Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I look forward to the vote happening today on this particular motion. However, I will not be supporting the motion and I want to give some detail on why I know that I'm not. I'm hoping to convince my colleagues also not to support the motion.
The mover of the motion has read the motion. Let me start with the first part of the sentence that's in the motion: “Due to the absence of any action by the government...”.
Mr. Chair, I think this is absolutely inaccurate, and that is one of the reasons I'm not supporting this motion. Let us be clear that when the issue first came to be, the leader of the opposition got up in the House and challenged, I would say, the Prime Minister of Canada to call a public inquiry. What was the Prime Minister's response? Immediately it was that he was going to call a public inquiry--so, to begin with, the wording referring to absence of action is completely inaccurate. We took immediate action on the request, on the understanding that a public inquiry is what we felt and what the Prime Minister felt was needed in this case to deal with the issue.
We also have dealt with this issue extensively at this committee. We spent months and months and months discussing the issue, bringing witnesses, and talking to witnesses. We brought some witnesses back two or three times. I think Mr. Martin clearly indicated that we also invited Mr. Mulroney back after he'd been here once, and former Prime Minister Mulroney indicated that he had provided the information that he was able to and had nothing further to add.
So we have been very active. Our committee met, and then during the committee meetings there was a discussion all of a sudden that we should be proceeding--but how do you proceed, as a government, with an inquiry when we have an active standing committee looking at the issue? I felt it was inappropriate. We either have the public inquiry or we have the committee meetings looking at it, but to do it at the same time I think was inappropriate.
The decision was made--and I agree with the decision--that we would complete the work that we have done at this committee to look at the evidence that we and the opposition wanted to see. I want to remind you, Mr. Chair, that in fact this side of the committee room did not call any witnesses; all witnesses were asked for by opposition members, and we dutifully saw those witnesses and asked them questions. We worked our schedules around those dates and times to make sure that witnesses could be here and provide the information that opposition members wanted to hear.
As we were proceeding through the committee, the government, I think rightly, waited. They wanted to wait to hear what this committee's conclusions would be. That conclusion came through the report that I think is mentioned here in this motion: “the fifth report of the committee, presented to the House on April 2...”. I remind you that was just April 2, 2008. We waited to hear back. The government waited to hear back from this committee on the work it had done.
One of the recommendations in that report was to proceed with an inquiry. Did the government delay? No. Did the government indicate that they weren't going to do that? No; the indication was that we would proceed with the inquiry now that we had this report. Part of that process was to ask Dr. Johnston to report back, looking at the report that we did after months and months of activity at this committee--seeing witnesses, asking questions, and doing follow-up. Some opposition members had lunch or dinner with some of the witnesses to get even further detail.
We looked at that evidence. Dr. Johnston was asked to look extensively at that evidence and to give a report to the government on what the scope of an inquiry should be.
Mr. Chair, that action was taken immediately. There was no absence of any action by the government. We had to give Dr. Johnston some time to report, of course. He had to read our report and look at some of the testimony he had heard from the meetings we had had. He looked at other evidence that he had in front of him. I'm just surmising that he looked at how public inquiries have worked on other topics in other areas and what would be efficient and effective as a public inquiry for this particular item. Dr. Johnston did report back on that item. From that item the government has proceeded to try to begin the process of setting up the inquiry.
I want to remind the committee that the report was just accepted in the House on April 2, 2008. This is mid-May. I was in municipal government for 13 years before being here for the last two and a half, and I can tell you that municipal government is slow. The federal government is even slower.