Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank my colleague for his remarks.
Madam Chair, perhaps you will allow me to make a general observation. I promise I will tie it to part (a) of the amendment. Madam Chair, as you know, I am a new member of this committee.
My first observation is that this is the study that never ends, as Mr. Lauzon has suggested. There have been a lot of meetings, a lot of witnesses. There have been 17 meetings on this matter of privilege alone. If you count the foreign interference study, there have been many more. I think the witness count is 74, with many of the witnesses appearing more than once. We have been at this motion of privilege study since May, as you know.
Madam Chair, every time we think we are getting somewhere, Mr. Cooper introduces a new motion. While I love the sound of Mr. Cooper's melodious voice and I have great respect for his intellect, I have less respect for his logic and for his approach to this particular study that seems to be never-ending.
Madam Chair, I would draw your attention to the testimony of Eric Janse, acting Clerk of the House of Commons, who testified to the issue of the privilege motion. You will see this on page 30 of the report that we are trying to get to, Madam Chair. I certainly got the sense of urgency that this matter should be dealt with expeditiously.
Let me quote from his testimony. He explained that steps normally include establishing the facts of what occurred, considering whether the events represented a breach of member's privilege or a contempt of the House, and considering proposed remedies.
He went on to say that he urged members to phrase recommendations carefully if the committee chose to make a report to the House, explaining that they should be actionable and should fall squarely within the committee's mandate.
Madam Chair, as I mentioned, this really is about the privileges of all of us, but particularly of Mr. Chong and Ms. Kwan. I know they are waiting for answers and we are waiting for answers, so it is important that this committee get to solutions and to recommendations as was so strongly recommended by Eric Janse, the acting Clerk of the House of Commons.
When it comes to paragraph (a) of the motion, Madam Chair, this is obviously a partisan shot at the Prime Minister and is clearly not helpful to moving forward. I think Mr. Lauzon had some very positive recommendations on how that could be massaged and how it might be put into a more constructive form, but I would just remind all of us around the table that's what question period is for, for those more partisan elements. This committee is trying to get to the bottom of the issue of privilege so that we can protect those members I mentioned, so that we can protect ourselves and so that we can do our jobs.
I have heard Mr. Green many times being very focused on transparency and on documents, and so in the spirit of getting on with it, I think Mr. Lauzon made some useful suggestions that perhaps we could have the clerk reach out to all witnesses who agreed to provide relevant information to this committee, which has not been received and that the information could be submitted within a few weeks so that we could really get to this report, which, in my view, will need some serious work and some serious editing.
We have recommendations from eminent individuals within our public service, some very solid recommendations on how we can protect our sovereignty and how we can protect the privileges of members of Parliament.
I hope that an amendment is coming forward so that we can find some consensus and can move on.
Madam Chair, with that, I will yield the floor.