Thanks.
I appreciate the perspective of my colleagues here. In terms of the comments being made, I think this study is really designed to continue to reflect on what's already happened. We've gathered a diversity of perspectives and opinions on that from witnesses who were, I would suggest, mostly proposed by opposition parties. We've heard from them. They've had their opinions. They've presented to us. They've shared those thoughts with us.
Mr. Blaikie, I might have to disagree with you on the point you made about context, because I think in this particular case, context is everything. We're in a worldwide global pandemic. I believe we're staring down the barrel of a likely third wave of COVID-19 with the variants of concern that are percolating and starting to rear their heads. We're seeing the impact of that in Newfoundland, for example, where the election is being affected by these new variants.
I have this concern that's forward-facing, that's looking at the work that this committee needs to do—for example, to prepare to pass Bill C-19 and perhaps maybe even look at a prestudy on that. We've seen some delays with that with some concurrence motions. I feel that we need to be able to equip Elections Canada with the possibility that an election could be called at any time. They need to have the tools to do so, yet here we are looking back, debating how many more witnesses. How many more meetings do we really need to have? I think we have a diversity of perspectives. You're going to formulate your theory and rationale with the evidence that you've heard, and we're all going to debate that and see, to my mind, how that plays out in terms of the recommendations we'd like to make in a report moving forward.
To me, that process seems pretty substantive when you contrast it with the past, when there was no study on prorogation and there were many examples of prorogation in more controversial situations than the one we're seeing here, which, when we look at it, there was a really good rationale for. We were in a global pandemic. There was a first and second wave in between, and there was naturally an opportunity to reflect on where we're going as a country and to renew our agenda. To me, that just is plainly obvious to most Canadians out there. I think it's intuitive. It makes sense.
I don't know why we need to have more and more witnesses come forward when it really seems like we've done the job of entertaining the different theories and speculative perspectives on why prorogation happened. We've heard directly from.... Government tabled a report. It's substantive. It's never happened before. I would say that's a positive step in the right direction. I think we can all agree.
We heard from the government House leader directly. Who better to give us that testimony than the government House Leader? I think that's the most appropriate person to provide us that perspective. We have that. I'm sorry if it's not what the opposition parties are looking to prove here, but from my perspective, we have that perspective already in two forms, in a written report and in the testimony from the House leader. What more do we really need?
What are you going to get out of having more and more witnesses come forward to basically tell you the same thing? If it's not what you want to hear, I understand, but are you really going to get anything different? It's all consistent. It's a very consistent rationale for why our government took those steps and why the Prime Minister exercised that right.
Thank you.