Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Having Mr. Carney appear isn't like having any random private citizen appear. This individual has a campaign manager, has appeared at other Senate committees and at other House committees in the past as well, and is holding private get-togethers about his plans for the future of the country. For those Liberal Party members, members of caucus, who are supporting other candidates for the leadership—who also have campaign managers—they should want Mr. Carney to face the same level of parliamentary scrutiny that their preferred choice faces on a regular basis.
Note that the parliamentary secretary was the one who retweeted and reposted to amplify Mr. Carney's recent speech wherein he discussed the budget and the future of the party and the country with respect to the economy.
It's not the first time that Mr. Carney has given such speeches. In fact, he has appeared on podcasts for some 80-odd minutes in talking about the economy, the government's financial plan and the needs and the expectations that he would have for an economic growth agenda, so I think it's completely reasonable that members of the committee would like to question this individual.
As I've said, he has a campaign manager and is clearly looking to lead the party in the near future. It is completely within our obligations and duties to question those individuals and submit their names as witnesses or as requests for witnesses to appear, which I believe has already been done with this individual, but that request was rejected. I recall my NDP colleague, whom I hold in high esteem, recently suggesting that if a request to appear had been rejected by any witness, perhaps a summons would be appropriate, so it's possible that the thinking has changed on that front. That was my understanding of the discussion we had a few weeks ago, when there was a specific motion on the table requesting the appearance of this individual.
To those members of the Liberal caucus who are looking to support Mr. Carney, why not give him the platform to perform on the national stage and to give his plan to the people and have it scrutinized by the public? Mr. Carney is a capable individual who can handle himself, as he has on many occasions, both at this committee and at the Senate committee, where he appeared most recently a couple of weeks ago. I think it's completely reasonable to make this request.
I note that with theparliamentary secretary's motion was dropped in the middle of studying the bill, so in fact it's the government motion itself that's preventing the study of the bill. We were studying the bill. We were in rounds of questioning with witnesses, and the government decided to interrupt that to bring a programming motion that it knows would not have the support or consensus of the committee in order to try to frustrate the ability of the committee to perform its duties in reviewing the bill. It actually wants to fast-track this bill through the committee process, as it does every single spring. It is, in fact, the government motion that is preventing the studying of this bill. It is inadequate—as has been pointed out, by the way, by Mr. Davies of the NDP—because it doesn't provide for enough witness testimony.
Conservatives have said that it's inadequate for other reasons, and we would like to include additional items. For example, I appreciate Mr. Turnbull's recommendation as parliamentary secretary that the motion include reference to money laundering, but it is by far inadequate compared to what has previously been done to study money laundering. The last parliamentary committee that studied the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act had 14 meetings.