What it relates to, sir, is the attitude of PCO to defy the obligation of your department to honour the responsibility that you have when an order of a committee of Parliament is made for you to produce documents.
It's not subject to any test that you choose to apply to it, or if you look to past practices of your predecessors or other individuals. That's not the test that needs to apply. The test that needs to apply is that we have the power, as Parliament, to request those documents. Your failure to produce them is a breach of the privileges of Canada's Parliament.
What happens when you do that, as a department, when PCO does that or agents acting on behalf of PCO do that...and they do it during successive governments. They say, “Look, we've been doing this for a long time.” I don't think that's an encouraging sign to Canadians. I don't think it's an honourable defence for someone to say, “Well, we've been breaking the law for 10 years. There are lots of different people who held elected office over the course of 10 years and we got away with it, so we're going to continue to do it.”
That's the precedent that has been established. There are hundreds of years of precedent that this law has existed under. Parliamentary privilege is not subjected to tests applied by PCO or by departments. It is a question that has been settled in law. I have not heard an argument from you that excuses you from your responsibility to furnish this committee with those documents.