Thanks, Madam Chair.
I want to just touch on the comments about fairness that our colleague Mr. Gerretsen mentioned. I hope he was as energetic and that we saw the same fevered pitch when the government chose to prorogue for five or six weeks. Where was the fairness to the Canadians who were in the heart of this pandemic and were struggling? Where's the fairness to the small business owners in my riding who are still struggling to be recognized for any type of emergency benefit, or to the single parent, or to the person who's out of work? Where's the fairness there?
Where was the fairness in allowing the 338 members of Parliament to be able to work together collaboratively as team Canada or to represent their ridings and their electors when the government chose to suspend for six weeks? Where was the fairness there? Where were Mr. Gerretsen's arguments at that point?
I'm not discounting what you all have gone through in terms of this past six months or seven months of this pandemic, but I can tell you how it has been in my riding, which has been deeply, deeply hit by this pandemic in terms of job losses and people just losing everything.
Canadians do want to know why it was done. Where was the fairness there?
Where was the fairness? Why did we have to prorogue for six weeks to get a throne speech like we got, right? When things seemed to be going sideways for the government, who chose to do that? Who chose to hit reset?
Again, Mr. Gerretsen, in his small cubicle he's in, in the phone booth there, seemed to be having a hard time containing himself. Mr. Alghabra chose to take a shot at our colleague Ms. Vecchio. If you want to bring fairness in....
He talked about how every time the opposition gets up they want to talk about, point fingers and slander our Prime Minister. We're not the ones who actually made him do any of the ethical lapses that he's done—or his ministers. It's him, himself, or his ministers who are doing it on their own. We didn't put him in that position. They put themselves in that position. Canadians want to know why, in the heart of and right in the middle of a global pandemic, our government chose to actually remove the voices they elected, the people they elected to be their voices.
We have an opportunity right now to try to bring this forward. As my colleague Mr. Lukiwski said so eloquently, all we're asking for is a study. As 32(7) says—and Mr. Turnbull mentioned it and we quoted it a number of times—the report is coming. We want to study it, but we want to be prepared. We want to bring to the table people who were around the table and made these decisions. We want to see the unredacted reasons or reports as to why they were doing it.
Listen, Liberal-run committees have shut this down at every step of the way. Your comments and your reactions to this today are no different from what we've come to expect. Was there collusion from the opposition side? No, there wasn't. It just shows that they're all doing the same thing, that they're all hearing from their constituents and all have the same concerns that we're hearing. Canadians want to know why this was done.
There was no fairness when that vote on prorogation came down. It was heavy-handed and it was done. Just as we've seen time and again under this government's mandate, it's heavy-handed. They like to stand up and talk about fairness and what have you, but really, it's the grassroots and the people within our communities who are suffering.
Where's the fairness in the fact that my softwood lumber guys, my forest producers, still don't have a softwood lumber agreement? For Ms. Blaney and I, our regions have been hard hit by the downturn in the forest industry because of the uncertainty faced by this government and brought forward by this government's policy. Whether it's oil and gas or natural resources, we're hit hard. Where's the fairness there?
Mr. Gerretsen, when you talk about fairness, I have a real hard time sitting here and listening to you get up on your soapbox and talk about that and every time the Conservatives or the opposition want to stand up and point fingers at the Prime Minister and his policies. Well, that's our job.
Our job is to also work collaboratively across the way. I think this motion that is put forward doesn't expose anything other than what it's asking for. Let's get the documents and let's get the people before us who were at the heart of the decision to prorogue Parliament for six weeks and why they did it. I would challenge our committee members to really look around and look within. That's our job here. It's to do better for Canadians.
I think Ms. Vecchio, while she read it fast.... I had an opportunity to read it as she was reading it.... I understand it. I didn't get a chance to see it beforehand. It's no different than the motions we had regarding the Standing Orders or how we were going to move forward in terms of committee witnesses and the rounds of questioning.
Mr. Gerretsen, you can talk fairness all you want, but respect and fairness are given and should be earned. It's a two-way street. Whatever you're doing—if you're tweeting about it right now or you're sitting in there and sending messages to PMO about what you should do—I think we should actually move forward on this and vote. Let's get studying it and send a message to Canadians that another Liberal-led committee isn't going to block this opportunity for Canadians to find out what really happened.
I will cede the floor.