Senator Gold: Thank you for the question. You know, sometimes one lives in the past. Sometimes one lives in the future. Sometimes one must deal with the present.

I cannot predict the future, honourable senators. My constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe once quipped that if you lived by the crystal ball, you would be condemned to eat glass. My stomach is not strong enough to do that.

The Government of Canada has confidence in the justice who will be administering the public inquiry and confidence in the joint parliamentary committee looking into this. Most importantly, it has confidence in the laws of Canada that recognize the necessity for certain kinds of interactions within cabinet to remain confidential. This Government of Canada, previous governments of Canada — and here I will predict — future governments of Canada will insist on the maintenance and integrity of this principle, and will stand in defence of this principle, regardless of, in this case, a dredging up of matters from the past.

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