Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My earlier questions to you went to this exact point, where I thought we should be listing out more witnesses we wanted to see. I appreciate my colleague putting it forward as an amendment.
Comments have been made about trying to see people in an orderly manner; and let's be frank, we're not trying to avoid anything. The witnesses we have here today are listed in the amendment, Mr. Chair, and we just want an appropriate order for them to be seen.
I was a little surprised that the subamendment did not pass, that the committee did not want legal advice on what they can and cannot receive, do with it, and so on.
So the motion goes to my earlier point, that other names have been submitted. There is a process of how an ATI request is handled, and why we're not dealing with it in the same manner, so that we have a logical, step-by-step approach to this issue.
It had been mentioned, and I think it's only fair to say, that my colleague from the Liberal Party gave us a bit of a lecture on this amendment, saying that it isn't transparent. In fact it's more transparent. It lists everybody we want to make sure we see, and it is in an orderly fashion.
Yesterday I was at a committee, Mr. Chairman, where the Liberal chair slammed the gavel and walked out because he didn't like the Conservative motion, and the committee ended. I don't know how transparent that was.
I know that last week the Liberal Senate committee passed something in 43 seconds, because they made sure it happened when the Conservatives weren't in the room. So transparency is not the issue.
In actual fact, the amendment is more transparent than what we have, because I didn't know who else we were inviting. It lists in order who we'd like to see, and why that order would be so, as explained by the mover of the motion. I don't know why we're not moving ahead on this.
I'm also going to ask for a recorded vote on this amendment, if that's possible. The recorded vote is reasonable in that it would show the members of the committee who are supportive of who's coming and those who aren't.
I should have asked for a recorded vote on the legal advice, because I think it would be shocking to most people that the committee doesn't want to see any legal advice on an important issue to the committee—