Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I've been on this committee for only three meetings now, but I must say, it's been a somewhat bizarre experience. I hope it's not me. I hope things weren't going along perfectly smoothly until I showed up.
I was listening to Mr. Brock's vociferous objection to the motion we have in front of us. I listened for the first few minutes. I think I got the gist of where he was going with it, and then I admit I lost focus and started doing something else on my phone for a brief moment and I missed the “road to Damascus” moment, this turning point, when all of a sudden the play shifted from one end of the ice to the other.
Anyway, this seems to be one of the themes, something I've picked up in this study, that things change very quickly in terms of where people are coming from.
I agree with the spirit of this motion. I think everyone wants to get to the bottom of what happened. I've read through the preliminary statement of fact and I don't think that it would be compromising the investigation to say that what I read I found deeply troubling. I think most Canadians, if they read the statement of fact, would be deeply troubled by what, it seems, has gone on.
I am concerned, however, that if we continued down this line of questioning of Mr. Lafleur, as was occurring at the last meeting when some of the contents of the preliminary statement of fact were disclosed, we would compromise the investigation. I think what most Canadians want is a full, impartial, objective investigation by the proper authorities who have access to all the information, to get to the bottom of what went on—and whether there was misconduct, wrongdoing or criminality—so that the people responsible for that will be held to account for their actions.
The best way we can do that is by letting those authorities continue with their investigation. No one is questioning whether this committee has the right to continue down this path. Obviously we do. Committees have tremendous latitude to investigate what they see fit to and to compel evidence and to produce documents and that sort of thing. However, all of a sudden I find myself in violent agreement with everyone around the table that we should dismiss the witness.
I thank Mr. Lafleur for returning to committee and spending the last hour or so with us.
I hope the investigation takes place in a timely way and we're able to get the answers to the questions that Canadians have about what has taken place.
I do believe that after those investigations have concluded—both the internal investigation by CBSA and the RCMP's investigation—that would perhaps be a more appropriate time for this committee to bring witnesses back, when we have documentation and we have reports in front of us, to ask further questions about where we go from there.
I'll leave it at that, Mr. Chair. I'll be voting in support of the motion.
Again, I thank you for your forbearance.