Mr. Chair, I would like to propose the following amendment to this motion. The amendment would read, “provided that the department does its assessment and vetting in gathering and releasing the documents as it would be done through the access to information process”.
As the members know, our federal departments are always discussing issues under provincial jurisdictions with their provincial colleagues. Many of these communications are included in documents that could be caught up in this motion as it stands now. The amendment I propose would ensure communication and trust between the provinces and the federal government is protected. This is a matter of protecting private information, while at the same time ensuring the committee gets the information it is looking for.
Furthermore, it's clear that the opposition members also agreed with this at one point, as this language has already been used in motions in AGRI and OGGO. It's reasonable that we use the same approach now, Mr. Chair.