All right. The overall point I'm making here, the thesis I am driving at, is that when the possibility of discussing the issue of electoral financing first came before this committee, the first thing the opposition tried to do was prevent their own books from being discussed. “We don't want any discussion of our own activities, because we don't want any of that to be brought into public light. We don't want to show that we did exactly the same thing we are accusing the government of.”
Then, Mr. Chair, we said, okay, we would move ahead with these discussions and we'd have the Chief Electoral Officer here. As soon as we started to ask him questions that demonstrated fatal weaknesses in his legal argument, they said, oh no, we can't have any more questions about that because that's before the courts. We can't have any discussion of the weakness of his case, because that will appear before the courts. So we won't allow that either.
Then I mentioned the example of the Bloc Québécois deliberately transferring expenses to its local campaigns. And now you're saying, no, that can't be discussed, because it was in the year 2000, and everything that happens in a leap year is not allowed to be discussed before the committee.
Now that we're driving home a lot of these weaknesses, more weaknesses, with the questioning of the witness, they say, no, we can't have any more questions, because it's almost noon, and no questions are allowed after noon. There's a rule, an ancient parliamentary tradition, that questions aren't allowed after noon.
So as soon as the opposition starts to find itself in a danger zone, they invent a new rule about why questions about them or Elections Canada cannot be asked.
Mr. Chair, this very motion that Mr. Martin has put forward is proof itself of the very weakness of the opposition's and Elections Canada's position here.