As I indicated at the beginning, my role under the order was not to proceed to an analysis or evaluation of the documents. I had to receive the documents and make them available to the RCMP. I also had to report to the House on whether or not the order had been complied with. I did not read the documents. I just had to look and make sure I could inform the Speaker about whether or not redactions had been made.
In conducting this role, I was able to see that some documents would have been publicly available. Other documents, in my opinion, would not necessarily raise charter issues.
That said, there are indeed concerns, as I think the RCMP, the Auditor General and other lawyers have expressed. I concur with their concerns that there might potentially be charter issues, because there might be an expectation of privacy for certain documents obtained without any search warrant or production order. Before we get to charter rights, Parliament needs to look at this order and its rights under parliamentary law for obtaining documents.