Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With all due respect, I would say that the committee simply does not have the authority to decide to hear from Mrs. Fortier today. Mr. Chair, you called this meeting pursuant to an order of the House of Commons for one simple reason, and that is to hear from Ben Chin. That is our mandate. The Prime Minister had the opportunity to appear in Ben Chin's place. Again, I respectfully submit to you that the committee does not have the authority to decide whether or not Mrs. Fortier can replace Mr. Chin. As such, I don't think she can.
As I pointed out last time, the job of the committee is to note the absence of the witness and report it to the House, because we are proceeding today pursuant to an order of the House. The House will decide what it wants to do. In my view, it should ask the recalcitrant witnesses to explain their absence today and on other occasions. Then it should decide what to do with them. I think the committee can only report to the House and ask that it take whatever action it deems appropriate in the circumstances.
I have shared a motion addressing all the appearances that were scheduled for March 29, March 31 and April 8. On March 29, Rick Theis was scheduled to appear; on March 31, Amitpal Singh; and today, April 8, Ben Chin. The motion notes the failure of these witnesses to appear, as well as the failure of the Prime Minister, who had the opportunity to replace them. The motion also notes that the committee never relieved the witnesses of their obligation to appear. It therefore calls upon the House to take such action as it deems appropriate. I move the adoption of this motion, which you have received and which applies to all the witnesses that we had scheduled.
I have sent you another motion with much the same purpose. It has to do with the due diligence reports on WE Charity, which were due by April 1 and were never produced. We have received documents that are hundreds, if not thousands, of pages long; I have not counted them. I personally have done investment and due diligence work and I can tell you that the documents we received are documents that an accountant or a lawyer might request from a company or a person undergoing due diligence. However, this is not an audit report. A due diligence audit report should be one page or [Technical difficulty—Editor]. It should contain the auditor's findings about the investment and their recommendations. That's what a due diligence report is. We didn't receive one. So that's another obligation that has not been met.
I am therefore moving these two motions to note the failures to appear and to prepare reports, and to report them to the House.
I see no other reason to make this committee meeting longer, Mr. Chair. With all due respect, I think that's the extent of our mandate.
Thank you.