Mr. Owen may remember this. A journalist came to interview me on an issue that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs was considering in camera. He seemed to know everything about what we were doing. I asked Mr. Owen if this individual had gone to see him and I told him that this individual seemed to know a lot of things. Mr. Owen reminded me that it was something that had occurred almost a year earlier and that this individual had perhaps consulted the committee minutes to see what had happened a year prior in committee and had more or less guessed what we were discussing. This individual seemed to have a lot of information, but it had nothing to do with our in camera meeting.
Quite frankly, I very nearly slipped up. I started to say things and I had to ask myself whether we had sat in camera or not. Sometimes, we can no longer remember. We know that we sat in camera for such and such a Bill or report. But since we sit in camera nearly twice a day, it is extremely difficult to remember which meetings were in camera. We discuss really serious issues in camera and sometimes a member no longer remembers which end is up.
How many investigations will we need to do? We can take this seriously and draft new Standing Orders, but we would completely paralyze our work by conducting all these investigations. We might as well build prisons next door and lock people up. We're going to impose $9,000 or $10,000 fines; France even talked about a $15,000-fine and one year in prison!
If we adopt a Standing Order, we must comply with it. Otherwise, people will laugh at us. If someone violates a Standing Order and we do nothing, we will have adopted all these Standing Orders and sanctions for nothing.
To what extent are we serious when people disclose information related to in camera deliberations? I do not disagree with what you are saying, I simply want us to think about it. If an issue is important enough to be presented to the committee, to Parliament and to the public, perhaps people would think twice before doing it again.