I always appreciate your point of view, Mr. Chair, and I will just try, in the spirit of being a good colleague, to be very sincere about what I am about to say.
I am not of the view at all that our job is to be partisan on these matters. Unfortunately, the opposition seems to continue to be anxious to score political points, because they're worried about scoring those points right now. What I'm worried about is making sure we have a decision here today that allows for meaningful discussions, for substantive meetings where we can actually question those involved in the decision-making around the redaction of documents.
Why that is such a problem I'm not sure. Perhaps they're looking at polling. I'm not quite sure. They want to score the points now. They're anxious. Maybe they've received orders from their whip that it is a must that the initial motion of Mr. Poilievre be accepted. If it's not that motion, then it must be the amendment of Mr. Kelly—who is not here right now, but was here earlier—that must be followed, so that the Conservatives cannot work with their colleagues in a spirit of good faith to agree to a compromise that gets to what the Conservatives want but also in a way that is, again, fair and just, to go back to that line of argument.
I will also make a point, Mr. Chair, that I've made a few times here, but I think certain members of the committee are not recognizing it. It is that where we are in the country necessitates a particular approach on the part of members of Parliament. We as MPs have an enormous responsibility, but we are agents of the state in so many ways. We are tasked with working within government and advocating to government on the part of our constituents.
There are many conceptions of the state, as you will know, Mr. Chair. I see Mr. MacGregor here from the NDP. It's good to have him here. If Mr. Julian was here, I'd say the same thing to him: that the NDP has a particular conception of what the state should look like and how it ought to operate, and it differs from how Liberals feel on the matter. It differs from how Conservatives feel—