Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the minister has addressed the subject in the House today; had he not, someone else might have.
There are two or three things missing and I think the House should be aware of them. I realize we are not in a debate, but I want to point out to the minister and the government that at no point in his remarks today, as far as I could tell, has the minister acknowledged the power of the House to subpoena these documents, to send for persons, papers, and records. At no point did the minister acknowledge that.
Second, in asking a third party to do the government's work, no one could take objection to that, but I would have thought the government would already have people capable of determining which documents needed protection before or after a parliamentary procedure.
The government has not asked Parliament to do this. The government has not asked Parliament to ask Mr. Iacobucci to do this work. There is a very important element missing in this. I invite the government to come forward with something that has a bit more permanence and is more parliamentary.
From my point of view, the minister's statement this morning does not address the fundamental problem of the government having failed totally to acknowledge the power of the House and its committees. If the third party doing this administrative review of the documents that are in need of protection is not informed of this, and it is not made part of his mandate, members will end up having the same problem during and after the exercise.
I invite the minister even now to rise and acknowledge the full, unabridged power of this House to send for persons, papers, and records, the way it has always been for over 300 years.