Thanks very much.
Justice Major and Ms. Carvin, you have the bill before you. If we could turn to clause 14, I want to start with paragraph 14(e). That's
information relating directly to an ongoing investigation carried out by a law enforcement agency that may lead to a prosecution.
In the operation of clause 14, if it falls within these categories, it's excluded de facto. My worry here is that when we had the minister before us, we spoke about the bully pulpit. Where information is refused, the committee can actually refer to that information in the report and use that as a bully pulpit, but if it falls within clause 14, it's going to be very difficult to use the bully pulpit, because the minister can say, “Well, I'm obliged by the legislation.”
When we had Professors Roach and Forcese in front of us, Justice Major, and they in fact said that an ongoing investigation carried out by a law enforcement agency would in fact include the Air India bombing, because there's still an active investigation. I would put it to you that when we talk about access to information, should we have the provision of paragraph 14(e) in the act as an exclusion without any refusal related to “injurious to national security”? There's not that additional factor that exists in clause 16, and without any reasons provided by the minister.