Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, I wanted to raise the fact that this same motion was brought up at the public accounts committee, and the committee ruled it out of order. In my view, it would be out of order here as well.
It's been made clear from all the different media reports and the response from the Department of National Defence that the Department of National Defence was the one responsible for the catering on the Governor General's plane, that she and her office had nothing whatsoever to do with it and that the decision on catering services was made by the Royal Canadian Air Force.
The national defence committee has the mandate to study all matters pertaining to the Royal Canadian Air Force, which we do not. I think we all agree that this is an excessive catering bill, which I believe was $80,000 as opposed to $100,000, but the appropriate people to ask about this would be the representatives of the Department of National Defence, not the Governor General. As such, Mr. Chair, I would humbly request that you consider that this motion is not appropriate before our committee, that it's appropriate before the defence committee and that it should be ruled out of order.