First of all, the documents were produced and deposited with me under the authority of a production order that was adopted by the House, which constitutes the exercise of a parliamentary privilege to compel the production of documents. It is a parliamentary privilege, which, like all the other privileges, is constitutional in nature, and that has been recognized as such by the courts.
Our role under the order was limited to receiving the documents and providing them to the RCMP. We made sure that we limited the circulation of documents, so only two persons in my office with top secret clearance, I and another counsel, had access to documents.
That said, as they were obtained through a production order, the top clearance requirement was not a requirement per se, but we nonetheless took that step.