I'd love to have an opportunity to motivate it if we are going to be in debate mode, and it seems like that may be the case. One never knows for certain, of course, until proceedings are under way, but it certainly seems that way.
I want to start by saying that I of course agree that the minister should appear on her bill. I'll furthermore agree that she should appear in the context of our inflation study. I've been very consistent about that over...well, over the years now, I think it might be fair to say. It's certainly close to that. It's many months—over a year's worth of months—so that is something that I want to see.
I'm cognizant of parliamentary principles that prohibit committees from compelling ministers to appear, but many ministers do appear without having to be compelled. I think it would make a lot of sense for the minister to appear. There's a fair bit in the bill. Of course, there was a lot in the budget, and there are lots of issues that the committee has been inviting the minister to talk about for some time. I certainly have some sympathy for my Conservative colleagues, who would like to see the minister appear here for more than an hour on the bill, or, if she is going to come for only an hour on the bill, to be clear about her intention to appear for however much time in the context of our inflation study, and to be clear about when she intends to appear.
I think all of that would help the conversation. I thought I spotted a moment, perhaps, where we could get past our current impasse on the present motion, which I also think is a good motion, because I think it helps us prepare our work over the time to come. I've listened now at some length to Conservative colleagues talk about the importance of studying this legislation. It's why I'm keen to get studying it. I've been happy that we've found a way to start a prestudy and to start hearing from officials, because that was a way to get that work started. I really don't want to end up in a situation where we end up using our time to do this kind of thing as opposed to using our time to hear from Canadians on the substance of the budget implementation act, because I think that would be a shame. It's the kind of shame that we have seen around this table before, where we used a lot of our meeting time to discuss the ways we were going to study the budget implementation act without actually studying the budget implementation act.
Of course, as I say, here we are. We have a decent motion for how to proceed that doesn't put an end date on the study of the bill. It doesn't require clause-by-clause to be finished by a certain time. I think we have enough goodwill around the table that, if we could get to a vote, we could include in there an invitation for the minister to appear for two hours.
As I say, there's a long-standing parliamentary principle that doesn't really permit us to compel a minister, as much as we might like to. Of course, if members are interested in changing that principle, allowing committees to compel ministers to appear, I'm open to that discussion, but this isn't the place where that discussion is going to happen. This isn't the place where that decision is going to get made. I'm open to more dialogue about that and to finding the appropriate place to have that conversation. It would probably be the procedure and House affairs committee.
Some members may know that the procedure and House affairs committee is set to meet this evening on the subject of foreign interference, which, as Mr. Fast rightly pointed out, is a very important and topical issue at the moment. I fear that our current conversation now, if we can't at least get to a vote....
I want to be clear that the conversation we're having is one that we're having because of quite a high bar that the Conservatives have set, which is to have consensus in order to be able to make any decisions. I know that when we talk about electoral reform, Conservatives are always very quick to point out that we live in a majority system, and that a simple majority ought to be enough to make decisions in Parliament, and in fact that a plurality should be enough to make decisions in an election. I know they're very familiar with the principle of majority decision-making, but at the finance committee, for some reason, they feel that we need to have a consensus rather than a simple majority.
That requirement that the Conservatives are putting on the committee, which is to have a consensus in order to be able to make a decision, means that tonight another committee is going to get cancelled. It may well be the procedure and House affairs committee meeting that is going to get cancelled. Wouldn't it be a terrible irony if the study of foreign interference that Mr. Fast has said is so important, and the absence of resources that he's decried in the budget, were to be cancelled, and the witnesses who were to appear this evening didn't get to provide their testimony or had to reschedule their appearances?
Those witnesses include Gerald Chipeur, a partner in Miller Thomson LLP; Ward Elcock, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS; and Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former chief of the Asia-Pacific unit, CSIS. Then, from the Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute, there's Peter German, barrister and solicitor; as an individual, Nancy Bangsboll, independent researcher; Thomas Juneau, associate professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa; Christian Leuprecht, professor, Royal Military College of Canada; and, of course, Jenni Byrne, who has an impressive connection to the current leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party generally.
She has said and the Conservatives have said that they're happy to have her appear. Certainly one would hate to think that we're getting filibustered here in order to shut down another committee so that Jenni Byrne doesn't get to say her piece about foreign interference at PROC. I'm sure that's not what's going on, but people speculate around Parliament Hill, and one never knows, of course, what kind of conclusions others will draw.
Here we are. We have Conservatives, who say they believe in majority decision-making, requiring a consensus because they don't like, among other things, that there aren't resources to fight foreign interference. We may well end up cancelling a meeting that's about investigating foreign interference. It just seems like a really basic dysfunction that's happening here, which we could fix by just going to a vote.
If we went to a vote, we could amend this motion to include a two-hour invitation to the minister, accepting the long-standing principle that we can't compel a minister to appear at committee. That's not anyone's fault around this table; that's a long-standing item. Then we could move forward on Thursday with our study of the budget implementation act, which Conservatives have said is going to take a lot of time. In fact, they want more time, not less time.
Also, if we do it soon enough, I think there's a good chance we could allow PROC to do its work examining foreign interference. I just appeal to my colleagues. Let's not get stuck here tonight. I think that's a real possibility, but it's not too late to avert it.
I think we could honour some important Conservative principles, like majority decision-making and investigating foreign interference—which, as it happens, is also an important principle to the New Democrats—and we could be ready to show up to work on Thursday to study the budget implementation act instead of just talking about studying it.
Those sound like three good things to me. I think it's still within our reach to accomplish all three of those things, so I would appeal to my Conservative colleagues, not to agree with something that they don't agree with, but to at least allow a vote to happen so that the committee can make a decision and get on with our work.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee for allowing me to open debate on my amendment.