I might add to that. Again, I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill. I was surprised there was no answer at all, and I am still not getting an answer. Mr. Chan says he doesn't know, and I accept that, of course.
The chief government whip was here, and we can't even get an answer to the question of whether the government, after apologizing for something they said was horribly wrong and shouldn't have happened, conducted an internal investigation. Did they have an investigation?
The other thing is that our notes tell us that, back in 2001—I realize it is going back aways—in the resolution to that issue, which is similar to this but of course not quite exactly the same.... They then updated and revised their “Guide to Making Federal Acts and Regulations”. That was 15 years ago. I don't even know if such a thing is around, but there has to be some kind of a guidebook and policies that exist today. I can't imagine we would go from 2001 with detailed processes, only to find out in 2016 that everything is gone. It is possible, but it would be surprising.
To me, Mr. Chair, it would be worth our time to talk to the chief government whip, again, to reiterate why he apologized. Mr. Chan, supported by other colleagues of his making that argument, says he is not sure what exactly the breach is, and yet their own chief government whip at the time felt that he owed the House an apology and gave one. Clearly, to some degree, even the whip acknowledged that a breach had taken place, at least a prima facie case of a breach.
In bringing in the chief government whip, I would have at least two questions. One, what is the current version of “Guide to Making Federal Acts and Regulations” and any successor documents that are now in place? I don't know what the new government has done vis-à-vis that policy with regard to where it was in the last government. Maybe that is something we need, too. Two, did you change it? Did the government change the process? Did the Conservatives actually have something right in that case, and the government now has monkeyed with it and made it worse? I don't know, so I think we deserve to know that.
Those two questions alone are worth calling in the chief government whip. Why did the chief whip believe there was a breach? What was it that he was apologizing for? Is there or was there any kind of an internal government investigation to find out who the culprits were?
Third, what policies or guides are in place vis-à-vis “Guide to Making Federal Acts and Regulations”? I think those would be at least three pertinent questions, off the top of my head, that would be properly placed before the chief government whip, so I would suggest his name, Mr. Chair.