Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank Madame Freeman for bringing this matter to the committee, because I think it is important that we give consideration to resuming this study, especially given the importance that it was seen to have in the last Parliament. I don't think we should, as parliamentarians, raise issues without the political will to follow through on them, especially when they are controversial issues and when they create controversy. For that reason we need to complete our work on this particular issue.
Chair, I want to thank you for your clarification on it, because that's very helpful to me as a new member of the committee. I know you'll do your best to keep our focus on what we should and can be considering, given the limitations of our mandate and the limitations of previous rulings. That was very helpful to me, and I appreciate that we need to take care in how we proceed on this issue.
I agree as well that we need to keep our appointment with the legal counsel, Mr. Walsh, to hear and to further understand issues of contempt of Parliament, because they do seem to bear on the work before us in a number of areas. And again, as a new member of the committee, I want to have an understanding of those issues and I think he is the appropriate person to at least get us started on that. I don't think we have to delay consideration of this motion to hear from him, but I do believe it is very important that we hear from him and I know that is the next item on our agenda after we consider this motion.
That being said, Chair, should we pass this motion, I hope it would go to the agenda and planning committee for scheduling. I know we've already made other commitments of work we're going to do. I don't see this motion superseding those decisions that were already made, and I would see that this goes into the hopper, so to speak, to be scheduled for our future work.
Chair, I just want to say that I too have been concerned about how parliamentary committees seemingly became bogged down and became very partisan and dysfunctional in the last Parliament. I just want to say that I'm prepared to work to find ways we can move forward with an appropriate agenda and complete the work before us in the interest of the folks who sent us here.
Thank you, Chair.