Mr. Speaker, as the member for York West pointed out, this is a tremendously important issue and it really goes to the fundamental role of Parliament: why we are here and why we were elected.
The member gave a brief history of this issue and it has been before us for about 30 years. It was raised first by the Lambert Commission 30 year ago and then by the McGrath Commission about 20 years ago. The Auditor General brought it out in some of her reports, indicating that Parliament ought to look at this issue.
The public accounts committee recommended the accounting officer provision. The Gomery Commission, in recommendation five, stated that and it was codified in article 16 of the Federal Accountability Act, which was enacted in December last year.
The public accounts committee, which I am honoured to chair, developed a protocol and we spent a considerable amount of time, energy and effort in developing this protocol. We tried to get some cooperation from the Treasury Board Secretariat. Unfortunately, we did not get that. A day or two before the final matter was to come to the public accounts committee, the Privy Council Office published its own protocol on its website.
The issue becomes, which leads to my question, is it Parliament's job to determine the roles, procedures and duties of parliamentary committees, or does that job fall on the officials across the street at the Privy Council Office? This is just a continuation of the battle between Parliament, the people and the executive that has been going on for centuries now.
My question to the hon. member is this. Whose job is it to determine the roles, procedures and duties of parliamentary committees?