Procedure and House Affairs committee  Okay. I'll try. I'm hard-wired, so I don't know what could have happened. Presidents do have the ability to declassify information at will. If there were a hypothetical situation where the government had classified information, and it [Technical difficulty—Editor] would clear the air and would be helpful if it were declassified without [Technical difficulty—Editor] sources and methods.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Everything is always through the chair, so I appreciate that. I just would like to say to Ms. Telford that we had a little bit of discussion earlier about a previous inquiry, and I've done a little bit of research on it. I would like to quote from a Toronto Star article that says, “Harper last month asked academic and lawyer David Johnston to craft the terms of reference for the inquiry and Harper says he'll take whatever advice Johnston gives.”

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you so much, Chair. As always with everything, through the chair, I hear very clearly, Ms. Telford, that you trust in the Right Honourable David Johnston in his role as rapporteur, and that's fine. What I am saying is that I trust Canadians. I trust their need to have trust in our electoral institutions, to be able to have these serious allegations addressed in a way that honours our national security, and the need of Canadians to understand what has happened.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you so much, Chair. My question, again, returns to the lack of trust we see Canadians having for our institutions. It's really been shaken by these allegations. Should the current rapporteur, David Johnston, recommend against moving forward with a public inquiry in May, do you think, Ms.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think you mentioned earlier in your testimony, through the chair, of course, a past example where there was a rapporteur set up and in place before an inquiry. I just want to be clear that in that case, the terms of the inquiry were the focus of the rapporteur, who looked at what those terms would be and how they would be followed.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's my time. Thank you.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm sorry to be upsetting you with these questions, but the Prime Minister said, “Let me be clear, I do not have any information, nor have I been briefed on any federal candidates receiving any money from China.” It feels like we got a clear answer and I'm not getting that clear answer from you.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm sorry to interrupt. I certainly don't want to hurt the interpreters, because they are very important to us and provide the ability for us to do our work. It seems to me that you're not really interested in answering the question. What we're seeing is more and more distrust from the Canadian public.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you so much, Ms. Telford. Through the chair, as always, could you just clarify whether you were informed last year about the Chinese government funding at least 11 Liberal and Conservative candidates in the 2019 federal election?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you so much, Madam Chair. As always, everything I say goes through the chair. I want to thank our witness for being here for this important issue. The way I'll start is how I think I've started almost every question during this study. The fact is that this is very serious, and the most important part for me is that Canadians are losing faith in our systems.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I have no questions.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, I don't have any questions. I feel that the presentation clarified the list that we need to get to. I'm sorry, Luc. I have no hard questions for you—maybe later.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I have no more questions. Thank you.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you so much, Chair. I just want to clarify. I did do a notice of motion about having the special rapporteur come in to talk to us about the work he is doing. It sounds like, from the last conversation in committee, people are open to that, so I was just going to check if we could move forward, add him to the list and move on.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you to everybody for being here. All of my questions have already been answered. Thank you, everyone, for asking them for me, so you have all my time.