Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 13th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Go ahead, Mr. Dong.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

That brings me to my final sentence. Respectfully, I would like to ask Mr. Angus and all of my colleagues to work together to come up with a motion that's both fair and equitable and allows us to begin the real work that we are mandated to do here at this committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Dong.

Next on the speaking list are Madame Gaudreau, Mr. Angus and Madame Lambropoulos. That's the speaking list right now.

We'll go to Madame Gaudreau.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

What do we want? We all want the truth.

How far will we go? We are told that we should be concerned about current issues, but they are doing everything they can to ensure that we do not achieve our goal.

I am really overwhelmed by the mixed messages. If you are going to talk the talk, you have got to walk the walk, as they say. I don't like to repeat myself. After I have repeated the same thing three times to my children, they are surely going to be punished. I must admit, however, that in politics, I have discovered a new number for counting repetitions: a gazillion. It is all hard to swallow. I have to accept it, but it is not easy.

People tell us about the issues in Parliament. When I speak to you, what am I looking for? Is it power? Come on! As has been said before, when you want to defend the public's interests, you focus on what they really need. I am saying loud and clear that we need to move on. Mr. Chair, you can blame me for saying that, but there are no limits here. Anything goes, but democracy doesn't seem to go at all.

It is 3:22 p.m. and we will wait until 3:26 p. m. to find out that it's no longer possible. I have been here since the beginning. I only missed 12 minutes, whereas we have now been meeting for 35 hours. It is just unbelievable. You are going to have to give me some arguments, colleagues, so that when I am home on the weekend, I can explain to anyone who asks about my job, what it is basically all about, and what they elected me for. They will point out that I am clearly not solving their high-speed Internet problem or helping them get through the pandemic. We cannot even say that we are able to take care of our people anymore. That is not what I'm doing right now.

New participants are being brought in. With all due respect, I must tell you, colleagues, that I will be vigilant. Since I only missed 12 minutes of the meeting, when I hear what is being said, I will remember what has been said. In addition, I will also have the blues in front of me and I will not hesitate to speak up. I'm going to be tiresome, but this has to stop. It makes no sense.

I am embarrassed and ashamed. I have said it a “gazillion” times already, but no one understood. Having said that, I invite democracy to take its rightful place. We have thoroughly examined the issue. I will not tell you in detail why I believe that, by dragging out the debates, by wanting to hide or change things too much and with everything pointing to a loss of confidence, we have indeed reached that point.

But all we hear is that there is nothing to hide. If that is truly the case, let's take action. Then we can really focus on what we are supposed to do. So for the umpteenth time, I invite my colleagues to cast their vote so that we can finally see the results of democracy. We have been elected, as part of this government, and I still do not understand why the rules are so lax.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Madame Gaudreau. I would never, ever consider blaming anything on you. I'll shoulder the blame any time I need to interrupt someone. Thank you very much for your words.

Colleagues, I'll suspend again for five minutes just so that we can do what needs to be done.

Mr. Angus, you are next in the speaking order. I hope you don't mind the suspension just before you speak.

After that, we will have Ms. Lambropoulos and Mr. Sorbara.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Colleagues, welcome back.

Thank you very much for your patience, Mr. Angus. You have the floor.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm only taking the time to speak now because I feel that contrary to the glib lines I hear from my Liberal colleagues, in this conversation, as we're all working to get a better motion, someone has to come in occasionally just to put on the record what's actually happening. Every time we reach a point, whether by vote, or even by amendment, or by compromise, the yardsticks change again for the Liberals.

We just went through a couple of attempted motions today on the documents, because the Liberals have been obsessed about the documents. We've given a number of times on the documents. They've lost two votes today. Now suddenly they're no longer talking about the documents. They're talking about the motion in general and their opposition to it. They tell us that they really want to work with us on the motion, so let's construct a motion that works for them—but then we get told that the motion itself is problematic.

Listen, I get it; when you're in government and you get into an ethical scandal, you don't like it. You don't like people holding you to account. This isn't just a Liberal thing. My Conservative colleagues can probably tell you how much they disliked me when I was taking on issues like Mike Duffy, Bev Oda and her infamous $1,500 limo rides, Pamela Wallin, or the Nigel Wright case. These issues happen. Conflicts of interest, breaches of the Lobbying Act, helping friends out happen when you're in government.

What I find particularly striking about the Liberal government is that Liberals don't seem to think these laws actually apply to them, because in every case, whoever gets in trouble—well, they were good friends. They were good. We heard Mr. Sorbara mention Mr. David MacNaughton's name in connection with his great service to the country. Mr. Dong was telling us that we have to be very careful about the adverse effect we will have by bringing forward, for example, the case of Mr. MacNaughton. Mr. MacNaughton was Justin Trudeau's election co-chair. He was then made ambassador to the United States, the highest post you can get diplomatically. I've had a number of problems with the Trudeau government giving partisan appointments to diplomats, because it gets us into trouble. Mr. McCallum is a perfect example.

We saw with Mr. MacNaughton that he went from being a Liberal electoral co-chair, knowing every single person in the Liberal Party and being very close to the Prime Minister, to becoming ambassador of the most important post. When you come back, you have lots of contacts. We have laws in this country. I know it seems to bother the Liberals, but the Conflict of Interest Act has real provisions about what you can do with that knowledge so that you can't just use it to your own personal advantage. Mr. MacNaughton was found guilty by the Ethics Commissioner.

This isn't about the opposition presupposing something or damaging a company's reputation. The company we're talking about is Palantir, a company that, if my colleagues googled them, would be found to be notorious around the world on allegations of human rights violations and of being involved in a possible case of state-sanctioned extrajudicial killing. They've been identified with the worst of the Trump administration's targeting and separation of immigrant families. Palantir brings a very, very questionable legacy into this country.

Then Mr. MacNaughton becomes their Canadian president. He's not registered to lobby. Lo and behold, he has meetings with all manner of very top Liberals. Of course, it's all supposed to be about the pandemic. The Liberals will tell us that these were all the things they were doing in the pandemic to keep people safe. The fact is that if you have a company as controversial as Palantir, people should know why they're meeting with the deputy prime minister. If they're going to be holding these meetings, they should follow the laws of the land, including the Lobbying Act. Those laws weren't followed.

We need to find out why this was allowed to happen. We need to shine a light on it. As it says in the Book of Luke, what is done in the dark will be shown in the light, and what is whispered in the backrooms will be shouted from the rooftops. When someone as powerful as Mr. MacNaughton uses his position to further the interests of a company like Palantir, it is not in the interest of the Canadian people, and it comes to our committee to look at that.

However, now we're being told that we're presupposing, that we're going to put a chill on all manner of people who are doing this kind of thing. I hope we're putting a chill on them. For God's sake, we should be putting a chill on them. That is the work of an ethics committee that is not afraid to take on the issues.

This afternoon we went on from arguing about the documents and not wanting to put Speakers' Spotlight in a situation of contempt of Parliament. We know that there's no way for that, if they comply with the laws. Whether they have the documents or don't have the documents, they will be judged on whether they followed the law. They're not going to be hanged in the public square, unlike what the Liberals are trying to insinuate.

However, we've moved away from discussing documents, and now they're back to how we damaged WE Charity by asking questions. We heard about tens of thousands of young people. That's what the Liberal line is, and it is a false line.

The question about WE Charity was about their relations with key Liberals. It was about the ability of the Kielburger brothers to walk in and call up—without being registered to lobby—senior ministers, in fact Bill Morneau. They sent him a personal email on April 10 and 11 days later got a $12-million deal, and while they were doing that, they got the inside scoop on the Canada student service grant.

What got WE into trouble was that there were a great many questions about this deal that could not be answered credibly, questions that I have pointed out, but obviously my colleagues weren't listening. If due diligence had been done, this deal might never have gotten off the ground in the first place and WE would have continued doing the work it was doing.

There are questions about lobbying, questions about oversight, questions about their supposed relationship with Imagine Canada. They were going right to cabinet and saying they had this signed agreement when Imagine Canada was saying they had nothing to do with it.

We have an obligation to find out if these issues were advanced improperly because of political connections. We know that the WE group was tied directly to payments to the Prime Minister's mother and brother, and that they were using the Prime Minister's wife as a goodwill ambassador.

It's not that anybody has ever suggested the Prime Minister gave them the contract because of these payments. The question is whether other ministers and civil servants were influenced to give WE a pass because of the connections that they had built with Minister Qualtrough, Minister Ng and certainly minister Morneau. He was deeply, deeply involved in very questionable ways in terms of their relationship, which I think cost Mr. Morneau his job.

This is our work. The Liberals are obstructing our work. Every time they get one argument voted down, they go to the next one. We are now close to 35 hours into this obstruction and gridlock.

I say that we've run out of road. We are not having a conversation here. We are dealing with deliberate obstruction of our work, and it's making our committee look ridiculous. It's turning our work into a mockery.

I say we put it to a vote so we can get on with our weekend and then start coming up with our witness lists so we can get this committee study done and then move on to other issues. I would like to test the floor.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much, Mr. Angus.

I'll see if there's unanimous consent to continue to a vote.

There's no consensus, Mr. Angus.

We will now move on to Ms. Lambropoulos.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me the opportunity to speak.

I am not a regular on this committee, as many of you probably know. This is my first time on this committee.

I'm happy to get the opportunity to speak, mainly because I do have first-hand experience with the WE organization as a former high school teacher in Montreal. Many of the teachers who worked with me were engaged with projects with the WE organization that benefited some of the students at my school.

I know my school is only one very small example, compared to the amount of amazing work this organization does across Canada. I know there are over 400 schools just in the province of Quebec that actually benefited from WE and worked directly with WE on student leadership to basically help their students get amazing experiences doing important work across the world.

I'm sure it obviously wasn't the intention of the opposition or of the committee, but the amazing work that has been done through this organization over the last decade has been undermined and ridiculed a little bit through the current discussions that have been taking place. Unfortunately for the organization, it's been quite damaging to them. I think that's extremely unfortunate, because they do exceptional work.

I do believe that in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic that we're currently living in, many of the programs that the Government of Canada has put out have been done in a very quick manner in order to bring help as quickly as possible to Canadians. We know many Canadians have been ill. Most Canadians have been impacted by COVID-19 in some way or another.

Youth have been particularly impacted. A lot of young people I speak to don't know what the future holds for them and don't know what types of work experiences they'll be able to get in the near future. They're finishing university and obviously investing in their education right now, because they see it as a perfect opportunity to do so, considering that they're staying home and they don't see an end to this thing. However, the Canada student service grant would have been a great opportunity for many students across Canada to get these extra experiences and to get something on their CV that looks great and prepares them for a job in the future, when finally we get out of this crisis and the economy gets back on its feet.

I just wanted to point out that it's unfortunate that this is what's going on right now with this organization and to talk about my experience. I know there are many young people who were looking forward to this experience. Unfortunately, this year opportunities were taken away from thousands of young Canadians because of what happened and what's transpired in the last couple of months.

I'm really hoping that in the coming year, whatever program gets brought out actually does benefit the kids and the students who could benefit.

Another point I wanted to make is about Baylis Medical Company, a company in my riding, which has a great reputation here in Saint-Laurent. Another company in my riding that received funds to create ventilators was CAE. The riding of Saint-Laurent happens to be an industrial hub here in Quebec.

I was quite happy that a lot of the businesses in the riding did get these types of contracts, because obviously Canadians needed to feel that ventilators would be accessible if ever the second wave were to come and if they finally would need a hospital and extra help because of the virus, whose full effects we don't yet know. Also, we don't know where the second wave of the virus will bring us. We don't know how many Canadians are going to eventually need to end up on a ventilator.

Obviously it was important for the government to take the necessary precautions and steps to ensure that Canadians would be safe for the long term and that we would be able to offer enough medical equipment to as many Canadians as need be.

Again, as my colleague Mr. Dong mentioned during his presentation and in what he was mentioning earlier, the contract was not given directly to Baylis Medical. They were subcontracted, just as other companies are. We know that in the grand scheme of things, companies never work independently to do these things. There are always many companies that come into play when producing any type of equipment. A company is never in it alone, right? They need supplies from different types of companies.

It's only normal that one of the companies would be the one with the good reputation—the Baylis Medical company. It could have been any medical company. I think the reason we're looking into this is that the Baylis company is obviously related to Frank Baylis, a previous member of Parliament who was sitting here in the House of Commons. I definitely don't think.... We would have probably turned a blind eye to it if the company name were different or if it wasn't something that was completely related to a past member.

As was mentioned, I remember, in the House of Commons, one of the contracts, specifically one affiliated with Baylis Medical, was a contract that a known Conservative supporter received from the federal government, so it's not a partisan issue in this particular case. It's really about making sure that the companies that have the tools necessary to give us the equipment we need in the coming months, which we may very well need even more than we've prepared for—we don't know yet—get the contracts that we offer, because we need to make sure that we're protecting as many Canadians as possible.

Those are the points I wanted to flag.

I know that this committee has been sitting for quite a while—many, many hours—and I did not hear all of the arguments, because this is the first hour that I'm sitting on this committee. I definitely don't know what was previously stated, but I do, however, really want to bring in my experience as a teacher, because I know many people who have directly benefited from WE. I think it's very unfortunate right now for so many students and young people that I technically feel I represent, because as one of the youngest MPs in the Canadian Parliament, I definitely feel that it's my responsibility to be their voice and to represent them. I definitely feel that they were robbed of an opportunity because of how things transpired, and I definitely don't see how this study would help that in the future.

I would like for us to come up with new ways to support young people and to create opportunities for them that they will benefit from in the long term. I don't necessarily see how doing this type of study on the committee would help us get there faster. If anything, I think that maybe a lot of the supports we're giving may come to a halt if we were to continue going ahead. I wouldn't want to see that.

I'm really hoping that these points are taken into account when you're making a final decision. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Madam Lambropoulos.

We'll now move to Mr. Sorbara.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

I'm so excited to start deliberating on the amended motion at hand. I just need to dig something up, Mr. Chair, very quickly—some notes I have put together to speak on what I call the amended amended motion at hand.

I will speak to the matter that was before us a few minutes ago in terms of the defeated motion on Speakers' Spotlight and so forth.

As we know, organizations and individuals across the country maintain records for a number of years, and they meet both fiduciary and legal requirements in maintaining those documents. Speakers' Spotlight has highlighted the fact that records are maintained on a consistent, cumulative basis and that after a certain period of time, when documents are no longer required to meet fiduciary or legal requirements, they no longer maintain those documents. I think that's very relevant.

I also think it is relevant is that we are now in the year 2020, I believe, and the Prime Minister became Prime Minister in 2015. As for records pertaining to that period, Speakers' Spotlight would have encapsulated them within the seven-year look-back period, and I will call it a look-back period.

I notice some of our members have got up to stretch. I will admit that during the break I had to get up and stretch, and I was almost inspired to do some calisthenics to get some exercise here, because sitting and being stationary is not great for health.

Going back to Mr. Angus's motion, looking at the points and considering the company Baylis Medical—and we heard some very wise remarks from my learned colleague from la belle province—it seems to me that what I call this fishing expedition.... I don't want to call it a smear campaign, because I don't believe any of our colleagues or anyone from other areas of political life want to smear anybody. We don't want to paint with a brush like that, but I do think Baylis Medical company should....

I will not repeat those remarks, Chair, but I will just say that, in all defence, they are a great organization, and you've heard me comment in a prior speech when I was not defending Baylis but just speaking on facts related to that company.

Thank you, Chair, for allowing me to speak here this afternoon, for providing this opportunity to me. We've listened intently to all sides.

I will say, like Mr. Angus, I believe in doing good work in terms of the studies, and I have had the pleasure of sitting on this committee, my third committee in five years. I sat on finance for a number of years and listened to many stakeholders talk about how they want to improve Canada and what they see as the issues for their communities. Across the board, there were literally hundreds and hundreds of presentations.

The ethics committee has taken me on a different journey. I would anticipate a very different journey in terms of where we are. I do hope we come to some sort of unanimous approval on where we want to move the committee. I honestly thought we were there with Mr. Angus's motion, which was then amended by Mr. Fergus and then amended by Madame Gaudreau. I truly felt at that time, and I said this earlier, that it was not in a correct manner.

I do feel bad for Ms. Vignola, who replaced Ms. Gaudreau. Maybe something happened there that she needed to explain, and she obviously voted in a manner that she thought was appropriate, and she thought she was right. We all have that responsibility, and if you look back on the blues, she voted to not continue. That's it, and that's what we do in this job. We inform ourselves, and we need to inform ourselves not only before we get on committee but also during committee to make sure we ask the questions we need to ask.

It remains to be seen on that front.

In terms of where I want to—

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Go ahead, Madame Gaudreau.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I want to check what Mr. Sorbara has just said. I don't know how we can shed light on it. We are told that we made a choice, but we had no communication in French. You all said that we did not hear things correctly so we cannot respond correctly. We have to stop talking about this, for heaven's sake. Otherwise, it's all we are going to talk about and then we go backwards.

Please, Mr. Chair, let's move on to the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Madame Gaudreau.

Mr. Sorbara, go ahead.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madame Gaudreau, for your intervention. I always listen intently and have a great deal of respect for your interventions, so thank you again.

We're all entitled to our opinions, and the events that day happened in that manner. Sometimes we may wish to have a mulligan on certain votes, but unfortunately, my understanding is that is not the way the rules of the committee work and it is also not the way I would see things. The vote that day happened in that manner, and I know Mr. Angus—not to speak for him—was probably disappointed with the outcome as well. To be frank, I was more interested in Mr. Angus's motion. I thought there was a lot of merit there. I thought that was going in the direction we wanted to go and that we could have moved on. Frankly, at this moment, we could have been studying that. It's disappointing.

Not to belabour that point, I do have some prepared remarks, Chair. I will try not to take up too much of the committee's time this afternoon. As you all know, I tend to have a few things to say and I'm sure I'll be watching my Twitter feed or someone will be informing me when occasionally one of the Conservative members will attack me on this thing. You know what? It's par for the course. I'm going to rise above and we're going to rise above, and we're going to do the good work that Canadians sent us here to do. That's what I'll continue to do and that will be my focus.

Mr. Chair, I'm surprised at where we are. I'm frankly a little disappointed, if I can say that, that we continue to be stuck and, to use the phrase, spinning our wheels on the same amended amended motion.

Mr. Chair, like my other colleagues, I was elected to serve the residents here, in this case in the wonderful riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge. I continue to advance my priorities and policies in the best interests of my residents and all Canadians, so that the work we undertake here would be meaningful and contribute to the advancement of our society in some way.

Along that tangent, like my other colleagues, to ensure that—

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Go ahead, Madame Gaudreau, with a point of order.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

A few moments ago, I told you that I was going to be a little tiresome when it comes to remarks that my colleagues have made three or four times. I am going to be very vigilant. I would like to have some new information so that we can move to a vote.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Madame Gaudreau, I did caution the committee previously about repetition. Let's try to be as succinct as possible and stay on the motion at hand.

Go ahead, Mr. Sorbara.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Again, Mr. Chair, thank you for allowing me to recommence my thoughts this afternoon. I'll refer to earlier on in the day. When we began committee today at 11 o'clock, my learned and very astute colleague, MP Angus, talked at length about the Canada student service grant, about WE, about the organization. He put forward a number of proposals, ideas and thoughts, and we listened intently.

In the back of my mind, I knew I could interrupt him with a point of relevance, but to be frank, I wanted to give Mr. Angus the floor to speak, to share his thoughts. I tend to learn something from him, so I'm going to continue to go that way.

I think we can all agree that Mr. Angus's initial proposal to study ethical levers in place to protect against conflicts of interest in the Prime Minister’s Office is fair and is a study that could yield some fair and reasonable recommendations for members of this committee. This motion, Mr. Chair, fits the mandate of our committee. It fits the basic functions of our committee to study key aspects as they relate to our mandate found in the Standing Orders of the House of Commons.

However, what is not in the Standing Orders is any reference to this committee being an investigatory body. This committee is not a court of law. There are no rules of judicial fairness. There are no judges or lawyers and there is no due process, yet with motion after motion, the opposition majority seems to try to drag us down a path that we are simply, in my view, not suited to travel.

Members from our government are not unreasonable, Mr. Chair. Frankly speaking, for me, I feel a great desire to—

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

I missed my colleague's last five sentences. My congratulations to the interpreters for their work; it is extraordinary. This is the first time since 11 o'clock that we've had an interruption like that, so my hat is off to you.

I am told that the interpreters are back.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau.

Mr. Sorbara, it looks as if there was a glitch in translation. We have been going for a long time, so that's fully understandable.

You can continue.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

If you can just give me one second, Chair, I've written down some comments. I just want to make sure that I'm referring to the comments that I wanted to refer to and to go from there. I think I lost my place for a second, so let me just recapture where I am.

I think the last paragraph that I looked at was about how this committee is not a court of law, and there are no rules of judicial fairness. There are no judges or lawyers and there is no due process, yet with motion after motion, the opposition majority seems to want us to go down a path that we are simply not suited to travel, Mr. Chair.

Members from this side of the government—yes, I'm back on track—are not unreasonable, Mr. Chair, and I would say for myself, speaking personally, that I hope we can move on to a study and to multiple studies in the coming weeks and months. That is the role of committees. We are, as I've heard, masters of our domain and direction, so I hope we can come to some agreement.

I don't have the right words. I want to thank the interpreters for their patience. I am trying to speak slowly this afternoon. We understand that we are on camera, not in camera. Our words are parsed and looked at, and we are here to represent the best interests of our residents and of all Canadians, but I'm not into grandstanding, Chair. Other opposition members may wish to go down that route. I don't feel that's necessary and I don't feel that's right.

When the opposition speaks to several parts of this motion, the opposition knows full well that they are on tenuous grounds in regard to the motions that have been put forward. For example, on the 2008 date that is referenced here, we have seen Speakers' Spotlight reference that date as not being a date that would be in conjunction with the documents that they have kept for their clients, so that motion, in my understanding in reference to the amendment I put forward, would put them offside, and we don't want to do that. We want to concur with the privacy laws that are in place, both federally and provincially, and that protect Canadian citizens and organizations.

Again, Chair, I don't feel that we need to be unreasonable. I don't want to be unreasonable, because I do want to get to a study. It's 4:04 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, and many of us have things to do and family to see. I think we all understand full well that the idea of this study, with all the documents that have been released, is in my view a political game and an attempt to try to score political points. It's my view of why we are here in this vigorous and vibrant discussion that we've been having for several days.

There's been no evidence whatsoever to support some of the—I don't want to call them accusations—comments being made and some of the innuendo, particularly from the Queen's loyal opposition and some of the other opposition parties. Testimony at several committees, including this one, along with the release, Chair, of over 5,000 pages of documents, proves the exact opposite of what the opposition is trying to push.

Chair, I will admit that the majority of the opposition members have been very respectful to me as a person, and I've tried to be very respectful back. Those are the values I'm going to continue to put forth and that have been instilled in me. I thank them, most of them, for being very respectful in terms of their commentary and comments. We can agree, but I think sometimes we just need to agree to disagree and make our points, and that's fine. However, sometimes we just tend to—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Sorry; I have a point of order.