Mr. Chair, again, everyone here will agree that what has been told to us, and no one has questioned it, is that Ms. Couillard said she had the documents at her home, according to her account, since about mid-April. The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons told us on several occasions that the government was not made aware of the disappearances until Sunday, and the Prime Minister only learned of it on Monday. For a period of five weeks, documents were missing from the Department of Foreign Affairs. Yet, they tell us that the rules are strict; that there are standards that were not respected by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and he has paid the price. Yes, he has paid the price; but how will they ensure that it does not happen again the next time a minister forgets documents at someone’s home, or loses them or puts them under the mattress and forgets that they are under the mattress? I am not just talking about the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It could be the Minister of International Trade or National Defence or any other minister.
How can they guarantee that the departments concerned will quickly identify those documents as missing,so that we do not relive the situation we have been through in the past few weeks?
They are not answering our question. What I understand is that the government does not intend to correct the situation and the events that we have seen in recent weeks with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the former Minister of Foreign Affairs could happen again at any time with this government. Unless it wants to be irresponsible, the government must correct the situation.