Mr. Chair, just for the information of members, I intend to move the motions in exact reverse order to how you have them in front of you. The back page will be the first one I'll move, then we'll move forward from there.
I will move the first motion:
That the Procedure and House Affairs committee invite the Minister of Health to appear to answer all questions related to its study on the question of privilege related to “the matter of the premature disclosure of the contents of Bill C-14 (An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)”.
I'll just speak very briefly to it.
I think it's quite clear that the intentions of the government members are to sweep this under the rug. That is very unfortunate. I heard the arguments of Mr. Chan just now, and I will just remind members, once again, the job of this committee is to try to get to the bottom of this, to try to ensure, as per the words of the government whip, that this doesn't happen again.
If these were the arguments the government wanted to make, then they should have made those arguments prior to the Minister of Justice appearing. They seemed to be okay with that. What this would indicate to me is that they don't take this very seriously, and there may be something to hide. That would be a reasonable conclusion for someone to draw, that there may be something to hide.
The Minister of Justice was here to clear up the clouds that would hang over her and her department. I would certainly hope that the members of the government would want to give the Minister of Health and others who may have had access to this bill—who were specifically referenced by the Minister of Justice when she came before this committee, including the Minister of Health—the opportunity to clear up those same questions.
I'll leave it at that. I certainly hope the government chooses to be open, and accountable, and transparent here.