Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I wasn't planning to speak, but I will. There is a reason why we are meeting today. Obviously, we did not request this meeting. We are here to explain why our committee is not the right place to consider this issue. The committee does not have a mandate to investigate conflict of interest. Other people have already looked into that and into other cases. That work is done by the commissioners, that's their job. When the individuals involved are members of Parliament, it is Parliament's Board of Internal Economy that looks into everything.
That is why I proposed the amendment. Everyone here must recognize the reason why it is the Board of Internal Economy that deals with these matters. Members of all parties sit on the board, and things are done in a confidential manner. From what I have heard, since these meetings are not held in public, the exchanges between members of the various political parties and the MPs involved can be very frank and honest.
We still have the same goal, which is to ensure that our democracy remains based on political parties and groups. We are not in small villages where everyone can represent themselves, far from it. Citizens rely on political parties to represent them. As we know full well, in our system we do not vote for a prime minister but for MPs, each of whom represents a political party. In most cases, voters hope that the leader of the political party of the candidate they voted for will become Prime Minister. I also understand that sometimes the leader makes it very clear that they don't want to take power, but I think they have an interest elsewhere. I do not want to veer too far off topic, but as we know, the leader of the Bloc Québécois was previously involved in politics in Quebec. It is certainly very interesting to make a career in another level of government to then come back to Quebec and perhaps even lead the province. Why not? It's because we are in the public eye, right?
The parliamentary resources that we all use are very important. If they are being used for smear campaigns here and there—and I'm talking about all parties in general—the public needs to know that. Every MP has more than one office and hires three, four or five people to work there. Some may have as many as ten staffers, some working part-time. It is important for people to know what these staffers do. Constituents would not want to find out that employees are being hired for purposes other than the work being done in the riding with respect to federal policy and federal cases. People need to understand exactly what work is being done with their tax dollars.