Thank you.
I have a fair degree of sympathy for the underlying premise of the motion. I do recall a number of occasions when I felt that the ability to go in camera simply on a motion without debate.... You know how it works. If someone were to say, “Let's go in camera right now,” we'd have to have a vote and it would be up or down and we'd go in camera. Likewise in reverse, when we are coming out of in camera.
I have a couple thoughts about abuses of this I've seen in the past. It used to frustrate me enormously that the private members' business committee met exclusively in camera. That was a holdover of an earlier era in previous parliaments, when private members' business was essentially conducted by MPs trying to explain to the committee why their item should be made votable, because items were actually not votable unless approved by the subcommittee, then by this committee, and finally by the House.
Those of us who go back to the Parliament elected in 2000 will remember what a ruthless process that was. After that Parliament was over and the rules were changed as a result of a motion that started in this committee, what happened was that private members' business items could be killed in committee for reasons that were frankly preposterous, that held no water, or simply because the majority of members in that private members' business committee would say, we just want to kill this. Since you couldn't report it publicly, that allowed some really outrageous abuses of the rules to go on, and no one was in a position to report on it without being in contempt of Parliament.
A couple of parliaments ago when I was on that subcommittee, I managed to get that changed so that we started the practice of just holding the meetings in public, something that I think has been very profitable. At the time I remember that as soon as the other members who hadn't realized they were in public realized they were in public, were horror-stricken and wanted to go in camera immediately. There are minutes of that particular meeting where this came up. But I think on the whole the process of having that committee in public has been a beneficial thing, and I think the process of trying to deal with that particular kind of business in camera was unwise.
I have another example that occurs to me from the last Parliament. Actually, it was in this committee. I can't remember if anybody here was on that committee at the time. I wish my memory were better.
Tom, you were on it. Was anybody else on it here?