Thank you, Chair.
I agree fully with my colleague Mr. Angus, and I thank all of the guests here today, with the exception of Mr. MacKinnon, who comes to us as a stranger to this committee, unaware of the practices and precedents of this committee and the fact that officers of Parliament report to this committee and have regularly reported to committee after filing their reports.
I appreciate Mr. Erskine-Smith's defiance of the direction, I'm sure, from the PMO asking for lockstep support for Mr. MacKinnon, and the principled point that he has made several times this year. Mr. Erskine-Smith has said, for example, that the real question is the nature of the intervention made with the former attorney general. Mr. Erskine-Smith said on the record that this is impossible to answer without giving the former attorney general an opportunity to speak. She has asked for that opportunity, and it should be provided to her without limitation.
That has been denied. That is a key part of the Ethics Commissioner's report, and I would suggest to the other three regular members of this committee that they ignore the direction Mr. MacKinnon is trying to lead them in, or to at least speak to this committee and tell us how you could possibly support his defiance of the precedent of hearing from the commissioner, as we did following the equally unacceptable report regarding the Prime Minister's acceptance of the illegal vacation last January 10.