Thank you, Chair.
Notwithstanding the fact that I think the committee has erred in the admissibility of the original amendment and now the subamendment, this becomes incredibly problematic because we're now getting into the overthinking portion of the intended scope of Mr. Ruff's original legislation, which is simply to grant members of Parliament the ability to apply for a security clearance.
If I am reading this subamendment correctly, it says, “a member or former member of the Senate or the House of Commons must not knowingly disclose information to which they were given access”. If we're looking at the original amendment, it says, “of a joint committee, and every individual in attendance” in an in camera meeting. Who's allowed to come into an in camera meeting? Each one of us is allowed to bring our legislative assistant. The Standing Orders and the rules that we make for the committee also allow somebody from the whip's office. The way I interpret that is that it means everybody in attendance, which means we'll have to work against ourselves by asking our staff to leave. If they don't have the security clearance, the meeting would not be allowed to proceed and the sharing of information would not be allowed to proceed. It's the same with the whip's office.
It seems reasonable that everybody in attendance should have the security clearance. I'm not suggesting that. The problem is that not a single witness we've heard from in this place has indicated or spoken to whether or not this is necessary. I have no indication from any of the testimony that I've seen that.... For example, every one of the staff members we hire has to sign a confidentiality agreement. Anything they learn or any information they come to while they're in our employment cannot be released during employment or after employment.
I am sure that when classified information is shared with those who need to know it, there are protocols and measures in place to make sure that information stays secure under certain penalties. I think that's the place to put that enforcement in—not in Mr. Ruff's legislation, which is simply trying to give members of Parliament some of the privileges to do what we've been elected to do, which is to see information.
I don't like the amendment, and I certainly don't think the subamendment has made anything more clear.
It says, “under an agreement with all House leaders of recognized parties”. In a joint committee with the Senate, does that include the House leaders of the Senate groups? The Senate is structured and organized differently than the House of Commons when it comes to House leaders and the various political entities there. It says, “of recognized parties”. I don't even think the Senate has recognized parties. I don't think this wording is compliant with how the Senate internally operates its own practices and procedures, so how would we do that under a joint committee with the House of Commons and the Senate? How would they do that if senators were just in their own Senate committees? I don't think the language and wording in here applies at all.
Furthermore, there's not a single person from the House administration or the Senate administration here today, insofar as the clerks or the procedural clerks from either of those houses are concerned, to speak to the implications that I'm raising about how we would be able to comport and conduct ourselves within the framework of our current Standing Orders and how we operate at the committee level.
Mr. Chair, I would urge my colleagues to revisit this. If these situations come up where a committee needs to have access and the members therein need to have access to classified information, those members who have already had a security clearance have it, and those who have yet to do so can simply go through that process. As with the Winnipeg lab documents and the Afghan detainees, these kinds of arrangements can be worked out at the time. We don't need to go down the rabbit hole and discuss these items at this particular point in time.
Frankly, I see these measures being put in place to stall and stymie the debate of this particular piece of legislation. I don't think they particularly add any value at this time. Frankly, they tie the hands of the intention of this bill, which is to simply grant the ability of members of Parliament to apply. They don't give us anything that.... These amendments are presuming that people have access to information. They've gone way further than the intent of the legislation. They've gone down a road where things can simply be worked out and put in place once Mr. Ruff's legislation, as intended, is passed.
I will be voting against not only the subamendment but also the original amendment. I don't doubt the intention of the person who moved the amendment, but I doubt it's based on anything we heard here as testimony. Frankly, there is nobody, to my knowledge, among the witnesses present today who can speak about the implications of my privilege as a member of Parliament and how these amendments, if passed, would infringe upon it.