Thank you, Chair.
I thank my colleague Mr. Cooper for his excellent analysis and for putting into context the seriousness and the importance of this motion and quite clearly why it should be studied not only in other committees but also particularly here in the ethics committee.
This government—I have known all along, as have Canadians, literally for the last eight years—is the most ethically challenged, corrupt government this country has ever seen.
I think this public inquiry, the evidence we have heard through this public inquiry and the reports from a number of media giants really underscore and make abundantly clear to me as an opposition parliamentarian, but also, I'm sure, to my colleagues on the bench, as well as people across Canada, the rationale as to why the Prime Minister, his government and his backbench fought so hard to avoid this public scrutiny.
We always knew there was a fire to this raging smoke, this smokescreen. Actually, it really brings home to me personally, given all the work I've done on a number of committees, but particularly in relation to the foreign interference angle, why he hand-picked special rapporteur David Johnston, who had access to the same information that the justice is now receiving but clearly had a different focus as he was receiving the information, and a different focus in terms of his report: that, in his view, “irregularities” weren't sufficient to raise red flags. There was no mention at all about the leaks. He had access to that information. Canadians were denied the right to know that information. It brings it all home to me why they did everything they could to avoid public scrutiny.
I've had the ability to assess the cross-examination of our Prime Minister yesterday and contrast and compare that with his cross-examination, if you can call it that, when he testified at the Emergencies Act inquiry by Justice Rouleau. It was not a good day for the Prime Minister. There were so many significant differences in the evidence that he gave, as contrasted to that of his chief of staff, Katie Telford, when she testified over a year ago.