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In an effort to prevent the Liberals from following in the procedural footsteps of their predecessors, New Democrat MP David Christopherson came up with a motion that would bar the committee from moving in camera, except when dealing with very specific issues — wages, salaries and other human resource matters, for instance, or issues concerning national (or parliamentary) security, as well as investigations conducted under the new code of conduct rules on sexual harassment.

He introduced the initial draft of the motion shortly after the committee reconvened in January, but ran into some concerns on the government side of the table, which led to a lengthy back-and-forth over the wording and ultimately, a final draft that garnered the support of not just the government, but all parties.

And while these new rules don’t automatically apply to other House committees, its practices are generally used as a template, which means the rest are likely to adopt similar measures.

It is, of course, worth noting that it’s not clear just how binding the new restrictions will be — the Liberals could, after all, simply use their majority clout to override the new regime if it ever became particularly inconvenient, at least in theory, although not without drawing attention to the change in heart.

That alone may be enough to keep the sunlight streaming in, at least for now.

Here’s the full text of the motion as adopted on Tuesday:

That the committee may only meet in camera for the following purposes: