Unfortunately, the five minutes have expired.
Mr. Martelli, I don't think there was anything in there for you, but there certainly were some statements.
For the benefit of the committee, you may know that prior to calling this morning's meeting to order, I went to speak with Mr. Finley at the witness table and told him, indeed, and reaffirmed to him what I had said in the memo I had the clerk send to him on Friday, that we were booked solid in the morning and couldn't hear him. I said that we might be able to have him this afternoon, and he said no, that he wanted to appear this morning. That was not possible. I told him also that he was summonsed for Wednesday. But in the letter I did confirm to him that he could come on Thursday, because I didn't think we wouldn't have a full day on Thursday, based on what I was anticipating.
So there's no question that Mr. Finley has been summonsed. We do very much want to hear from him. He has been summonsed for Wednesday. Hopefully, he will appear; but if not on Wednesday, I hope he will contact us and take up our offer to appear sometime on Thursday, so that we can hear from this very important witness. I think members would agree with this.
Now, with regard to the issue of public office-holders, honourable members, it has come up that we can only talk about public office-holders. The motion doesn't say that we can only deal with public office-holders. Be very careful: it is about the ethical conduct of public office-holders. And to understand the ethical conduct of public officers, you must understand the event in which they are implicated, which may give rise to an ethical undertaking to either report, recuse, or to take some other action on behalf of that public office-holder vis-à-vis either the 2006 guidelines of the Prime Minister or, since they were subsequently withdrawn and replaced by them, the amendments to the Conflict of Interest Act.
This is very complicated. It has to do with what triggers actions on behalf of public office-holders, actions that are of an ethical manner relating to their private interest. The private interest has to do with their participation in an election campaign, for which they filed an election expenses return after they became public office-holders. There are allegations that these were improperly filed, and there are some further allegations that there may be some consequences. I don't want to go there.
The reason that we have to look at the event is to determine and understand what happened and whether someone should have known or ought to have known—