Mr. Chair, for Mr. Fisher to be calling my intervention “ridiculous” isn't exactly in the most parliamentary tone that we are trying to establish here on this committee, so I would say to be careful with glass houses. I don't think any intervention by any of our colleagues on this committee should be deemed ridiculous or inappropriate. I've certainly sat here for the past hour listening to all the comments from my colleagues on this committee and giving them the weight and attention they deserve.
My point with this motion, Mr. Chair, was simply to provide more opportunity for the members of this committee to ask important questions of the minister and the officials. This was not in any way to rob the minister of an opportunity to speak to Canadians, which she gets every single day at every press conference she wants to schedule and at question period every single day.
For my colleagues on the Liberal side to say that.... Yes, this is changing every single day; this is why we want the minister here next week and not in two weeks. Yes, we want to get to work. The opposition parties on this committee were not the ones that prorogued Parliament for almost a month when we could have been doing important work. When Canadians needed their elected officials, at the most important time in their lives, the government decided to prorogue Parliament.
I find it a little bit ironic that now they're complaining that it's time to get to work. Yes, we could have been working for the past two months. That is why we think it is critical that the minister appear here next week and that we have as much time as possible to ask her the important questions our constituents want us to be asking on their behalf. That was the impetus behind my motion, Mr. Chair.