We talk about an impasse and good faith to try to come to something. We have a motion from Mr. Cooper—a very reasonable two hours to have the minister here within 14 days. Forty-five minutes into the meeting, what does Mr. Turnbull do? He cuts it in half from two hours down to one. For Canadians who aren't experts in parliamentary hearings, the minister gets one hour. The minister gets 10 minutes for an opening statement with a couple of rounds, and now the 14 days are taken out so they can kick this can down the road.
It is not good faith what the government has done with this amendment, to take out the part about two hours down to one. It's not in good faith to completely remove the 14 days. The government is trying to spread everything out here and distract from the real, urgent issues at hand.
Mr. Chair, you've just talked about the many outstanding issues this committee has to deal with. The minister is responsible for many of those, and there are many questions on a wide range of topics. Again, I'll repeat the urgency of this. The government does all these things to kick the can down the road, obstruct, stonewall and try to look innocent and nice. It's just a good-faith effort on the government's part to put an amendment that's reasonable and fair—that's nonsense.
The minister should be here within two weeks for two hours and should be held accountable. The urgency of all this, again, is with respect to the integrity of the inquiry that Justice Hogue is undertaking right now. There are hearings under way of not having access to all the documents that she deems relevant and reasonable to have. The government keeps brushing it off and saying, “Oh, we'll do this or that.” The government members could ask questions in their rounds, but, again, the minister should be here for a full meeting of two hours and should be here within two weeks.
This is not in good faith. I'm not going to let the government get away by saying, “Oh, here's a reasonable amendment to try to move this along.” It's nonsense. It's further obstruction. It's further games. The minister can come for two hours within two weeks and answer the many outstanding questions that our committee and Canadians have for him.