Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To answer Ms. Vignola's question, I would say we all find it excessive. That is not the issue. The question is who is responsible and which office made that decision. In my opinion, it is National Defence and not the Office of the Governor General's Secretary that is not responsible. So it should be up to the Standing Committee on National Defence to look into that.
The Governor General was on the flight, but it was not her or her office who committed or approved these expenditures. If our committee determines that it is within our mandate, even if the Office of the Governor General's Secretary did not make the decision on these expenditures, then I think we should modify the amendment.
Mr. Chair, just to briefly repeat what I was saying, I think we all find this excessive. I think we all find it absurd that meals at these amounts were charged and think that somebody should certainly look into it.
The reason I raised that was that the Governor General's office has made it clear they had nothing to do with it, that it was the Department of Defence and the Royal Canadian Air Force. To me it would have been the defence committee that would have been the most appropriate to study it, but if we want to study it the people we should be calling are not at the Governor General's office. They're at the defence department.
I would like to subamend Mr. McCauley's amendment to change the words, “the Office of the Governor General” to “a representative of the Department of National Defence”.