Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. I would like to clarify that in fact the committee had agreed I believe it was at the start of the fall session pursuant to the normal rules of committees, that before going in camera there would be a vote. That should not have to be reconfirmed by a committee, but I have seen those rules breached often enough that I wanted it to be reconfirmed. My memory says this was done back in the fall but I cannot say for sure. However it was reconfirmed when the committee went in camera when we were discussing not even a draft of the report, but just what the witnesses had said.
That meeting improperly went in camera. I made a point of bringing that issue before the committee and asking why we were in camera and that we should go public. There was no vote held to have the committee go in camera. Therefore it should have been a public meeting. Through my pressure the committee agreed that the meeting was improperly in camera and it was going to be made a public meeting and it was.
It was at that time I tabled a motion that before going in camera again there will be a vote of committee members. The Chair brushed it aside and said there was no need for that, that we all knew the rules. At the very next meeting the chair took the committee improperly in camera. I was not at that meeting. I was on other parliamentary business. All of the members of the committee allowed it to happen. Not one member raised his or her voice to stop it. That is improper.
The other thing from that meeting is the minutes of the meeting said that the draft report was to be discussed publicly. I would argue that issue should not even be a particularly important one because the committee had agreed not to go in camera without a vote and there was no vote.
I brought the improper procedure before the committee. I said there was no way we should be in camera that we should be holding the meetings in the open. The chair continued to call it an in camera meeting. That is when I decided it was improper. The rules were not being respected. It was not truly an in camera meeting and therefore the discussion should not be considered to be confidential.
That was my decision at the time. It was a decision which I made considering the evidence before me. I would suggest that it was a good decision. I would be interested to hear from other members of the committee. I would like them to answer the question as to why they did not prevent the committee from improperly going in camera and why they did not ask for a vote. I would suggest that one of the reasons might be that there is seldom quorum at this committee. We cannot hold a vote when there is no quorum. We often have three or four Liberal members at committee out of a possible seven or eight. The attendance of the Liberal members is not exactly something I would think they would want to brag about.