UPDATED - Mutiny on the In Camera Meeting Circuit (Part Two): Can they do that?

UPDATE: Listen to me babble on about all this in camera stuff with CBC The House guest host Alison Crawford right here. Earlier this week, I posted on what amounted to a declaration of parliamentary war by Liberal MP Scott Andrews, following a ruling by the speaker in which he dismissed Andrews' claim that a Conservative committee member had violated the in camera provisions when he confirmed that a particular motion had been agreed to behind closed doors.

The speaker reminded him that such complaints are more properly put before the committee itself, at which point Andrews informed the government that, given that ruling, his party will no longer consider itself entirely bound -- or, in this case, gagged -- by the blanket non-disclosure clause, and, as such, may begin holding post-meeting scrums in order to"lift the veil of secrecy" that the government has "draped" over committee proceedings.

Which, of course, immediately resulted in two questions jumping to mind: First, can they do that? And if so, what happens next?

The short answers, in that order: 1. Yes, they can; and 2. Actually, that's an interesting question.

Okay, so technically, that second one isn't so much an answer as a teaser, so read on.

First, a bit of history: Back in 1987, the House found itself confronted with a similar quandary when NDP MP John Parry violated the parliamentary non-disclosure clause when he got up in the House to reveal which committee members had voted for and against a motion not to send a particular report back to the House at that time, on the grounds that, as it was a recorded division, he believed that at that point, the meeting was no longer in camera, since such decisions are "ipso facto a matter of public record."

(Note: For the interest of those who enjoy reading such documents in their entirety, I've included the relevant sections of Journals at the end of this post.)

Ultimately, the committee charged with investigating the matter disagreed, and concluded that Parry had, indeed, "acted in contempt" by revealing the details of the vote, although it did not recommend any further action be taken.

But while the report stressed the importance of such confidential meetings, and stated that committees "must retain the option of meeting behind closed doors, deliberately excluding the public and the media," it's worth noting the rationale behind that reasoning: namely, to "allow .. a measure of independence and enhance the collegiality of members .... something which is necessary to effective committee work."

It's all but impossible to satisfactorily reconcile that hoped-for outcome with the practice currently in place at committee, in which the government simply uses its majority to impose in camera restrictions on any meeting at which it feels the urge to do so, seemingly at whim, over the continued and concerted objections of the opposition.

How, exactly, this will encourage independence and/or committee collegiality is unclear; in fact, it appears to have had exactly the opposite effect. 

Interestingly, the Parry report also recommended that, in future, committees "should give careful consideration to the matters that should be dealt with in camera and matters that should be discussed in public." While it states that such meetings are "often essential in the preparation of committee reports and in the hearing of sensitive testimony," at no point does it claim that any and all debate over motions brought to committee should take place outside from the prying eyes of the press and public. In fact, the words "future business" do not appear even once.

To go back to the Andrews ultimatum -- which, again, may or may not come to pass -- if the threatened mutiny goes ahead, sanctioning every opposition member who breaches in camera confidentiality would seem virtually impossible on purely practical grounds.

Assuming that the speaker would see fit to find a prima facie breach in each and every instance that a committee that believed its privileges had been violated, the committee responsible for investigating such matters can only handle so many cases at once. That time limit -- specifically, the set number of hours in a day, which cannot be overturned by majority vote --  would, in effect, give unrepentant members licence to continue to reveal what went down behind closed committee doors until tried, convicted and sentenced to a stint in the precinct hoosegow.

Alternately, the committee could choose to deal with the matter itself rather than seek the authority of the House, although its powers to address issues of privilege are limited to reporting a potential breach back to the House.