Waiting for Guité

As we wait for Chuck Guité's testimony to be unsealed, savour at your leisure the complete text of his 2002 appearance before the Public Accounts Committee. I for one will treasure this exchange for as long as I live:

Mr. John Bryden: Just very quickly, were you aware, Mr. Guité, of the 1999 change to the Access to Information Act, the amendment that made it an offence to, under 67.1(1)(c), "no person shall, with intent to deny right of access under this act, conceal a record." Were you aware of that? 
Mr. Charles Guité: Yes. I'm very aware of that. 
Mr. John Bryden: So you now know that what you did, in making these records inaccessible by not creating them, would have been an offence? 
Mr. Charles Guité: No. The way I read the act, and understand the act, is that if you ask for a file through Access to Information, and I, personally, take documents out and destroy, then I'm subject to be guilty of an offence under the Access to Information Act. But, to say that I did not put something on file because I kept it in this file (points to his head) -- 
Mr. John Bryden: In your head. 
Mr. Charles Guité: -- in my head, is contravening the Access to Information Act, I don't think so.

Later, Peter MacKay returns to the subject:

Mr. Peter MacKay: ... Can you tell us whether you knowingly broke the rules at any time -- the rules as you knew them? You said you bent them. What is the difference? Can you explain the difference between bending and breaking the rules? 
Mr. Charles Guité: Breaking a rule would be approving an invoice knowing the work hadn't been done. 
Mr. Peter MacKay: Okay. So bending the rule would be leaving information out of a file? 
Mr. Charles Guité: No. I didn't leave any information out of a file. The information that I had and I put on file, I put it on file. 
Mr. Peter MacKay: You just told Mr. Bryden that you left information out of files. You didn't reduce it to writing -- 
Mr. Charles Guité: No, no. 
Mr. Peter MacKay: -- you filed it in your head. 
Mr. Charles Guité: No, no, no. I didn't say I left information out. 
Mr. Peter MacKay: You filed it in your head. 
Mr. Charles Guité: I said you cannot put information in a file if you have not produced it. 
Mr. Peter MacKay: Okay. 
Mr. Charles Guité: There's quite a difference there.

Beautiful. Just beautiful. There's more here, plus my comment on his April, 2004 return engagement: The world according to G. Gordon Guité.