Thank you, Chair.
Certainly, I understand the chair's frustration and I think we all share it. I do believe that the chair is in error when he suggests that this is the second time that the Auditor General.... The government has made no such suggestion whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the government has suggested very strongly that the Auditor General would be a most welcome witness and we look forward to that happening very soon.
The unfortunate reality is that 95% of this meeting has been occupied by opposition grandstanding, and that's fine. That's part of their role too, but we have business to do in planning. We could certainly plan for Thursday. We could certainly plan for the following Tuesday and/or Thursday. There are a number of things. We can bring in witnesses. We can bring in the Auditor General. We can bring in the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Those things will happen in the course of this committee.
But to suggest right now that this is not the case.... With the greatest respect, I understand the chair's frustration, but he is dead wrong in that assumption. I would take the chair to task on that assumption, because that has not happened. Certainly as a member of the government I would not tolerate that happening, quite frankly, from my personal perspective. I assure the chair this is not the case.
I hope we can get back to planning this meeting and then take a look at the witnesses the government has suggested at this particular point, vote on that, and then if we have time to move on to future planning, then the committee would find itself most surprised at the government's willingness to bring in the Auditor General and other witnesses.
We don't know yet, but some of the witnesses who come with the deputy ministers could quite conceivably be witnesses that the opposition is looking for. So let's just take this step-by-step. The committee would be well served to do that and to try to minimize the politics of this as much as possible, while understanding the reality that both sides face on this.
I say that with the greatest respect. I think the chair knows that I'm not sitting here trying to play a game because we all recognize the responsibilities we have both to the government and to the opposition. I'm determined to have an answer out of this. The Auditor General voiced some serious concerns that we need to hear, and that we need to have dealt with.
I think this committee will do that, but let's not play the game of being presumptuous throughout the entire process without first hearing the testimony and seeing where that takes us down the road. I leave that with the chair, and I thank him for the opportunity to comment.