Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move:
That the Standing Committee...calls Karlheinz Schreiber to appear before the committee on Thursday November 22nd, Tuesday November 27th, and Thursday November 29th; and Brian Mulroney on Tuesday December 4th, Thursday December 6th, and Tuesday December 11th; to answer questions pertaining to a potential Ethics committee investigation.
If I could speak to it briefly, Mr. Chairman, I will explain my rationale.
This motion was submitted quite a few days ago when I was still optimistic that there would be cooperation amongst the committee and even believed we could have had Karlheinz Schreiber appearing before the committee today. That's no longer possible, and I would be interested in an amendment to the motion to correct that, but I also believe there's some urgency to getting Mr. Schreiber here on Tuesday, the 27th and Thursday, the 29th, because the deportation date, as it stands currently, is still the first of next month.
I also believe that after those brief preliminary meetings with Mr. Schreiber we should immediately hear from Mr. Mulroney, because he indicated he was interested in telling Canadians his side of the story. While it's fresh in people's minds what the testimony was from Schreiber, we should hear from the former Prime Minister as well.
This is the reasoning behind the motion, Mr. Chairman.