Thank you.
I have to start by saying I found it quite a strange concept that a Liberal member of Parliament would protect information on national security better than a Conservative or an NDP member of Parliament would.
I want to turn back to the thing that started a lot of this for us, and that was Bill C-51.
Right across my riding of Kootenay—Columbia, which is located in southeastern British Columbia, in the Rocky Mountain area, there were protest rallies in many communities around Bill C-51, and a lot of it was focused on the need for oversight. Canadians truly want to have complete confidence that the committee can provide meaningful oversight over national security and intelligence, and I really appreciate the depth of the information that you've provided us today on how we can better get there.
I do have a question for you. There are many grounds on which a government may withhold necessary information from the oversight committee. Some are automatic and others are discretionary, but in all cases, the way the government chooses to interpret the exclusions is key.
Let's take one example, which is actually the least controversial of all, cabinet confidences. In February you said the following to the ethics committee when you met with them:
Under the law right now, cabinet confidences are described very broadly.... For instance, any record that contains anything that's described in the whole definition of cabinet confidence can be excluded as a cabinet confidence. In our investigations at this time, we are not allowed to see the records. We see a schedule, a brief description of the records. Without seeing any records, in 14% of the cases of cabinet confidence investigations we find that it was improperly applied....
In other words, even the least controversial exemption, if interpreted too broadly, can lead to a significant amount of information being withheld inappropriately.
What advice can you give us about the general manner in which governments interpret these types of exemptions or tests, such as being injurious to national security? In your view, would it be preferable for the committee to simply have an all-access pass, as other existing review bodies do?