Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a couple of things.
First of all, I am also disappointed that the justice minister is not here.
Second, the motion is not quite as people are saying it is. The motion was to invite them. It was not to not proceed if they didn't attend. Inviting is not the same as forcing someone to attend. That's compelling people to attend, which can't be done in the case of a minister.
In this case, we do have a very competent deputy minister who is here, who can answer the questions. I have heard Madame Drouin on many occasions—I used to be the chair of the justice committee—answer questions very effectively. If we do have questions on this issue, I think the first step is to ask them of Madame Drouin, which I did on my questions related to the charter statement.
We have a panel coming up on Monday. Those people have already been invited. The panel has been set up. I think we should proceed with that panel. If the committee wishes to re-invite the minister and to reiterate its invitation to the minister, I think that's totally reasonable, asking him to come on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.
For the most part, my argument is this. What the motion said was that we were to get a charter statement. We got it. We were to invite the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Heritage, and their officials. We invited them. The Minister of Canadian Heritage and his officials came. The officials for the Minister of Justice came. Now we're at the point where we have people here who could answer questions, and we're not asking them the questions.
I think we should ask the questions. We should proceed with the panel on Monday. Again, if the committee wishes to reiterate an invitation to the Minister of Justice, I will support it, as I did on Monday of this week.
Thank you.