Chair, I do have concerns here.
First, I actually want to address, as a point of order, the admissibility of this amendment. This amendment actually talks about the control or access to classified information, which was never part of the intent of my bill. My bill is only dealing with the applications for security clearance, and this talks about how the government controls or disseminates information, how it could be shared or not shared, which has nothing to do with the intent of my bill. My bill is only to set into law the privilege of parliamentarians to apply for a security clearance. This is, to me, well beyond the scope.
To get to a point I want to address...and I do want to ask the witnesses this. I think a few of them can weigh in. As you know, how information is controlled is subject to the individual departments from the DM level down. However, obviously, PCO would be the lead—that would be my intent and it would be my guess—on how information would be shared, if it is ever shared with parliamentarians.
My first question to the witnesses is this: Just because somebody has applied for security clearance and has even passed that security process, are they granted access to classified information just because they have clearance?