Mr. Chair, I came to you before this meeting and respectfully asked that you offer me the floor so that I wouldn't have to get “ruckusy” on you and demand a point of order. I don't know whether I have a point of order here or a point of clarification or a point of procedure or a point of incompetence. But if I may just speak for a moment, I would like to suggest to you that the interpretation I clearly have is that when this whole process began, and you and your staff began contacting witnesses based on, apparently, a conversation with three of them, you went ahead and issued some 30 summonses. One might consider that to be intimidating.
Then on Monday, when the witnesses showed up—all of them except one—you informed the witnesses that you had changed your mind, and the accommodation, the deal you made with Monsieur Mayrand, the Mayrand accommodation, would not be offered to these witnesses. You also brought in a new procedure. And I would like to know if the witnesses were informed that they would in fact be sworn in. That, to me, indicates that perhaps witnesses might want to have legal counsel. Those procedures, to me, suggest further intimidation.
On Monday, when we had an opening because a witness didn't show, you refused to allow Mr. Finley, who did inform your office that he wouldn't be available later in the week. It is fully customary for chairs to make every effort to accommodate witnesses' schedules. You did not allow Mr. Finley to do that. And besides that, you went to the unprecedented measure of bringing in officers and removing him. That, sir, is intimidation.
That's not to mention that witnesses are watching these proceedings and the number of changes that are being made. Witnesses know full well that these decisions aren't really made by the committee--they're made by the majority on the committee--and that all the Conservative witnesses were deemed to be irrelevant by you, sir, and not allowed. None of the witnesses the Conservative Party put forward were even allowed to be here, because you deemed them to be irrelevant. However, we've seen so far—and I'm sure the witnesses we have today do not fall into this category—that there were a number of these witnesses who offered nothing to this committee.
So sir, I'm suggesting to you that you have to accept responsibility for the falling apart of this committee and the proceedings here. It's your conduct, or lack thereof, that has provided a level of intimidation of witnesses, who possibly do not believe there is any fairness to be had here and that the only fairness they can get is in a real courtroom with trained cross-examination. So sir, I'm suggesting to you that not only have you failed to provide committee members....