Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am not sure how long a grace period lasts for a new member of Parliament or how long we can plead that we are new members of Parliament, but I appreciated the caution that you shared with us earlier when you reread the original motion that you were dealing with as a standing committee. I perhaps would be seeking some clarification either from you or other members who were on this committee during the 39th Parliament just with regard to the wording that Madame Freeman has chosen in the motion where she asks us to “resume the study it began during the Second Session of the Thirty-Ninth Parliament regarding the Conservative Party's election campaign expenses during the 2005-2006 election campaign”.
You have intimated that the work that was happening was work that was happening after the election, when election expenses were being submitted to Elections Canada once these candidates became members of Parliament and parliamentary secretaries. So I am thinking that this wording in this motion is somewhat misleading to what you had stated.
Also, I would love to know who the witnesses were during that study and what the hearings were all about, because we're being asked to deem all that work that was done to have happened now, and with nine new members on this committee, we're either taking it on faith.... I guess we go back and we look at all the work, read through everything that's happened, and get ourselves up to speed so we know what that work was. Or could I ask for a list of the witnesses and the basic context of those hearings?