Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It seems that we have two institutions here that serve as a particularly good example for some of the problems we might have on this side. We have the House of Commons, by way of example, and we have the House of Lancaster.
In the House of Commons, we have our processes and procedures and things that we follow and respect, and we use things that go on in the House of Commons or inquiries that flow from the activities of the House of Commons that guide us in our deliberations and our discussions and work at committee.
I'm going to elaborate more on the House of Commons process, but I'll start out with this other English tradition we have, or place, called the House of Lancaster, where apparently under a Liberal government and a Liberal minister it was acceptable to negotiate visa applications in a strip joint. In defence of this action, the minister was compelled to come to the committee and testify. We've seen other confusing examples in the previous government where the ministers declined to come, and it gets pretty confusing from there.
Unfortunately, an event arose in the processes of the House of the Commons that should have served as a useful guide for all of us in these matters, and that was with respect to the Gomery report. In that report, Justice Gomery, as he was then, was dealing with very serious matters. The Liberal Party of Canada had reached into the taxpayers' pocket and stole hundreds of millions of dollars, and there's still $40 million unaccounted for. They're still looking for that. The problem is, as Justice Gomery said in his report, and I want to state it clearly here because I think it is important that everyone is reminded of what is stated in the accountable government report:
Ministers need to understand clearly that they are accountable, responsible and answerable for all the actions of their exempt staff.
And I emphasize “exempt” here.
We have another document here, Accountable Government: A Guide for Ministers and Ministers of State, which states at page 37:
Ministers and Ministers of State are personally responsible for the conduct and operation of their offices.
I think those two statements are pretty clear—one in the form of policy, and one in the form of an official report that was requested by the House of Commons, as opposed to any other sort of House we've had to deal with in terms of issues at this or other committees like it. So for those reasons—and there are others, but principally those two reasons—I don't support this motion at all.
Thank you.