Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have to say that I'm extremely disappointed, but to some extent hardly surprised, that we see the minister bailing out on coming to committee. There are serious questions about a conflict of interest surrounding the minister in terms of his role in directing billions of tax dollars to the Alto project, notwithstanding that his partner is a vice-president at Alto.
For 17 hours, Liberal MPs across the way filibustered a motion to bring the minister to committee to answer questions about this apparent conflict of interest. For 17 hours, they blocked and obstructed the work of this committee. They ran interference for the minister.
That motion provided that the minister appear on May 5. After 17 hours of obstruction from the Liberals, they finally said that he could come on May 25. When the Liberals said, after 17 hours of obstruction, that the minister could come the week of May 25, we took them at face value that they had confirmed with the minister that he was indeed available during the week of May 25. Now it's the week of May 25, and we suddenly find out that the minister can't appear. Is he too busy to come before a parliamentary committee to answer questions about an apparent conflict of interest involving billions of taxpayer dollars?
He'll come on June 11. How do we know he's going to come on June 11? What is to say the minister won't come up with another excuse to say that he's too busy to come to committee?
This is part of a game by these Liberals, a game to obstruct committees and to shut down accountability. This is what they did, of course, when they filibustered. This is what they did when they brought forward their undemocratic motion to stack committees. This was part of the Prime Minister's strategy as he picked off certain MPs to cross the floor in undemocratic floor crossings. We have one of those floor crossers on this committee, who I guess is AWOL yet again. What a surprise.