Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think we all have our own views about the Governor General, and I don't think that my feeling in the long run is that much different from Ms. Vignola's in terms of who I would rather see as the head of government in Canada. Right now, we have a Governor General. We have a monarchy. We have people in these positions, and there is a budget allocated for these positions. The fact that we would cut some undetermined amount or the amount Mrs. Block has laid out in her motion doesn't mean that the money won't be used for clothes. The $142,000 or whatever the amount is could be used to cut staff positions. It could be used for anything else.
I don't know that there are specific line items in the budget we received. I don't believe that they are related to the Governor General. We're not just cutting a clothing line item. This is simply a proposal to arbitrarily cut an amount in the budget without having studied this properly to understand what that money is to be used for specifically. Would it mean that the Governor General would do one less trip in the year but that all the other trips would be the same amount of spending as previously, as opposed to cutting the spending on all trips in the way the committee is suggesting in our report?
What we should be doing is properly finishing our Governor General's report, making recommendations that, for as long as we have a Governor General, this is the way she should travel. I would support a line in the report saying it shouldn't be used for clothing allowances. I don't think that arbitrarily chopping up figures in a budget without having looked at it from a line item point of view and cutting line items is the way to go.
Given that we didn't even discuss this before the meeting and that Mrs. Block chose not to socialize this motion with Liberal members of this committee before the meeting, which could have been done very easily, I certainly won't be supporting this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.