Mr. Angus, I listened patiently to you. I would request that you listen patiently to me.
The point I'm making is that the actual motion, which I don't support in any event, has a number of preambles. I take issue with the second and the third preambles. The second one, which states that “it came to light that the reasons cited by the government to justify cancelling the Program were unjustified”, doesn't correctly reflect the record.
There were allegations made by some of the witnesses that one of the reasons the government gave for cancelling the program—in other words, the issue relating to whether Liberal lawyers were involved. That issue clearly resonated around this table. But the government gave other reasons as well for the cancellation of the program. I myself articulated some of those during testimony.
So to suggest the reasons cited by the government to justify cancelling the program were unjustified casts the net too broadly.
Secondly, it also says that “all of the witnesses stated that the political allegiance or non-allegiance of the lawyers was never a factor in the hiring of lawyers”, but in fact not all of the witnesses stated that. We had at least four witnesses who never raised the issue at all and who probably would have taken issue with that contention.
So if you're going to have a motion based on a preamble, typically a preamble will state matters of fact. My suggestion is that prior to voting on this, in order to reflect the record properly, we should clarify the preamble.
I'll be voting against the motion in any event, because I support the government's decision to cancel the court challenges program.