Mr. Chairman, I'm concerned that you've given an explanation as to why some of the witnesses aren't here today. It was rather unusual, your performance here this morning, when you opened up the meeting, and I believe four or five witnesses were not present.
Sir, you didn't allow any time for debate or questions as to what the committee would do or whether the committee was concerned about that. These meetings are very expensive to hold. It's expensive for members to come. It's expensive for the staff to be here. It's expensive, and to simply dismiss that was rather uncalled for.
Most of those three witnesses--I think there were five witnesses, rather--all came from the province of Quebec. We don't know why they weren't here. You didn't indicate whether they said they would not be here. You didn't seem to know. You didn't say. They may all have been travelling together. I don't know. Maybe they were travelling by train. Maybe there was a delay somehow. Normally what you do, Mr. Chairman, from any experience I've had either in committees or in courts of law, is number one, the person in charge of the hearing, who is you, consults with other members of the committee and possibly suspends the meeting, not for three or four hours but for half an hour, to see whether these witnesses are going to telephone the clerk's office or whether they're going to come. But you haven't allowed that.
So sir, once again you've blown it. We now have no idea whether these witnesses appeared some time between 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. We don't know that, because you suspended the meeting.
My point of order, sir, is that in the future.... I think you were out of order in suspending the meeting the way you did. In the future...I believe this is not your show; this is the show of the ethics committee, and we should all be consulted as to what we're going to do.