I appreciate the decision that individual members of the opposition rendered in casting their vote on my previous amendment. I detected from Mr. Easter's intervention that the sticking point is one that we can resolve. Our concern on this side is that we uphold the ancient traditions of ministerial responsibility.
Mr. Easter, who brought forward the original motion, has indicated that he would like someone to respond on behalf of the Prime Minister. I indicated earlier that the convention going back beyond this government to previous governments of a different stripe is that prime ministers do not appear in parliamentary committees.
However, if Mr. Easter and his opposition colleagues are insistent on having someone represent the Prime Minister's Office directly, and explain the protocols that staff members follow, there's someone who is ideally suited to do both of those things, and that would be the chief of staff to the Prime Minister.
I would be prepared to put forward the following compromise amendment. It reads as follows. After “the Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development”, we would delete all of what's below, except for “Mr. Guy Giorno, Chief of Staff, Prime Minister's Office”. That's the first amendment--again eliminating everything after the word “Development”, except for “Mr. Guy Giorno, Chief of Staff, Prime Minister's Office”.
The second part to my amendment would be to add “Minister of Public Works Canada, Rona Ambrose”.
So you would have the ministers responsible for the sections in which the incidences in question have been raised, and you would have from the Prime Minister's Office the head of the exempt staff, Mr. Guy Giorno.