Madam Chair, I'm going to keep my comments specific and concise, but I, too, have no choice but to respond to everything I heard. I took notes. I know these proceedings are being watched closely.
The first thing I heard was that this wasn't a game being played. I was shocked at that, I must tell you. What is more important than what we are doing right now? The game is what's been going on for the past two hours. I realize it's a right members have, and granted, that's fair.
I'd like to put some things into perspective. We heard earlier that work had been done. Yes, work was done in the past few years. Fine. Was that enough? Was it appropriate? To answer those questions, I'm going to refer to some evidence. As everyone knows, three polls came out. I'm hearing about this from my constituents in Laurentides—Labelle on a daily basis. Obviously, I have to consider the bigger picture. On a broader scale, Angus Reid did a poll that revealed 66% of people were concerned about Chinese interference. Seven out of 10 people think the government is afraid to take a stand. You might argue that the methodology is all wrong. These are polls. Another survey showed that 64% of people were in favour of an independent public inquiry. Let's start there.
We are taking all this time. We're trying to get the facts. Why? As we heard earlier, the point is to identify best practices and course correct. To do that, we need to find out what happened. What can we find out? Nothing. We are being kept in the dark, and here's the proof. I was talking to people yesterday, and they asked why the government was trying to avoid the issue. According to them, we had agreed that, in government, we were going to put partisanship aside and work together to choose a chair who could do the job and oversee an independent public inquiry.
What happened last week? I thought it was pretty clear. Then we find out that the Prime Minister wants to make the decision and that he is going to appoint a so-called special rapporteur. I just found that out. Forgive me for being naive. I'm not the only one embarrassed as people watch all this. We are trying to save our democracy. What happened earlier is exactly what's been happening for the past two hours and for the entire time we met last week. I've been through this before, with the WE Charity scandal—a whole 48 or 50 hours of it, if I were to ask my fellow members.
I can list other points. People have lost confidence. What do we have to do? What does a leader need to do to preserve the bit of confidence people have left? He must step up. He must be humble enough to admit that some ideas are good ones and that perhaps he could have done a better job, but he mustn't do what he's been doing since yesterday. Again this week, we are going to spend question period talking about small steps and incremental actions. Is it normal for the opposition parties to be the ones providing answers and strategies? Come on.
It's tough to explain this to my constituents. With every filibuster and attempt to draw things out, I think to myself yet again that something fishy is going on.
What's it going to take? We all know the answer.
Madam Chair, I would really like to go on, but I'm not going to do like my fellow members. There's an amendment on the table, and that's what I'd like to vote on.
Initially, I heard all the frustration and arguments conveyed by the members, but what I heard in the end was that they wouldn't let this go. Indeed, we aren't going to let this go.
Can we finally move on? I'm ready to vote. That's what I want to say.