Thank you. It was good that Mr. Reid did that and said that he wanted that vote today. I was getting ready to settle in, so I'm glad you gave me an early cue that your preference would be a vote. That's fine; I'm okay with that.
I have a couple of things. First of all, I'll take this opportunity to remind the government that I am the one who went out on a limb when you put forward your clause that the minister would come in as her schedule permits. I raised the initial concern that this is what governments do when they want to have the flexibility to not have the minister come in a timely fashion. The government member...and I believed they were sincere, and they were so sincere with “are you kidding, we would never do that”, that I supported it, if you recall. I supported the motion and said that I'm going to trust them. Well, Chair, look where my trust got me. We're still working on dates. I think we finally have one, but it's well after why the motion was moved in the first place. I wanted to mention that for the history.
Second, I want to ask Mr. Chan, through you, Chair...because my feeling was the witness today was almost pleading the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. fifth amendment in terms of not wanting to incriminate himself. I want to ask Mr. Chan where he sees the problem in asking somebody on that panel about competency. Why is it a problem to ask them how they view candidates? How is that not competency? Competency is the ability to do the job. Qualifications, nobody is questioning. The qualifications of all the candidates have been stellar and dizzying, with many letters after their names. It's truly impressive. I grant that to the government.
On the question of competency, it speaks to the ability of the individual in terms of how they see and do things. I'd like to know why it would be unacceptable to the government to be asking a question of someone under the rubric of competency and how they feel about, for instance, accountability in a parliamentary setting. I would ask him to be mindful of the time, unless he wants to filibuster. I was going to raise that when I had more time. I'll leave it rhetorical now if Mr. Chan wants to answer that, but that's where I'm having a problem. How is that not speaking to competency by asking someone on a particular subject how would they view this, and what were the traits and the characteristics they would look for in a candidate coming forward? To be told that this is not competency leaves me wondering what is competency if not that.
Those are my points. I'll defer to the time at hand so that we can have the vote.