I have one more.
This one, Mr. Chairman, would be more familiar to previous members of Parliament, but I'll read the motion first: That all proceedings of the committee shall be public except, one, when discussing a draft report, or two, when at least two-thirds of the committee members so determine.
I'll speak to it briefly, Mr. Chairman.
You may have had the experience, as I did with previous Parliaments, that the previous government and committees went in camera a lot, and any time committee business was discussed, there was automatically a motion to go in camera, and all committee business went in camera. Many of us, as parliamentarians, felt that was an inappropriate use of the power of in camera. It shielded important committee deliberations from the public. For instance, if we were discussing committee business about what we might want to study, then none of that was made public and we couldn't talk about it. However, I do recognize that the one very important part of the in camera business is when we are discussing a report, and that's when we want to be in camera, so that we can have a frank discussion among ourselves about the witness testimony and evidence, and I think that's appropriate.
The second part I've just drafted. I couldn't think of another appropriate time to go in camera, but I think one could arise, so that's why I thought that when this committee itself so determines, it could go in camera. I picked two-thirds because that would mean seven. That would require that all of the government members and at least one member of the opposition would support that.
I would move that this motion be adopted by this committee in the spirit of transparency and the public conduct of this committee.