Thank you.
I support my colleague on this issue, because getting the facts on the record as to whether or not there was an orchestrated campaign to interfere in a criminal prosecution is the issue that's right now dominating our country. It's making it impossible for my colleagues in the Liberal government to move forward, because we have not gotten clarity on this. This is a political crisis that is unprecedented. I've never seen anything like this. We've lost the Clerk of the Privy Council. We've lost the chief of staff to the Prime Minister. We've lost two of the most respected women cabinet members—the president of the Treasury Board and the former attorney general—as well as the former parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister. This is an issue that's not going away.
I particularly note my colleague Mr. Erskine-Smith's comments in the Toronto Star, which I read, but also at the last committee, that he felt this was being handled by the justice committee. Well, the justice committee shut this down and did not allow further testimony. The only two key people from the Prime Minister's Office who testified both had to quit their jobs in disgrace. There are unanswered questions. There are questions about who in the office overstepped their ethical obligations. I also note that my colleague Mr. Erskine-Smith said that if there was new evidence to come forward, then it definitely would be within the purview of the ethics committee. Well, I certainly would suggest that after hearing the information brought forward by Ms. Wilson-Raybould, everything she said at the justice committee has been verified by her facts, and none of those facts have been contradicted by any other evidence.
I also note that Mr. Butts' counter-evidence does not create a pattern or an image that these people were at personal loggerheads, that there was this conflict, that she was impossible to work with. I found that there was a great deal of respect, because she felt that she was working for the Prime Minister's interests. Her conversations in the text messages that Mr. Butts provided were very respectful. It was about whether or not there was interference in the rule of law. That's what we need to stay focused on, not a larger soap opera of he-said-she-said. Was there interference in the rule of law? This is a fundamental question that has to be above party lines here.
I make that note as I received a letter this morning from Mr. Drago Kos of the OECD anti-bribery unit, who wrote to me to confirm that they are paying very close attention. They are paying very close attention because the government said that there would be a robust investigation at the justice committee, and then it was shut down. Mr. Kos has stated that the OECD would welcome any more information to be handed...because they are monitoring whether or not Canada has breached its international obligations. If Canada breaches its international obligations in a matter as serious as an international corruption trial, it will certainly put us on the list of outliers.
It's well within the purview of the ethics committee, because we have obligations to oversee the Conflict of Interest Act and we have obligations in terms of the obligations of public office holders that we have to deal with. There are issues of the pressure and the lobbying that went on, into the Prime Minister's Office, that put key people in the Prime Minister's Office in, I think, very compromised positions. This is something that is within the purview of the ethics committee. I think we need to move on it.
I think it's very unhelpful to have the mano-a-mano back and forth between the Prime Minister and the head of the opposition as to who's going to sue whom and who's more willing to stand up to the other guy. That is not helpful. I think the simplest thing—I don't care how long we sit—is to get the hearings done. Let's get a report. Let's restore it to the Canadian people so that we as a nation can decide, if there was a problem, whether there will be accountability. If there wasn't a problem, then we can move on.