Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the hon. member for his kind words. Likewise, one of the highlights of my career was working on the parliamentary Special Committee on Electoral Reform, which this member chaired. He did an extraordinary job with what, I have to say, was a very difficult file. We do not often get the chance to say nice things about each other. I actually do think highly of most colleagues, both those who are presently here and those, like Joe Comartin, who have left. We have had many extraordinary people pass through, and I have been very fortunate to have been able to serve with so many.
However, the obvious thought here is that, in the example provided, with the purpose being that the documents were to be given to an external group, such as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, I think that would be very unwise. What would happen here is that they would be given to the Parliamentary Law Clerk, who would then go through them and make independent judgments about them.
The purpose of doing that would not be merely to facilitate prosecution. In fact, I do not think that is the primary purpose at all. It would be to make sure that the potential for prosecution does not serve to hide the fact that there are other things going on, which may or may not be illegal, but that are outside of what Canadians expect to have with regard to the governance of their money.
We all understand that mere compliance with the law is insufficient in a government. It has to go beyond and try to match up with the various other rules and codes, such as the ethics code, which we have to sign on to, and the conflict of interest code, for which office holders have a separate code that is more restrictive. There are also other rules and norms in place, the very conventions that we have here, that are only partly written down. The practices are themselves norms that are not enforceable by law. They are enforceable by public opinion. Depriving the public of the ability to see relevant documentation is the concern that I have here.