Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am a little disappointed that the Liberals are unwilling to support Mr. Siksay's motion. I would remind them that they mentioned March 11, 2011 as a possible date for a report. May I remind committee members that the House was prorogued in both 2008 and 2009. There are no guarantees that Parliament will not be prorogued or that an election will not be called before March 2011. If Parliament is prorogued, all of the studies that we have undertaken will fall by the wayside, and we will have to start all over again...
This government is said to have cooperated and acted in good faith. However, I'm not prepared to wait until March 2011 for a report to the House or for a committee to meet. As the saying goes, things happen in threes. Even though I didn't become an MP until 2007, I have experienced two prorogations. Canada hadn't seen many over the course of the 20th century. I have lived through two recently and like most people here, I don't want to write the government a blank cheque. We shouldn't be encouraging the government either to create two classes of citizens by deciding that parliamentary aids do not have to testify before committees because they are aids, not citizens. That, in my view, is a tendentious argument. We've seen assistants and government officials testify in the past.
Mr. Siksay's motion is complete. It reflects the position taken by the three opposition parties last spring, further to motions tabled by my Liberal colleague. I intend to support Mr. Siksay's motion, as does my Bloc colleague. I know the Conservatives will not be backing it, but perhaps the Liberals will rethink their position.