Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you also for your efforts to keep decorum in this committee. However, I will still state my disappointment that there have been no repercussions for breaking Standing Order 18. I find that very disheartening. I'm sure there's something in your chair's handbook that allows you to ensure that either repercussions or an apology are forthcoming over comments made towards Ms. Khalid. I can't imagine a situation in which the chair could just say, “Stop”, “What?” or “I'll tell you to stop again.” We've had these conversations at this committee before, because it's all about the clip.
René, you and I have talked about this before—the clip. You get your 30 seconds. You get your little clip that can go on Facebook, where you're refusing to apologize, so it looks like you're refusing to apologize to a Liberal member. However, Standing Order 18 is one of the Standing Orders that ensure we show decorum to other members.
Frank, you and I had a conversation about this before, when we were travelling on committee business. “Wouldn't it be great if we treated each other better in our committees and in the House?” Well, it's great to say that in private. It's great to say it when there are no cameras. It's great to be friendly when it's an in camera meeting. However, it's very distressing to see that lack of decorum among people who are elected to represent their communities.
I'm not a hyperpartisan person. You've probably never seen me be super-partisan, and you probably won't. I understand there is somewhat of a game to the business of politics, when we do everything we can to score political points and make the other people look bad, and I get it; I've been here for over nine years. I've seen it. I've seen it done well. I've seen it done well by some of the Conservative members in this room, but it's not done well when you lash out at somebody, make a negative comment and refuse to take that comment back. That's not what we should expect of people in this committee.
I will tell you that when I first joined this committee, I felt like.... Mr. Chair, you called it a “shooting fish in a barrel” committee, and everybody chuckled. I thought, “This is going to be nice. We're going to have a nice committee where people respect each other but hit hard and score political points.” For several weeks now, we have actually had meetings like that. It's been quite good for some time, but I can't get past the decorum standing order—Standing Order 18.
I'm going to say something people may not agree with here: Abuse at this committee is almost always directed towards Ms. Khalid. She's no shrinking violet. She will fight back. I'm sure I don't need to be fighting on her behalf right now, but I say as her friend and as a friend of members on the other side of this room who are also virtual right now that I'd like to think that I'd stand up for them as well. I honestly would like to think that people know I would stand up for them.
Getting back to the motion, I think there's value in having a really good, fair discussion and we're not calling people liars, absurd or preposterous, a discussion in which we could check this out, have this conversation and talk about past news stories that don't become motions at this committee because a prime minister was in Boston for an NHL game seven or because PM Harper went to Scotiabank Place to see Taylor Swift in 2010. I'm not really that concerned about it, but if we're calling apples “apples” and oranges “oranges”, maybe we need to find out. Did he get a free ticket? Did he pay market value for that ticket for a Taylor Swift concert in 2010? I have no idea.
I think Mr. Cooper said that Canadians need to know and are demanding answers. I checked back with the constituency office, and I've not had one person ask about Taylor Swift concert tickets—not one. I'm not sure, with all of the important things that are going on in the world right now, whether this is the top-of-mind issue that Mr. Cooper said it was.
I would say that having a full conversation on what we want to accomplish, including members of Parliament, ministers from the past and prime ministers from the past, is maybe a worthwhile discussion, but it's a rabbit hole, and I'm not sure it's a rabbit hole that we necessarily need to go down.
I think these types of cases should get sent to the Ethics Commissioner. The Ethics Commissioner should rule on them. That's why we have these commissioners, but we've seen in the past that when we've had the Ethics Commissioner come back with a ruling that said, “There's nothing to see here, folks”, then there was another motion saying that we'll bypass him because our job is to get to the bottom of this, regardless of what the Ethics Commissioner—who is an integral part of the ethics committee—says.
I'm happy to hear again what other people think about broadening this and adding some things to this motion to see if we can actually get to the bottom of this.
That's all I have at the moment, Mr. Chair.