All right. Order, please.
I understand. For future reference, your point of order is in order to the extent that you are challenging the relevance of what the minister is saying to the motion now before us. That's all you have to say. This is where the House usually gives fairly broad latitude to the discussion. I spend a lot of time in the House, watching the Speaker and how he deals with these things. Certainly, the minister has a political staffer who has been called before this committee and is the subject of this motion. I think he's making an argument that I believe will ultimately be debated in the House of Commons when the Speaker is charged with dealing with the ministerial statement. This will be triggered by a report from a committee.
In this committee there's no question that Ms. Andrews is the subject of this motion. The reason is that something happened in the House—the government House leader announced a policy that henceforth ministers will appear on behalf of political staff for various reasons and for purposes of accountability. We are not going to resolve this here. These are the same arguments that went on when Mr. Lee brought his motion before the House with regard to access to the Afghan detainee documents—the rights and privileges of parliamentarians to call for persons, papers, or records.
This is the challenge yet again. It is much the same as we've already been through, but we cannot decide this as a committee. It is going to be up to the House to determine whether or not the rights and privileges of committees, which are delegated from the House, are in conflict with the government's policy statement of a couple of weeks ago. That is for the House to resolve.
I have to rule that Mr. Paradis' reference to that is relevant, and I'm going to decline your point of order.
Carry on, Minister.