Mr. Chair, I'll briefly speak to both the motion and the amendment. I gather that's your decision.
The history of the motion is that we would hear the guests that we've had for the last day and a half, and then there were some motions, some of which were mine, that were referred to throughout, and we were supposed to deal with those today. Then yesterday it was suggested that we concentrate on the witnesses. If the motions had been made—there were three separate ones—the motions would have been debated and voted on. Maybe they would have failed, but we would have had an opportunity to debate each one of those motions properly.
Then it was pointed out that each party would submit a list. It would be consolidated by the clerk, and then the list would be provided to members. That was done. Then we arrive, and you say that before we start you're striking out some names. Every last one of them was a Conservative. This is especially true of the ones on the motions that I made, which I would ordinarily have had an opportunity to debate. You denied me the right to debate why those names should or should not be on.
I understand. You have more votes than we do, and you can do whatever you like, which is what you've done. That's political life—that's okay.
It's a question of fairness. In all fairness, I withdrew my motions. On your representations, Mr. Chairman, I withdrew them. And then, in all fairness, I assumed that by putting the names on the list we would have an opportunity to look at all the names.
The whole thing has been a charade. The whole thing has been a farce.
Then Mr. Martin comes on and says, “Oh, by the way, there's one more name I'd like take off, and that's Bob Rae's former chief of staff.” I find that incredible. I find this whole process incredible.
So I'm opposing the motion of Mr. Martin. I understand he wants to get on with it. We've been fooling around a lot today, I understand that. But on the issue of fairness, it just isn't here. It's all one-sided. From cutting off the questions we had for the witnesses this morning to this whole process today, it's not fair. And anyone who sees this will realize it's not fair. Yes, the opposition is having its way with the government members, and that's life. It's incredible. But there is no fairness.
With respect to Ms. Jennings' amendment, on the deleting of some of the names, her comment that the Conservatives should be happy with this I found a tad condescending. You say this is all done to develop cooperation. No, it was condescending. So I'm not too pleased about that.
I am going to return to one of the points she made with respect to the chair's having the right to submit a subpoena—or perhaps it was a summons—to everyone. This is rather high-handed for a committee. Even courts, really, are nervous about doing this.
A committee may order a witness when the witness doesn't want to appear or doesn't want to comply. You've challenged me on this, but I would like to go through what I believe is the process. This is another reason I'm not opposing the amendment. I think it's rather high-handed. Only the House can force a witness to comply, provided that it agrees with the committee, and the House may not agree with the committee. This committee cannot assume that the House would agree.
The committee normally and usually invites witnesses to appear. That's normally the process: we invite them. We don't subpoena or summons them; we invite them to appear. Most of the time, that follows through. In the last major hearing we had, we asked some people to appear, and they didn't appear. Well, we went on our way.
When a witness refuses to appear, Mr. Chairman, or when the committee is of the opinion that the witness is stonewalling, it would adopt a motion at the committee ordering the witness to appear. Refusal by the witness at this point is grounds for contempt. That's what I understand the process to be.
A member of the committee would then need to raise the matter at committee. If the chairman is of the opinion that the matter touches on contempt, then he or she would enter debate on a motion to report the matter to the House. The report would then describe the facts and the situation, summarize the events, name the individual involved, indicate that contempt may have occurred, and request that the House of Commons take some action.
The House may or may not take action. There would be a debate and there would be a vote. Once the report is tabled in the House, a member could raise the matter as a question of privilege. The Speaker would then consider the question, and if he finds that a prima facie question of privilege exists, he would invite the member to propose a motion asking the House to take some action.
It's at that point that the action takes place. It's up to you to determine whether the amendment is out of order or not, but I submit that the amendment on that particular point is rather high-handed and is not the way we do things around here.