Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I will get to my point.
We've heard multiple people who are experts in their field—whether it be the national security and intelligence officer, SITE, the director of CSIS today, the CSE or the RCMP—very clearly state that there would be no difference in the access to information that a public inquiry would have compared to what this committee would have.
The reason I'm bringing this up is in reference to the production of documents and calling of witnesses. For the purpose of national security, we cannot have information out there in a public forum that would have a direct impact on our Five Eyes intelligence partners. The impact of that, as we heard in the last panel, would be devastating, not only in terms of our alliance and our partnerships but also in terms of the intelligence assets that we have around the world, including Canadian Armed Forces members.
I know very well that Saint‑Jean Garrison and Saint‑Jean Royal Military College are in Ms. Normandin's riding, and I am sure she does not want to jeopardize the health and safety of members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I'm strictly against the fact that we keep having a conversation about our not wanting to provide this information. We cannot. This is not partisan. We cannot have this kind of information in the public domain. We can keep putting it out there to pretend and wave it around that we should get unredacted documents when we know full well that we cannot. Rather than playing games with respect to our national security, is there not another venue that has the proper clearance to look at that, whether it be NSICOP or something else?
This is the big beef that I'm having with this conversation. I'm not making this up. This is being told to us by the experts. We cannot have this information out there.
Thank you.