Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that there is a constitutional convention that a current government does not have access to nor does it release the cabinet confidences of a previous government. This is a well established practice and therefore a convention in the Canadian system of parliamentary government. It is also well established in other countries with similar systems of parliamentary government.
In that sense what the Prime Minister is talking about is part of our law. This convention is specifically backed up by section 39 of the Canada Evidence Act. Therefore what the Prime Minister said is quite consistent with our system of parliamentary government.