Thank you.
This has been a fascinating discussion.
I think it's been clear that we all agree we don't want to change the act to interfere with legitimate organizations, businesses, and groups meeting with parliamentarians. What we are obviously disagreeing on is what happens in a case such as you just referred to, of severe breaches by people who decide to break the rules and undermine the process and who basically are given a “get out of jail free” card.
You've made, at least twice, clear recommendations that we should hear from the RCMP. We've heard that over the last 23 years there has never been a prosecution; the RCMP rubber stamps whatever act anybody has ever done and says they're not going to investigate. And yet you're forced to suspend your work while this goes on, which I believe then interferes with Parliament's ability to actually get to the bottom of a situation. It allows government, for example, in the case of Mr. Jaffer, to put off the day of reckoning down the road.
Yet when we bring forward support for your recommendation to have the RCMP come before us, the Conservatives don't want to have anything to do with examining what role the RCMP is playing, whether they do any investigation whatsoever, and why they've never bothered to consider a case that, as you say, was severe and that merits any follow-up.
I have a question I'd like to ask you. Given that my colleagues across the table obviously are doing whatever they can to keep the RCMP out of this investigation, we are led back to either asking Mr. Jaffer to write an essay on the theme “I will not be bad anymore” or to invoking an administrative monetary penalty.
Do you believe this is the only other recourse we have at this point?