Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank my colleague, Mr. Kelloway, for his intervention.
I'll try not to repeat anything that he has said. I will, off the top though, say that inviting officials is absolutely not an issue, certainly for me and I think anybody on the government side. I won't speak for them.
I think what's frustrating and what I find frankly insulting as a parliamentarian is the treatment of our colleague, Mr. Davies. Long before even I was on this committee, the committee came to an agreement about the nature of studying for COVID. It came to an agreement about sectioning it off and each party would have a relative section or an area of study as their priority. That agreement has been fulfilled every step of the way. We were getting to Mr. Davies' and the NDP's area of focus and the rug was pulled out from under them.
Just as a parliamentarian, I'm sure there is going to be testimony that will be not always favourable for the government. That's the nature of committees. That's democracy. It's nothing we're afraid of. Hearing good information is good information, but it's like that bond and that agreement amongst committee members.... If you can't stand by your word what do you have?
What's frustrating is the fact that this motion, had there been any discussions.... Frankly you don't have to discuss with us. That's completely the committee members' prerogative to move a motion when they deem fit, but doing a 106(4) forces the chair, in the middle of our regularly scheduled meetings, to cancel the meeting for today and the witnesses that were scheduled to begin on the NDP's portion of the study. Frankly, we had witnesses from Switch Health that were on there. I know that's a critically important topic for our Quebec members in particular and I'm sure for all of our members.
I don't believe for one second that there was a misunderstanding of when that meeting would have to be scheduled, because it would have had to have been scheduled by the chair within five days. That would have meant a regularly scheduled meeting on Friday or on Sunday, which would have meant.... I don't have a problem working Sundays, but I think it's critically unfair to ask the clerk and the interpreters to come in. The suggestion that I'm sure the Conservatives will make is that we could have met any time throughout the week. Well, no, because other committees are meeting and we all are restrained by the meeting time. That's actually normal in normal parliamentary times when there are limited rooms, etc. You have to work within the House schedule that we oftentimes have.
To do it this way is incredibly frustrating. We could have spent this entire meeting hearing from witnesses. We could have heard from Switch Health. We could have heard from Dr. Morris, who is a professor on infectious diseases. We could have heard from James Maskalyk, who is a professor of emergency medicine. We could have heard from World Animal Protection. We could have heard from Dr. Knight, who is an associate professor in a faculty of law.
We actually could have spent this meeting hearing from witnesses on a study that was agreed to. At the end of that meeting, as is normal committee business, a motion could have been made on the floor to then have a meeting in the next constituency week or by the 17th or whatever date that committee members felt appropriate. By doing it this way, it has shown me the absolute disrespect for committee members and that agreed-upon study and that schedule. The disrespect of.... If the Conservatives aren't interested in the subject matter, they will disrupt the committee business.
I don't agree with all of the testimony that Conservative members' witnesses have brought forward, but it is their absolute right to propose those witnesses and to have that area of study. This committee agreed on this format. For Conservatives to be obstructionists when it is the NDP's turn to have that study for no reason other than to say that they don't care about the witnesses scheduled for today, they don't care about that area of study and they want to just do what they want to do is offensive to me as a parliamentarian.
I fully support the motion in terms of calling these technical witnesses, as Mr. Kelloway pointed out. He made the case in terms of hearing this information, but to do it in this way and to obstruct the NDP from getting to their area of study, I think is absolutely disrespectful to this committee. The motion could have been made after we heard from these witnesses. We could have had a fully productive day.
If it was such an emergency topic, there is absolutely no reason we couldn't have heard from witnesses today, gotten that testimony and had a full day of actually doing the committee's work. Instead, this was an obstructionist move simply to try to annoy us, I guess, in a constituency week. Again, I have absolutely no problem meeting.
The only thing the Conservatives achieved with this is breaking their bond and demonstrating to this committee that it's their way or no way. They don't care about the other areas of subjects or study. They just want to talk about what they want to talk about.
We're the minority in this, but I take great offence to the disrespect that I think has been shown here. If other members are okay putting their subject study aside, that's fine. It was a day during the pandemic when we actually could have heard testimony on the pandemic and then had a motion on the floor, which would have totally been in order. We would have had the same results, which is a meeting next week. The Conservatives don't like the subject matter and they're uninterested and just want to obstruct the committee from doing its work, and that's what I take great offence to.
I'm happy to have these meetings next week. I'm happy to have officials come, but I am deeply offended and sorry for Mr. Davies for not being able to actually use this meeting as a productive meeting. I don't know what the Conservatives thought they were gaining in this. We'll have the meeting. We'll hear the testimony and look forward to it. They have to live with how they conduct themselves as parliamentarians.
Thanks, Mr. Chair.