I'll be very brief.
I don't know if we want to release the witness, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure how long we'll be doing this. It's probably unfair to have him sit here while we deliberate; it's not like he can respond. So if you want to consider releasing him, that would be great.
I will say this, Mr. Chair. My opposition friends talk about the process. As you will know, they actually rejected the nomination of Mr. Therrien before he actually appeared before committee. The moment he was suggested as the next Privacy Commissioner, they actually outright rejected his appointment. They did the same in the House.
I'm not certain what continuing on...with respect to an investigation, as to why the NDP rejected an appointment before they even had the opportunity. So now they want to bring it to committee and have an extensive study. But when they...before they had the opportunity to do this, they had chosen to just reject outright.
I suspect that Mr. Therrien could walk on water and the NDP would outright reject him. I don't see the point of sitting here for four days on something that they rejected in advance of even hearing from the witness.
With respect to certain bills that are before the House, if he's approved as the commissioner, we'll have many, many years and many opportunities for him to appear before committees to provide testimony and his thoughts on that.
I note that our members on this side did review his resumé. We reviewed his career in the public service. We did take the opportunity to speak to not only our ministers; I took the opportunity to speak to former Liberal cabinet ministers who had the opportunity to work with Mr. Therrien to get their advice with respect to what they thought about his appointment.
We've done all of that, Mr. Chair. Based on all of that work to this point, we're prepared to move forward and undertake a vote on the motion.