Thank you, Chair.
Addressing Madam Freeman's motion, I have to say that the committee and you were generous in allowing the minister to speak when he arrived here this morning unannounced, but it is clear from the questions we have already had that the Minister of Transport has no direct responsibility for the staff person we were hoping to have appear before the committee this morning.
It is very clear that the Minister of Transport has no direct supervisory responsibilities for Mr. Soudas. I can't imagine that he has knowledge of his day-to-day activities. I can't even imagine that he's been briefed about Mr. Soudas's activities in any detail that would be helpful to this committee, and certainly he hasn't provided any evidence that he is willing to do that or has been briefed on that.
Instead, what we have had from the minister are allegations about the conduct of this committee, which I find extremely objectionable and unfounded. We've also heard his rather patronizing assessment of senior ministerial staff, which, as a former staff person to a member of Parliament, I also find extremely unfortunate. I guess I will say calmly that I just don't think that is appropriate. I believe that senior staff are chosen for their abilities and certainly have many skills that make it possible for them to deal with the kinds of circumstances that arise in our parliamentary system.
I do believe we are not getting anywhere with regard to our study of the allegations of political interference. In fact, our study did not involve any allegations of political interference in access to information requests in the office of the Minister of Transport, so I don't see any relevance to his testimony here this morning.
We need to move on to the question of Mr. Soudas's failure to appear. I don't know what the notion of collective responsibility is that the minister mentioned this morning. It seems to me that ministers have specific responsibility for their departments, and I can't believe we're going to get into a situation where we can ask any minister any question about the conduct of any department. It seems we are going down a very strange path.
We need to get back to our agenda and discuss the failure of Mr. Soudas to appear when he was invited by this committee.