I want to make sure our colleagues are familiar with the normal circumstances in terms of witnesses appearing before committees. Our rules are very clear, in that “under normal circumstances”—I'm quoting Marleau and Montpetit here—“witnesses are not sworn in”. Basically, that has become the default position of this committee, because at meetings I've always been at, that's what we've done.
I understand, and so do Marleau and Montpetit, that it is entirely at the discretion of the committee. A verification of past minutes or available minutes of this committee would indicate that there has been no such discussion at public meetings of the committee. That is my second reason, that any such decisions, in my view, should be made in public discussion. Decisions to swear in witnesses should be made in an open meeting.
I believe also, Mr. Chairman, it's not necessary, and here again I'll quote Marleau and Montpetit:
Likewise, the refusal to answer questions or failure to reply truthfully may give rise to a charge of contempt of the House, whether the witness has been sworn in or not.
We are not a court of law, Mr. Chairman, and if we're going to go that route, which is to have people take oaths—because you're then invoking perjury—you'll have an ultimate question that this committee has never dealt with, which perhaps we'll have to, and that is, whether or not we'll be providing counsel to our witnesses. We're entering into another area of the law here. It's no longer contempt of Parliament. We're talking about the Criminal Code.
The normal behaviour is that we trust our witnesses to speak openly and truthfully, unless there's any evidence to the contrary, and in this case and in the case of all our witnesses today, none is known, and moreover, none has been offered. So in the spirit of natural justice and common courtesy, I think to proceed as usual—that is, not to swear in witnesses—would be the appropriate thing for this committee to do.