Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I don't know exactly where my opposition colleagues are headed with this motion. They want to bring in witnesses to give us the same testimony they've already presented elsewhere, and which could simply be consulted by reading the proceedings. If that's not a political sideshow, I don't know what is.
The truth is that the opposition members have already come to a decision on issues related to prorogation and the WE Charity affair. We've repeatedly given them evidence against their theory, but they continue to look for ways of getting people to believe their storyline.
Unfortunately, I have some bad news for my opposition colleagues. The fact is that the public does not believe that Her Majesty's loyal opposition is investigating this issue for the public good. Canadians know that the purpose of this motion is to promote the political interests of the Conservative Party and the other opposition parties.
Why bother to have these witnesses appear if the opposition has already decided what their evidence demonstrates?
The evidence the committee has heard on this matter has been clear. Public servants, politicians and constitutionalists are all agreed: the power to prorogue Parliament belongs solely to the Prime Minister. It's a political decision, and there's nothing wrong with that. Governments are elected because of their political leanings, and even their programs are inherently political. It's therefore only logical that the reboot of the government agenda should be a political decision, and that's precisely what the Prime Minister did.
Our constitutional conventions assign the power to prorogue Parliament to the Governor General, who exercises this power on the advice of the Prime Minister. Just as calling elections or choosing ministers are by their very nature political and wholly—