Thank you, Clerk.
This is a second chance, I guess, for the Conservatives to pull back from witch-hunt politics, Mr. Chair. We've had a first vote, and perhaps Conservatives at this committee misunderstood the role of the committee, and that's why they voted down the NDP amendments. Now we have a Liberal amendment that does the same thing: it's to take out the partisan witch hunt from the motion that was put forward.
If the idea is to do a study, there's a consensus here. Mr. Chair, the reason we objected so strongly to Mr. Calkins' bringing this up at the beginning of the meeting and delaying, completely unnecessarily, these four esteemed witnesses, these witnesses who we should be hearing from instead of having this motion brought forward, is that we all had an agreement on the idea of moving forward with a study on energy. That's the consensus.
What this government has done yet again is it has ripped apart consensus in a very mean-spirited, inappropriate, irresponsible way. Rather than dealing with the energy future of this country, which is something that we are all concerned about and all want to provide guidance on, we have this partisan witch hunt taking place for two members who apologized for their statements.
In fact, one of them, Mr. Chair, resigned from this committee. I know how difficult it was for the individual to resign from the committee. He obviously understood that his comments were inappropriate and he took the necessary steps. He apologized and resigned, yet we're continuing this in a partisan, mean-spirited fashion. It resembles a witch hunt to me. I find it completely inappropriate.
This amendment that Mr. McKay is presenting gives the government a second chance to do the right thing and move forward with a study that we all agree with in principle, but disregarding the partisan language of the witch hunt that, unfortunately, Mr. Calkins has brought to the motion itself.
Let's adopt this amendment. In adopting the amendment, I think we can then move on and hear from the witnesses, which is something that, on the opposition side, we all wanted to do from the outset. That's why we proposed that Mr. Calkins bring this motion forward in the appropriate way—at the end.