Then, as the meeting went on and the responses weren't in line with the direction the NDP member was hoping this was going to go, at that point, both the Conservatives and the NDP decided that they would start showing frustration. I think the frustration they're expressing towards the inability to answer certain questions is actually more so an expression of the questions being answered but not to the liking of those members.
I would go even further, Mr. Chair, to say that I think it's embarrassing to conduct this kind of an exercise in front of the witnesses we brought forward, who are giving us their time on taxpayers' money, who have done their very best to answer these questions in the most professional manner possible—and I think they've done that very well—only to be witness to this debacle that is being put forward by both the Conservative member as well as the NDP member.
I don't think this is something that Canadians want to see us do. If they were going to approach this, I think it could have been handled differently, by perhaps asking for the witnesses to be excused and for us to have this discussion offline. However, they opted to do it in public, so here we are.
I would go so far as to say that this is something that I think the opposition has strained to do from the beginning, Mr. Chair.
There were witnesses who were brought forward by the opposition members, so we added on another meeting to discuss this and now we're having that meeting. Even with that meeting that was agreed to, which was put forward by the Conservatives and the NDP, now they're not happy with the way that the questions have been responded to.
Once again, I'll end by saying that I think this is incredibly disrespectful to the witnesses we've invited here, and I don't think it does justice to the work that we need to be doing on this committee.
I'll end it there.