Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to respond.
Although I appreciate the attempts being made by the Liberal member to prevent the questioning, I think it is quite relevant to the witness's qualifications, and I'll explain why.
A very standard and typical question on a job interview—and this isn't exactly a job interview, but it's assessing someone's qualifications so it's a similar type of situation—and a very common question, which I use and many people use in job interviews, is to assess the candidate's ability to deal with conflict. You ask them how they deal with a conflict situation. It's very typical. I know Mr. Vij would have hired many people, and it may even be a question that he himself uses to assess a candidate.
Given that, what I was obviously asking about is a situation with potential conflict, or it may even be a situation that has already occurred and in which there has been real conflict, because they have actually undertaken some assessment of potential senatorial candidates already.
What we're faced with is a situation in which I'm using this to determine the candidate's ability to deal with a conflict situation, whether it be a perceived one or a potential one, by virtue of which the PMO would not choose to appoint the candidate who had been recommended by him and other members of the board; or it may be, a situation that has actually already occurred in respect to which he may be able to tell us how he addressed that situation in reality.
Maybe the PMO didn't choose to appoint the people who were put forward. It would be about my ability to assess the ability to deal with that potential conflict, or what may have been a real conflict already, if the PMO has not appointed the candidates who were recommended by him or his fellow board members.
I think it is a very pertinent question to be able to assess the candidate's qualifications. Frankly, Mr. Chair, as much as I respect your position and I like you as a person, I think if you choose to rule anything other than to allow the question, it would seem to me to show a lack of impartiality here and something that would be seen to protect the government. I really hope, Mr. Chair, that you'll allow the question to proceed.