Thank you, Chair.
I was asked to fill in for a colleague today and I was happy to do so. I'm sad to say that I'm having a bit of déjà vu here.
If the Conservatives don't like the ethics rules, why aren't they bringing forward a motion to study the legislation? Repeatedly, we have the Ethics Commissioner make rulings, and then the Conservatives say that they don't like what the Ethics Commissioner said, so we need to do this or we need to do that.
As a member of Parliament, I have several times consulted with the Ethics Commissioner to get an opinion on any number of things. I rely, as do all of us in the House, on advice from the Ethics Commissioner. Why do we have one if the Conservatives then say that even though the Ethics Commissioner was consulted and approved of some advice, they don't like it, so we need to have a motion at the ethics committee?
I'm actually sad to see that when I'm back after several months of being on other committees, it's like a broken record here at the ethics committee. It's not only on the motion: When I joined the meeting today, once again Mr. Barrett was disparaging Ms. Khalid, which is something that happened repeatedly when I was on the committee. Obviously that hasn't changed either. It's unfortunate that there's a lack of respect between parliamentarians.
I'm really saddened by this. I think it's unfortunate that we can't have a conversation on issues without it being personal and without disparaging other members of Parliament. I would hope that committee members, in particular those who do use these disparaging comments, would think twice before doing it.
Mr. Villemure from the Bloc knows how much I respect him and his opinion, but I have to disagree with him that we need to see the documents in order to make a decision on whether or not to proceed. Quite frankly, the motion the committee should be debating today is on the actual ethics rules.
I know there have been comments from all parties, quite frankly, on how the ethics guidelines need to be updated. Instead of looking at that and actually doing something productive as a committee, it's one more, “Oh, we have a gotcha moment. Let's bring a motion to committee, because we think we have a gotcha moment.” This is coming from the Conservative members.
I'll be honest. My goodness gracious, with everything going on in Canada and the world right now, what's being debated at the ethics committee is a Taylor Swift concert. I saw online former prime minister Stephen Harper with I think Justin Bieber, and with Taylor Swift. It's mind-blowing to me that this is the pressing issue of the day that the Conservative Party feels it needs to have debated in the House of Commons at a committee. I would think there would be other things that we could be looking at that would be far more important to Canadians.
Chair, I'm going to leave it there, but I did just feel that I needed to pipe up and say that it's unfortunate that these same conversations that were being had months ago are still being debated without actually getting to the crux of what the problem is.
I'm not even sure it is a problem, but I think a valid conversation this committee could have would be about how and if the guidelines that the Ethics Commissioner uses could be updated. I think that's a valid conversation that we can have, but to play gotcha and to be disparaging other MPs in committee is, in my opinion, a waste of time. It's also disrespectful to colleagues on the committee when their reputation is being disparaged by other members.
I'll leave it there, Chair.