Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, because my two colleagues have presented a number of arguments against finding a prima facie case of privilege.
It is important to point out that we feel the agreement we reached this morning complies fully with your April 27 ruling, in which you recognized that parliamentarians should have access to all the information and documentation, provided that national security was not threatened.
From the outset, all the parties in the House knew they had to find a way to make the information available and public in order to shed light on the allegations of Afghan torture. All the parties were also aware that not all the documentation would be available to everyone at all times.
The government responded to the ruling by first setting up a committee consisting of one member per party—now one member per signing party—to study all 20,000 to 40,000 pages of documentation. As soon as one member—not the majority of members—feels that the information in a document could shed light on the allegations of torture, he forwards it to a panel of three experts chosen by consensus by all the political parties.
This means that no one representative or expert arbiter will support the government, the Liberal Party or the Bloc Québécois. The three parties will have to trust these experts. This three-person panel will find a way to make the information public and will censor it again if the government has been too heavy with its pen or summarize the facts and the situation.
What is important is that the information be passed on as soon as one of the members or the whole committee feels it could shed light on the allegations of torture in Afghanistan. This information will be made available; it will be made public. We also made sure that when the committee of MPs and the expert panel have reviewed the documentation, the information will be made public and tabled in Parliament.
In the end, the confidentiality of cabinet documents and the issue of solicitor-client privilege and legal opinions were sticking points. We managed to find a way to ensure that the information in these documents would also be released to the public and all members. We agreed on a mechanism whereby an expert panel will determine the validity of the government's request to keep a cabinet document or legal opinion confidential. We need to remember that such documents usually remain secret for at least 25 years.
Mr. Speaker, based on your ruling, we found a mechanism to ensure the transmission of the information. In all cases, the panel will have to transmit the information in the documents while respecting confidentiality and solicitor-client privilege. At the end of that particular paragraph, it is written that maximizing disclosure and transparency are the principles that must guide the expert panel in its decisions.
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that this agreement is a balanced and creative response to your April 27 ruling. To my knowledge—and I believe that other party leaders have mentioned this—this is the first time such a mechanism has been used. The parties that participated in developing this agreement are to be congratulated.
The other factor that seems extremely important to me is the fact that the ad hoc committee can report to the House at any time. If the government or one of the parties attempts to interfere with the work of the committee or the panel, you and the House will know about it.
I believe that this puts pressure on all parliamentarians, not just the government, to ensure that this agreement produces the outcomes identified in your ruling.
Lastly, I would note that the four parties reached an agreement in principle on May 14. We can review all of the points in the agreement in principle and look at how this morning's agreement addresses each of those points. The agreement in principle is honoured, bearing in mind that you called for a balance between national security and ensuring that parliamentarians have access to all of the documents.
In conclusion, until proven otherwise, the future rests on the members of the committee, on the selection of the three experts, and on beginning the process of sifting through the documents to find the truth. That is the ultimate goal of the process initiated on December 10 when the Liberal Party motion was adopted.