Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, one thing I asked when I was brand new to this committee, which was only three or four weeks ago, was, "Do we have a work plan? Are we working forward on a work plan?" You, with your sense of humour, said, "Welcome to the shooting-fish-in-a-barrel committee", which I did find quite funny.
I've sat on committees for eight and a half years and I've sat on committees with many ministers, and I've seen opposition members ask tough questions of the ministers, as they are wont to do. What I saw Tuesday I didn't like. I didn't find it to be very fair. I've seen in the House, during things like committee of the whole, that questions and answers are equal. I don't recall that at committee. There was a lot of talking over and a lot of interrupting—by everyone, in fairness. It wasn't a great committee meeting to be a part of.
There are 338 of us in the House of Commons, and we're all colleagues. I do remember that in 2015, 2016 and 2017, on a regular basis, I'd cross the floor in the House and sit down with a chum from another party or a friend from the NDP or something. I don't see that happening as much now. I'm not sure if that has to do with the fact that there's less committee travel these days than there used to be.
Again, going back to Tuesday, I found that there was a level of rancour that I don't think people back home want to see us engage in. I certainly know that people in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour do not want to see that level of partisanship.
I think that if you ask the average Canadian, they'll say you're innocent until you're proven guilty. The sense that I get is that some of the motions that have come forward recently—not just in this committee, but in a lot of committees—are based on speculation or a media report that vilifies or almost presents that person as guilty, and it's in the debate of the motions as well. I've seen names bandied about of general members of the public and heard that they've received vitriol through their emails, their phone numbers or through social media. That's not fair.
We sign up for this. In 2014 and 2015, I knocked on 26,000 doors in that 78-day election campaign. I don't think Canadians want to see this.
I used to be on the environment committee and the national defence committee. I used to hear from people on a regular basis saying, "We like the work that you folks are doing." We would get consensus on things. We did some really good reports.
When I came on this committee just recently, we were talking about disinformation, misinformation and malinformation. The chair mentioned numerous times to the witnesses that this was incredibly interesting. I could see in the chair's eyes that he was riveted on what was coming up at committee. I made a comment the other day about how this type of motion—these off-the-cuff, shooting-fish-in-a-barrel motions that come to committee, which members have every right to move—interfere with the work plan.
We really do need to continue studying things of the kind that MP Khalid spoke to. Probably less than five or six hours after I joined this committee, Mr. Chair, you sent out a work plan, which was quite interesting, with some really good things and meaty topics that we could really dig into, but make no bones about it: This motion and motions like it do interrupt a really good work plan. They just do.
One of the things I heard on Tuesday very clearly from the Ethics Commissioner was that he was not looking to investigate this issue. What was presented to him was not worthy of an investigation. He said very clearly that he could not find any cause for an investigation. Then yesterday in the House of Commons, Conservatives said—wrongly, I will say—that the commissioner has opened up an investigation on what we heard Monday in a Global News story.
That's not true. He did not say he was opening an investigation. He just didn't say it.
There was also something else. I don't know where I heard it. Maybe I read it on social media. It was that he was reopening the investigation. That's also not true. There was no investigation. The minister followed through on all the things the minister was required to do, as MPs, as PSs and as ministers always do. What the commissioner did say—exactly what he would say when he heard comments made by Mr. Barrett—was that he would look at it and decide if an investigation were warranted.
Now, committees of the past would say that we have an officer of Parliament here who we have tasked with doing those things on occasion. What would a normal committee do back in the day, before they got so partisan and vitriolic? The committee would say that the Ethics Commissioner said he's going to look into these new allegations. Normally, that's what you would do. You'd say, well, that's what the Ethics Commissioner is going to do. He's going to look into those new allegations. Then you would wait for him to come back with the results of that investigation.
If you surveyed 100 people, regular Canadians, and asked them if that seemed logical after there were some new allegations made in a news story in the media, would 95 of them say that it makes sense that we would wait until the person tasked with ensuring that a minister of the Government of Canada has done what he must do to fulfill his requirements in that role? It makes perfect sense.
I don't want to put words in his mouth, but the commissioner said he could be back by August, I think he said, which makes sense. I mean, we rise in a week or two. That's the person who's tasked with checking into those types of things. To say in the House of Commons yesterday that the commissioner has opened up an investigation, or to have someone somewhere suggest that there's a reinvestigation or a reopening of an investigation, that's absolutely false. That is not the case.
Again, as he is supposed to do, he has said that he absolutely will look into these new allegations, but he never said he will investigate. He never said he will reinvestigate. He never said he will open an investigation. The minister was very clear, I felt. He point-blank answered the questions that he is not this other person.
MP Khalid talked a lot about regular Canadians. I touched on it for a minute, but imagine inviting Kirsten Poon. What would that do to her future? She would be dragged through the mud in this meeting by the Conservatives with partisan attacks. She would receive social media hate and vitriol, as I have recently and as other members on this side of the House have. It would probably ruin any potential future for that person.
Is that what we want to do? Do we want to drag people up to the bar of the House of Commons, interrogate them, ruin their lives and attack their mental health because they're business people? I'd like to think that we're not going in that direction.
Something that the commissioner said the day before yesterday, which I thought was really prudent and good to hear, was “I deal with facts,” not speculation. I suggest we allow him to dig into the facts to see if this is something that he sees as worth looking at. I don't think it's up to us to litigate that. I don't think it's up to us to invite regular Canadian business people here and grill them before a committee of Parliament. I say, let's let the commissioner look into this.
There was some talk also on the weekend about Minister Boissonnault's phone records. I felt that it was a little bit like those legal shows that used to be on NBC all the time. It felt like we were getting into some pretty interesting territory.
I'll go to the clerk for maybe a head nod about Minister Boissonnault writing to the clerk this morning and sharing the phone records of September 8, 2022.
That's through the chair to you, Madam Clerk.