Madam Speaker, to my colleague for Yukon, maybe I will take a moment to go back to a theme that I think is important to tonight's debate, and that is the question of whether the Prime Minister may direct a committee to revise its reports, and he may, but the discretion to do so is not unlimited.
The Prime Minister may only direct NSICOP to remove information that would be injurious to national security, national defence or international relations where that is a matter of solicitor-client privilege. The use of the word “would” in the legislation is a high bar. The process that determines which information qualifies is modelled on the process used by the Federal Court to redact information from public decisions. Finally, on that point, since the creation of the committee and throughout our seven comprehensive reviews, the government has never directed the committee to remove information from a report that was not legitimately injurious.