Thank you, Chair, and thank you for clarifying that we need to get our witness lists in so that we can actually get to work.
I want to speak briefly to Mr. Dong's motion.
We have gone through 40 hours of obstruction of this committee. What that means, I think my Liberal colleagues really need to understand, is that there's been a poisoning of the relationships on this committee. You get elected by your party and your party sends you in to do certain stuff. Sometimes it's not all that tasteful, but you do it because you're a good loyal foot soldier, but the only thing that gets you through your career in politics is your integrity. Your “yes” means yes, and your “no” means no, as the nuns used to teach me at school.
I've seen see 40 hours of obstruction and interference in the work of the committee, something I've never seen before, and when we finally passed the motion, the committee is immediately hijacked by Mr. Dong—something else that I've never ever seen before. The reasoning he gives us is that he's upset because he doesn't want to talk about this and that he's never had a motion passed, and the Liberals haven't had any of their motions passed.
So rather than let our committee do the work that we need to do, we were filibustered by both Mr. Dong and Ms. Shanahan. I mention this because I'm asking my Liberal colleagues if that's how they want to play, because if it's about jumping the floor and getting motions to change subjects, we could make life a living hell. If you want scorched earth, it will be scorched earth. If your word means nothing, then for the opposition, we have nothing to get from this committee other than our own agendas.
On the last ethics committee I was on, we worked extremely well together. We put aside our agendas. We learned to listen to each other and work, and we did extraordinary work and that work was recognized internationally. In the previous ethics committee, it was often a gong show. Dean Del Mastro and I went at it on a daily basis, but the work of the committee was never interfered with. It was never monkeywrenched by the antics that I've seen from the Liberals. When things got bad between Dean Del Mastro and me, the whips came down and we got things sorted out because the committee always had to function, but now we see that this committee is in a position where the Liberals want to make it impossible to function.
With regard to Mr. Dong's debate or motion, I find it really irregular. I think it's really a cheap tactic to stop us from getting the basic work done on a committee study.
So I move to adjourn debate on Mr. Dong's motion.
