Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The point is that if we go from next Wednesday to the break week, which is already scheduled, we get into the committee hearing with Mr. Lacroix. This has been quite torturous to organize so that there is a common time for the chair of the CBC to come before this committee and answer questions about access to information in the CBC, which I know he's prepared to do. There is another item that follows on that, and there are other things that are scheduled. Therefore, we can take a look at what we have done to this point on the study of open government and say that we will get around to giving our researchers instructions in May, so they can at least start the process. This way, by next fall we could have the report on the study of open government.
With respect to the motion itself, I found it interesting that Mr. Easter admitted that the motion is rather light in the way it's written. I read the words, “To examine the issuance by the office of the Minister of Immigration”. He tries to imply that because it is noted on the letterhead it is coming from the Minister of Immigration. At one point, he was a minister; he was Solicitor General at one point. I was a parliamentary secretary. That was the distinction we had at that time. But the issuance was not by the office of the Minister of Immigration; in fact, the issuance of the letter was on Jason Kenney's letterhead. I would like Mr. Easter to show us the letter from the Minister of Immigration on his office stationery dated March 3, 2011. This is not an incidental point. This is a motion we are taking a look at, and we would be moving forward from this motion.
This is nothing more than a naked attempt to get at the content of the presentation that was included with that letter. Everybody in Canada who has paid any attention to this—and I don't imagine there are tremendous lineups to watch this thing right now—is well aware that Mr. Kenney has clearly said that this was inappropriate. He has explained that he signs everything that leaves his office, that there was the terribly tragic assassination of the minister in Pakistan, that he was quickly on a flight to Pakistan to pay homage to that gentleman, and that everything was in a turmoil. There was a mistake made by a person in his office, so there was the dispersing of the information.
With respect to the information, I suspect that if there was a close examination of the documents, which I haven't examined myself, one would find that every single statistic included in “Breaking Through—Building the Conservative Brand in Cultural Communities” will have come from sources that are publicly available.
I have personal experience with Minister Kenney, and when I read in the press that he puts in 80-, 90-, 100-hour weeks, I have no difficulty believing it. I have no idea how this man actually manages to attend the number of events and go the distances that he goes. It's astounding. To suggest that there wasn't time within his schedule or the schedule of the people who are employed in his office over the 40 hours, and that they were on government time, is just not on. We have all seen the level at which he and his staff work.
I think it's important that we keep things in context and not bow to the goddess of 24/7, as Mr. Easter wants to do. We should resist his discussion about the urgency and continue with our study on open government. Next Wednesday, rather than getting into this wild goose chase that would work to Mr. Easter's advantage, we should do what we had originally intended and give instructions to our staff so we can carry on with our study on open government.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.