I'll be supporting the official opposition's motions.
I wasn't particularly thrilled with the responses by the government. I think Mr. Richards's question of whether the government takes privilege seriously is a valid one. I've been around long enough to notice that it's usually the government that wants to downplay privilege and it's usually the opposition that wants to amplify it. It's simply because in opposition you don't have very many rights, and what few rights you have, you're going to defend to the ends of the earth.
One is the ability to be on a committee and convince the committee to pursue matters you think are important. I don't want to see this issue of privilege swept away. The chief government whip felt it was important enough, prima facie, to respond the way he did. Certainly the Speaker, in his comments, felt this was worthy of some review.
Given what came at the last meeting, rather than that being the beginning, it launched a whole lot of other questions. To reiterate one that I focused on, the minister kept talking over and over again about the number of people who, under the Security of Information Act, would have had their fingerprints on this. She raised that.
To me, that just raised the bar even further, suggesting that if there were a breach, there's a good chance it was done by somebody who had violated their oath. As well as members, staff take an oath when they're dealing with confidential matters in government. That's about as serious as it gets, taking your secrecy oath to Canada. You're pledging allegiance to the country and that promise to stay just on those issues.
For those reasons alone, at this stage I support the motions. I hope the government doesn't drag this out any longer than it needs to by agreeing to this. I get a sense that the official opposition is getting ready to settle in—I recognize the early stages of settling in for a filibuster. Perhaps the government could save us all a lot of grief by putting forward or entering into some discussions about who we might have, and can we come to some agreement? If the government is intending to just stonewall this, that's not going to be an answer for them.
Thank you.