Thank you so much, Chair.
As always with everything, through the chair, I hear very clearly, Ms. Telford, that you trust in the Right Honourable David Johnston in his role as rapporteur, and that's fine. What I am saying is that I trust Canadians. I trust their need to have trust in our electoral institutions, to be able to have these serious allegations addressed in a way that honours our national security, and the need of Canadians to understand what has happened. How is Canada protecting itself? Is there any corruption that we should be concerned about? How can Canadians have faith in the election process in the future?
In my opinion, those things can be addressed only through a public inquiry.
I guess what I am trying to understand is why there is resistance from the Prime Minister and the PMO to giving Canadians a process that they can quantify, that they can see and that takes it out of the political sphere.
You and I do definitely agree on that issue. I find it frustrating to hear from some of the Conservative members that if you don't say this, then it means big problems over here.
I also don't like what I think Canadians are hearing, which is these big concerns being minimized: “Look at all the things we've created. Don't worry. There's no problem to see here.” I don't believe that Canadians agree with that. It, therefore, feels as though we're having this tug of war and what we're forgetting in that tug of war is that Canadians require accountability in order to have faith in our institutions.
I ask again, why is there resistance? Why can we not move forward in this way so that Canadians have assurances that their institutions are working and responding to the changing reality we're in and so we can have faith in those systems?