Finance committee  No two cases, of course, are exactly the same, but the principles are the same. One of the situations in a previous House of Commons under a Conservative government.... I should be clear that the House of Commons was not under a Conservative government; there was a Conservative government at that time.

Finance committee  They are public servants at various levels. We have an element of supervision. For example, they are not junior public servants, they have enough experience. They take the documents and read them in their entirety. It's a huge job.

Finance committee  They take a pen and if lines, groups of words, paragraphs, or one or more pages match the definition of a Cabinet confidence, then they cross out the text. In those instances, and in every situation, we need to ask ourselves whether the words or paragraphs can legitimately be read or not.

Finance committee  Yes. On the matter of the redactions, I gave general direction to departments, supported by staff in the Privy Council Office well trained in this area. There were two principal aspects. Documents that normally would be cabinet documents, covering material the Prime Minister or members of cabinet had already publicly commented on, anything answering that description, was to be released even though it was in the form of a cabinet confidence.

Finance committee  I'm still here.

Finance committee  Chair, I'm not in a position today to describe that, for the reason I've mentioned.

Finance committee  The same answer applies, Chair.

Finance committee  It's the same answer, Chair. I'm not going to quantify that. They would all have been of those types and categories of documents.

Finance committee  I presume so, Chair, but I won't make a categorical statement to that effect.

Finance committee  It's a separate question. The question was whether I could affirm that all the documents were present, physically, in the cabinet room.

Finance committee  That, I suspect, is a very precise question with a very precise meaning and I will not declare it emphatically.

Finance committee  Well, as I said, Chair, I had made that offer. This is the information that my officials have provided to me, based on our analysis, but I'm here to discuss cabinet confidence generally, and—

Finance committee  I presume that they would because they would be either records of decisions or documents that would have been available in the cabinet process.

Finance committee  Chair, I indicated in my statement that I directed the public service. Specific redactions were made by departments under the authority of their deputy ministers, but I gave the direction as to the approach that would be followed consistent with statements that had been made by ministers and my commitment to this committee—

Finance committee  I'll finish the sentence, Chair. I committed to this committee that I would provide the committee with as much information as transparently as possible and an expansive definition of access to these documents. I have answered the committee that less than 1% of the information provided to the committee was redacted by cabinet confidentiality.