That's a fair point, Mr. Chair.
What we should do—it's the same thing that I suggested Thursday—is exactly what the Ethics Commissioner said he would do. He said he would look into this and get back to the committee, and if he saw smoke he would assume there was fire. We asked him to. He said he would. I see no reason to move in a direction like we see in this motion. Give him the time that he needs. I can't remember what he said, but he received information that we couldn't talk about on Thursday until it was translated and sent to the committee. That caused a very long suspension at the committee, but it was important to get that stuff out so that all committee members had a chance to have it in English and French. That was submitted, translated and absorbed by committee members.
We saw that the minister couldn't possibly have sent texts or made phone calls at that particular time in Vancouver at the cabinet retreat, as they were locked down on the day the Queen died. It's important that we let the commissioner do the work he is tasked with doing on our behalf. We should continue moving in that direction rather than continuing to talk about bringing in regular Canadians, putting them in this room and grilling them over their business practices. Give the Ethics Commissioner the time to do that.
We can review this pretty quickly. The minister said very clearly many times during his one hour that it wasn't he who sent the texts or made the phone calls. He was as unequivocal as any minister I've ever seen at committee. He wasn't wishy-washy; he was solid. He said it wasn't him. Clearly, that wasn't good enough for the Conservatives. I don't know what kind of substantiation they need—innocent until proven guilty.
We already heard from Stephen Anderson. He's quoted. We're taking the Global News story as the genesis of this entire fabricated scandal, as we heard from Stephen Anderson. He's right in the Global News article saying that it was not the minister, but Conservatives aren't willing to accept that the Global News article is accurate in that particular case.
Most of the things I'd still like to say were said by Lloyd, and I would be repeating the important things that he said, so I'm going to cede my time now and hear from the next speaker.