With all due respect to my colleagues and the chair, this touches on relationships between parliamentarians and the staff and our relationship to the departments and ministries that we're ultimately responsible for. That a particular person is not available for a meeting just doesn't cut it. As far as I'm concerned, it's up to the public service to adapt. It's up to Treasury Board to adapt in order to give us the time to properly study these estimates because, ultimately, we're the ones responsible and this committee is responsible.
On February 26th, 2013. See this statement in context.