Thank you, Mr. Lauzon, my friend and colleague. I really appreciate your remarks.
I also want to express my gratitude to Mr. Blaikie for his attempt at this, I think, really quite good amendment. I certainly appreciate the effort that was put in and the thoughtful remarks he made last time. I thought he spoke very eloquently, as he always does.
I'm not buttering you up; I really believe that. You spoke very eloquently and expressed your point of view quite well, and at length, I would say, as well, which sort of made me think it would be great to have some time to express some of my thoughts related to this amendment.
I have a few points to make here. I won't take up too much of the committee's time. I definitely want to express the things that I feel very positively about in terms of this amendment. One of them is the way that it really cuts out a lot of the things that, from my perspective, were main issues. Those things really have to include all the references to WE Charity, the documents, the very large document requests that were made within the original motion put forward by Ms. Vecchio, as well as calling the Perelmuters and the Kielburgers, who I know have already testified in other committees, multiple times if I'm not mistaken. I know that must have been challenging for them, especially the Perelmuters. I think we heard from one of my other colleagues, Ms. Shanahan, when she was subbing in on this committee. She was part of the committee that questioned the Perelmuters. I know they went through quite a bit of hardship as a result of that. It's great that many of the things related to WE Charity are taken out of this and I feel very good about that as a positive step in the right direction.
I will just say, before I move on from that, we know that the Ethics Commissioner's report came out, and I referenced that last time. We know that the Prime Minister has been completely exonerated of all conflicts of interest, both real and potential, in that regard. Under the three different sections of the act that were relevant and the extensive documentation and evidence that the Ethics Commissioner reviewed, I thought that investigation and report were substantive and really took all the pieces of evidence and data into account, which is great. I think we can lay that to rest, and hopefully opposition parties will abandon their preoccupation with trying to link prorogation to WE Charity, which is more than rational at this point. This might be a vain hope that I have, that opposition parties will not try to undertake that line of questioning in the future. They're free to question and make whatever accusations they would like, but I think those are unfounded at this point and really show an attempt to link something to prorogation that is just patently untrue.
I feel much better about this amendment for those reasons. I really appreciate Mr. Blaikie's having cut those pieces of Ms. Vecchio's motion out, so I'm feeling very good about that.
I think Mr. Blaikie and I differ in terms of perspective at times. In the lengthy remarks and speech that he gave last time, I found myself at times shaking my head.
I remember I made a comment ages ago about how coming to debates in good faith is really being willing to give up a portion of your perspective in order to adopt the more rational point of view that someone else brings to the conversation. I felt at least with Mr. Blaikie's comments in our last meeting that I definitely shifted in terms of my perspective. I will say that I appreciate that and I think I learned something and definitely moved in terms of my perspective on this.
I have to say there are a couple of areas where I'm still feeling a difference of perspective may persist, at least in my reflections on this. There are two points that I would like to make around this. One is that Mr. Blaikie has said many times over—and maybe we'll have to agree to disagree on this—that this is precedent setting, that this situation of studying prorogation is precedent setting and that the Prime Minister needs to come before this committee so committee members can ask tough questions and hold the Prime Minister accountable. He has said that the Prime Minister was the key decision-maker. That's my synopsis of what I think Mr. Blaikie has argued in the past. I see it a little differently though.
I see that the precedent setting of this particular moment in time is that we're in a global pandemic, which we all agree is unprecedented. The standing order change that required a report to be tabled in the House and then referred to this committee was a change to the Standing Orders that this government implemented in the last term of Parliament. I think that was a good change.
I think for me the precedent-setting nature is that standing orders were changed to require a tabled report. The government used the prerogative of prorogation and then followed through with a detailed rationale and report. I think that's precedent setting in itself as a higher degree of transparency around the reasons and rationale for prorogation.
I also think this committee has shown a willingness, I would say.... I don't remember our members pushing back at all on studying prorogation, which I understand was not a requirement. Just because the report was tabled and referred to this committee, it didn't require us as a committee to decide to study that. Of course, we did decide to do that together. I think our votes were unanimous on that. I really think that was positive. There's another degree of willingness to show transparency, look at the reasons and study some of those reasons.
I also think that with the witnesses we called to come before the committee, we all put our best foot forward. I don't think our witness list was all that long from our side. I know that opposition members had quite a lengthy witness list. I understand that some of the witnesses were not available in the time frame. That's a bit of a bone of contention, perhaps, with the opposition. Again, what I'm saying here is that there's been a willingness all along to up the level of transparency around prorogation and the reasons for it. I think that's positive.
In terms of setting a precedent, I guess what it comes down to is a slight disagreement on whether the Prime Minister needs to appear or not in order for us to get a sense of his assessment and mental state at the time of making decisions around this. From my perspective, when you look at all of the other information that's been provided to this committee and the other witnesses, I guess my thinking is this: Is the Prime Minister really going to give us a unique perspective? Has he not already in many ways given us the rationale?
I'm not saying I'm not supportive of this. I think this is a really good amendment. I'm just expressing some of my thoughts and reflections on it. It just sort of assumes that there's something else to be had. That's where I still wonder, really, if we're going to get anything more than what we've already gotten through this extensive work study and this lengthy debate that we've had. Those elements still persist for me as slight variances in perspective.
I also want to say that I think Mr. Lauzon pointed out quite well the things about the amendment that I'm still a little uncomfortable with, including the timeline of “within one week”, just given the Prime Minister's schedule and the importance of the work he's doing leading this country. There are lots of demands on his time. I just wonder whether one week is really sufficient in terms of this motion. A response to appear within one week is a very, very short time frame.
That's one part. The only other part that struck me as...when I read through the wording carefully, was the last part, stating that “the Chair shall be instructed to report to the House forthwith a recommendation that this committee be empowered to order his appearance from time to time.”
I don't know how to interpret this. Perhaps this is the wording—and maybe Mr. Blaikie could even speak to this—but I feel that this almost feels a bit threatening. I don't know whether it's intended that way, but it feels like a veiled threat, perhaps. I just wonder whether that's the way I should be interpreting it. Maybe that's incorrect, but that's the way I read it. It's imposing almost a consequence to not complying with a one-week time frame, which seems a bit unreasonable from my perspective.
Those are some of my thoughts related to the amendment. I appreciate any perspective that my other colleagues will provide and any clarification on that from Mr. Blaikie.
Thank you for listening to me and giving me the opportunity, Madam Chair.
