Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to both of you for being here.
Mr. Portelance, thank you for your work in our public service. It's good to have you here in a personal capacity so that you can speak freely and in an unencumbered fashion.
I want to continue very much along the direction that you've both already taken, to see if you can help the committee assemble a number of different intentions, ideas, and concepts that we've heard about over the course of the testimony we've received here.
I want to start with Minister Goodale's paradigm, which is basically that we're providing both our cherished charter rights and good security to the public, and it's balancing that fundamental tension, if you will, that we're concerned about.
You both spoke about public trust in government. I think that is really the nub of the value added for this committee, but equally, there is the protection of the efficacy of the process and providing good security. For both of those reasons, the public will either support or reject this committee.
We've talked a lot and heard a lot of testimony about the elimination of overlap with existing review bodies. This body would be a latecomer to the process. It would have to find its own way culturally.
Mr. Kapoor, you spoke very well about how to do that and how to prevent regulatory capture. I think that's a very important component, and I'd like to hear a bit more about that.
We also heard testimony about the tension between experts and parliamentarians. The chair himself pointed out that many of these kinds of committees are staffed by former parliamentarians, so maybe we're underestimating the role that a parliamentarian would take when she is appointed to this committee. She may be more expert than we think. I'd like to hear a bit more from both of you on that.
Lastly, there is the question of how much access and how much review? I think there are many of us who think that we should at least have broad and wide-ranging access, but there is also the question of how much review. What about the exemptions that are being created? What about the definition of “injurious to national security”?
I want to put all those tensions back into your laps to see if you can construct for us, through a thought experiment, how this committee might operate tomorrow were it to start tomorrow, and what, for each of you, are the fundamental gaps that really must be closed through this process that we're engaged in here.