The date we arrived at to have the minister appear wasn't conjured up. The date was chosen on the advice of Liberal members, and the committee passed the motion inviting the minister to come. As for an alternative to accepting that the minister is not coming this week, there is no alternative. The committee can't make the minister come before committee.
The committee did pass that motion. It's a very unfortunate choice that the minister made to create the expectation with members of his party that he would be here and then to inform the committee that he would not honour the obligation he has.
Is it an imperative? Should there be consequences should he not appear? No, that's not a power that committees have with respect to ministers. However, I think it is not a good sign.
We have a motion passed by the committee to deal with a matter about a conflict of interest. We had designed a single meeting. The date was all but prescribed by Liberal members, presumably on advice from the minister's office. The integrity of that plan should be retained as much as possible. The date that was included in the motion passed by committee is not going to be honoured. The intent to have a single meeting, of course, should be respected. We should put this together for a single meeting, when it does occur.
This was a matter that generated an incredible amount of public interest, which is how it found itself in front of the committee for consideration. Members of the committee agreed to this, including Liberal members, who had the ability via the minister's office to offer a date much farther into the future than the original motion intended. That was a compromise at the time. We're now being asked to compromise on our compromise.
It just cannot pass by us without mention. It's a silent shrug that we hear often. We heard often in the week before the House adjourned, three weeks ago, the government House leader and many ministers say that they respect committees, that committees are important, that committees are powerful and that committees set their agenda.
Well, here we have a standing committee that said the minister must appear, but the minister is not appearing. It's an affront to what we do. We don't have the teeth as committees to do more than ask the minister to appear and then, once the motion passes, to ask that he come on another day.
This is not how this place is supposed to work. I don't think it is consistent with what Canadians expect from their government and ministers of the Crown that when a standing committee asks that a minister appear and the committee asks members of that party to arrange for a date that works for them, they let other circumstances dictate a different set of actions beyond what the committee has agreed to. This shouldn't continue. The minister ought to know, and I believe he does know, that this is contrary to what his government has said, and it's contrary to the committee motion that was passed.
I'll say one more time that the motion was for them to appear at the same time on one-hour panels, so unless we're blowing this whole motion up—to answer your second question—should the commissioner appear this week or next, the intention was for them to come together. We really shouldn't be redesigning the motion in its entirety at this point.