.. schedule-wise, that is.
According to the latest committee notice, which was posted just minutes ago, Kevin Lynch, Clerk of the Privy Council will not be gracing the Public Safety committee with his presence this afternoon. Instead, they will have to content themselves with the Prime Minister’s National Security Advisor, Margaret Bloodworth, who will be joined by two other PCO officials: director of security operations Marc Tardif – no, you’ve probably never heard of him – and Rennie Marcoux – him her neither, most likely – an associate secretary to cabinet, who deals with security and intelligence.
I don’t know quite what to say about this; apparently, committee appearances are now optional — if you really don’t feel like showing up, you can just beg off, or have your lawyer do it for you. I’m not sure if there is any precedent for summoning the Clerk of the Privy Council; I’m not sure if it’s ever even been an issue before today. Anyway, since Government Operations just this morning passed a motion to have the same witness come before committee later this week to discuss his report on the NAFTA/Obama/Stop-me-if-you’ve-heard-this-song-before memo leak, it seems as though the chair would be well advised to have a chat with a law clerk to find out what, if anything, the committee can do if he declines the invitation.
