Thank you.
I wish to state that I support entirely Mr. Guimond's motion and the explanation he gave, which describes very clearly the chair's conduct over the last number of weeks and months.
I simply wish to add one further example, and that is that when an individual—a chair, a judge, anyone who has the legal obligation to apply a law or a regulation—interprets and applies it, the application is in fact a decision. Therefore, when this chair on several occasions made a decision as to the application of the rules and procedures of the House of Commons and of the committee and, when there was an attempt to challenge that decision, claimed that he had not made any decision in order to thwart the actual exercise of members' rights within the committee, that, to me, was a flagrant abuse of authority.
I would like to see a judge applying the civil code in Quebec make a ruling and then, when there's an attempt to appeal that ruling, push back by saying “I never made a ruling; I didn't make a decision.” The very application of a rule is making a decision, and simply on that basis I lost confidence in the chair.
I was dismayed and saddened, because I happen to like the chair as a person. I've had an opportunity to work with the chair in previous sessions and felt that the chair would be objective and impartial.
I've been dismayed for the last number of weeks, if not months, by what I perceive as being a lack of impartiality, a real bias on the part of the chair and a real abuse of the chair's authority, in order to stymie the exercise by members of their rights within the committee.
Thank you.