I'll vaguely refer to it, then. Just for the benefit of full disclosure in public, I wanted to determine whether something was confidential in nature for the committee before I discussed it in public. We're not able to completely determine that.
At the end of the day, however, there has been some discussion and ongoing conversation in this committee about the Parliamentary Protective Service, and we have had some communication that would tell us that there may be something more to look at there, potentially.
This is something, I know, about which a number of members of the committee, including some government members—Mr. Graham was one of them—have displayed considerable interest and concern. It's one that I think at one point in time at least some Liberal MPs—I won't speak for Mr. Graham, but I think you included, Mr. Graham, though correct me if I'm wrong—felt we should be dealing with in a fairly expeditious manner; that we should get to; that we shouldn't just leave sitting on the backburner.
Is that a fair characterization? Would that be unfair?
There, then, is another piece of business. Of course, we always know, Mr. Chair, that there are other motions on the table, concerning which I don't see that anyone has brought any real concern about moving forward quickly, though they could be done, and so they are on our agenda as well. We always know that there can of course be privilege motions and such things, which can come our way and sidetrack the business.
What I'm trying to get at here is that we have this May 19 deadline and we have this June 2 deadline—for which there is no explanation—and we could have other things.
Frankly, if a privilege motion comes, it has to trump other items. We've always argued that such motions should trump other items, because they are a serious matter. We're talking about the privileges of a member of the House of Commons and where they've been breached. That's something this committee needs to put as a primary concern and deal with as quickly as possible.
It starts to become difficult to imagine how this will all occur. I know there is reference in the motion to the idea of sitting outside the regular meeting hours. Well, I suppose the logistics of simply having meetings.... Maybe that's possible, then; it's hard to say. It depends where the conversation goes and how open the government is to actually reconsidering allowing real input from the opposition and not just pretending that they are allowing it.
You can't just say, oh, we've had five weeks—let's say, if we even did two or three meetings a week, it would be 10 or 15 meetings—and then we just ram through the changes we want anyway, by voting with our majority.
Is that really listening? There's listening, and there's hearing, and there are things going in one ear and out the other, and then there's actually considering them and having them be a part of the end product.
When you look at this motion and at the letter from the House Leader, it sounds more like an “in one ear and out the other” kind of situation to me, a lot more like that. Pretending to have input is one thing; actually having it is another.
Even with that timeframe, even with that five weeks—even if you packed meetings in every day in those five weeks—logistically, yes, you might be able to have enough meetings to at least pretend there was a discussion. Well, there would have been a discussion, but not one that anyone really considered. We're seeing that on display today. You could logistically have those and still have the Elections Canada stuff going on and probably deal with other things, if you scheduled even more meetings.
If we could meet from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day and lock it up, and have three or four hours for each thing, logistically I suppose it's possible. To really have substantive contributions, however; to have been able, as opposition members in particular—because government members have a lot more resources and information available to them....
We saw examples of it earlier today, when they were getting direction from somewhere else—from the centre, from the PMO, from the whip's office, whatever it is—so maybe it's not as important to them to have the opportunity to do their research, to prepare properly, to do their homework, to ensure that they are well-prepared to have substantive discussions and to really question why and look at whether there are other ways in which things could be done, or to consider amendments or other alternatives.
Any of that requires a lot of effort both by the members and their staff. We're lucky; I still have a member of my staff here. What time is it? It's past 11, almost midnight, and she's dedicated enough that she's still sitting here. She cares enough about what's going on, and she's ready to help in any way she can.
When we're sitting here in meetings all day long, and probably in the evenings too, we can't do the work of properly preparing and ensuring that our questions are sharp and that we've done all our research and thought about all the different angles and considered other possibilities.
We're talking about a very weighty issue, the Elections Canada stuff. I know as we've been going through it, even just with our day-to-day parliamentary schedule, that I've found it difficult to keep on top of looking at those things in detail, and getting opinions on them and things like that. That's without adding the need to look at the Standing Orders, the very rules of the House of Commons, and trying to deal with all of those things in the same fashion, on the same track, at the same time, with a very short timeline for both. We're talking just a few weeks. It was five weeks of parliamentary time for this motion. The other one would be even less. It would probably be about three weeks to try to get that done. We've used today's meeting, which was supposed to be on that, on the government trying to ram this through.
It's looking a lot as if that's going to be the way Thursday is going to go too. We're not backing down, and the government shows no sign of making any effort to try to work with the opposition. I don't see us going anywhere besides just down the same path we're on. It could be for a long time to come.
How do you really, legitimately feel that opposition MPs can, on behalf of the millions of Canadians we represent, give this its due in that amount of time? Again, if there were some indication given of June 2 being an important deadline for a real, legitimate reason, then maybe we'd say, okay, we'll do what we have to do and make this happen somehow. We'd find some people to help, and do whatever. I don't know. We haven't heard that, and there's no indication that we're going to hear that.
The point of all of that is to say that I don't see how this committee can undertake all those things and do them properly and seriously and give them what they deserve. I just don't see how that can happen. That would be a real shame, to make those kinds of changes without really, truly considering them and all the input that could be garnered. It would be a real shame. Unfortunately, I think it's deliberate on the part of the government. To me, that's what is really despicable.
I hope they prove me wrong. I hope they do something to prove me wrong. So far, that's not looking too likely. As you said earlier, unless it has changed, there is not even a Liberal on the speaking list. They're not making any effort to try to explain what they're trying to do or why they're trying to do it. They're not trying to—