doing, what they're saying, and how they're voting, except in what we believe are very limited circumstances.