Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I'd like to apologize to our witnesses. This has become a trend, unfortunately. This happens at almost every meeting. Experts travel here or appear on their own time via Zoom to help us study how we can better protect fresh water in Canada, and the Conservatives obstruct it, using this committee as their personal soapbox.
You guys have phones. You guys have the ability to make a video. Do it on your own time. This is pathetic. It's a pathetic waste of the time of people who are generous enough to come to this committee for these meetings.
We'll have time for another study after the freshwater study is concluded. It will be a democratic process. This committee will determine what to study next.
On the issue of this scandal that Mr. Leslie is trying to drum up, there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a conversation with a senator. The Conservatives on the other side have conversations with senators every Wednesday at their caucus meeting, because the only senators who are partisan are Conservative ones.
I'd like to very briefly speak to one such Conservative senator, who is Conservative leader Don Plett. Having a conversation over a coffee with a senator about how they intend to vote on a bill is totally normal. That's politics. We've all done that, and it's normal. You guys do it every single Wednesday. We don't have senators in our caucus meetings, but the Conservatives do, so they have an opportunity to liaise with them to discuss and talk about legislation that's coming to the Senate every single week.
When the minister met with senators, I guarantee there was no bullying or harassment, but when Don Plett met with senators he disagreed with—