Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'll keep my remarks very brief.
Again, the question of the mandate of this committee has been brought up. I would actually use the comments that Mrs. Shanahan made, in part, in her speech on Friday. I apologize if this isn't quite 100% verbatim. It was as fast as my shorthand could go. She said that we have wide powers of how to conduct our business, when referring to the committee.
The inference that we want to turn this into a kangaroo court or go on a witch hunt, whatever the case may be, is absolutely not the case. However, with the number of calls that I'm getting in my constituency office—emails, text messages, Facebook comments and messages—Canadians demand answers. It is incumbent upon us all to ensure...and I'll use another quote from Mr. Fergus's testimony on Friday. It is that democracy is fragile. It is. We've seen shaking of the trust that Canadians expect to put in their government, regardless of its political stripe.
Seemingly, every time Twitter gets refreshed, there's a new revelation, a new element to the scandal that is being revealed. Certainly, from what I'm hearing from my constituents, we must do everything we can to restore the trust that Canadians expect to have in our Parliament and in their government, regardless of whether they voted Liberal or not. We need to take every step necessary to help bring that trust back.
I would encourage all members to once again consider the question that was asked by that constituent I mentioned, with a phone call earlier this week: “What is the problem with shining light on this issue?”
I encourage members to support the subamendment. I would like to see it go to a vote, so we can move on.