First of all, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the clerk and you for bringing to light the consequences of giving a positive result to this particular motion. I also think that Mr. Calandra may consider reviewing and rewriting his motion. A democratic committee like this one cannot accept words like, as Ms. Chow has already pointed out, “may have serious”--what does “may have” mean--or “may have participated in war crimes”.
You're talking about people's lives here. I know that you care about people's lives, I'm not questioning that at all. I probably understand the spirit in which you have presented this.
When you consider the consequences of the actions that we would be taking, plus the lack of precision in the wording of the motion, then personally you haven't convinced me that I have to support this. It's not a personal issue; I hope you're very clear about that.
I won't be supporting this motion as it stands, for whatever that's worth to you, but I want to be clear to you and I want to say it straight to your face, because I think that when we present motions, we have to do our due diligence in the preparation, but also understand that the actions we take as individual members here have consequences. If you read between the lines of what the chairman said, with the guidance that the clerk provided--if we clearly listen to it--it's not just your motion you're talking about; you're talking about the credibility of any future report that we provide as the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. If we head down this road, what the House will do is look at this committee as a committee that has reports du jour.