I'm going to vote against this motion for a couple of reasons.
First, I really like this committee and I think the personalities are great, but adding an extra meeting will be difficult on my part. We've had a whole bunch of extra meetings, especially during the week of the budget. Maybe other people are not so busy, but there's a lot happening.
I know Mr. Telegdi talks about the sudden departure. It seems to me Mr. Fleury had been around for 42 years. If a fellow decides he wants to retire after that sort of involvement in public service, it doesn't surprise me that he may want to retire. He served his government well and I think he deserves that judgment.
It wasn't that long ago, and maybe the clerk can refresh my memory on when Mr. Fleury last appeared in front of the committee. It was only about a month ago, if I'm not mistaken. We had the chance to hear pretty good testimony from Mr. Fleury on a host of issues relating to the IRB and what his feelings were. Even at that time, the appointments he had...he seemed to be quite happy about those particular appointments. I think we're premature in calling Mr. Fleury, who is going to be a private citizen. He's going to be retired by the time our committee next meets.
If my colleague has a problem with the process, then maybe he should wait to see who the new appointment will be before he starts saying there are all these problems and there's political interference. We don't even know who the appointment is going to be.
I'm going to vote against this.