Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Christopherson's passion on this issue is the same as my own and that of one of our dear departed friends. I think if I knew anyone more angry at the changes that took place and how they were rushed through in the spring of 2015, it was the late Mauril Bélanger.
I happened to have been in the House that Friday morning when the proposal was put forward to consolidate forces and put them in the hands.... No matter how qualified and wonderful individual officers are—and there's no disrespect intended—this is wrong. Mauril knew it was wrong. I knew it was wrong. It was all pushed through.
Now, I agree very much with David Christopherson on this point. When I see the very same people who put their lives at risk, who were unarmed and defended this place on October 22, I do find it astonishing that we've never had a public inquiry into what went wrong, but I know one thing, which is that the guards inside this place were professional, courageous, and made no mistakes. Now they're the ones who don't have a contract.
I take from David's point that there must be something that happens in camera. I have no access to those discussions. I want to ask this question very directly, because it appears to me that the case right now.... I hate the fact that really good people are not getting the respect they deserve in negotiations. I think there's bad faith bargaining going on here, but from the ongoing disciplinary actions that I see, I'm concerned that we have less security on the Hill than we had before the change in the law because too many officers are spending too much time being disciplined. They're working very long hours, and I don't think we have as many guards on the Hill who have our interests at heart as I would like to see.
Is it the case that these disciplinary actions against the House of Commons security team, the non-RCMP House guards, are taking us below a threshold for having adequate security here on the Hill?