Thank you, Madam Chair.
I think that Mr. Turnbull and I will have to be brief. I would in fact like to commend the committee for having adopted this motion. However, it will be very difficult in only a week to have the Prime Minister appear. Let's be realistic. Because we want to do effective work that would be good for the committee and for Canadians, I too would like to move an amendment to Karen Vecchio's new motion.
I'll explain my amendment. According to the motion, the committee:
renew the invitation issued to the Prime Minister to appear before the committee, provided that if he does not agree, within one week of the adoption of this motion, to appear for at least one hour, 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 am therefore proposing the following amendment to the motion:
That the motion be amended by substituting the following for the words after "one hour": "that the non-appearance of the Prime Minister would be noted in an annex to the Committee’s study of the government’s reasons for the prorogation of Parliament in August 2020."
The amended motion would then read as follows:
That in compliance with the Committee’s study of the government’s reasons for the prorogation of Parliament in August 2020, the Committee: renew the invitation issued to the Prime Minister to appear before the committee, provided that if he does not agree, within one week of the adoption of this motion, to appear for at least one hour, that the non-appearance of the Prime Minister would be noted in an annex to the Committee’s study of the government’s reasons for the prorogation of Parliament in August 2020.
The document I just read can be sent to you.