Chair, I was asked to provide some media comments on this last week and I suggested concerns, right off the top, about the regulatory bar that the minister will face if he comes here.
Don't get me wrong, Chair. I want the minister here and I want him here badly. I want to talk to him about a whole pile of things.
I would ask Mr. Carrie to now convey to his minister that he has been minister since August. It's now nearly February and we haven't seen him before this committee. I think this, among other things, would be a good question to ask, even though he can't answer them.
Having said that, Chair, I have some previous experience with respect to MacDonald Dettwiler and RADARSAT-2 . You will note, Chair, from my previous employment, until I was shown the door by your party, that there are a number of concerns that can be raised regarding the relationship of ATK to the land mines treaty with respect to cluster bombs, as Ms. Nash has quite rightly pointed out, and whether we are treaty compliant.
It requires that the foreign affairs and international trade committee would be the more appropriate committee in which to have those deliberations. I'm not letting you off the hook. I'm simply saying I want to see the minister here. I want to hear from Mr. Carrie as to when he plans to finally bring the minister before the committee.
I understand his concerns, and they are legitimate ones with respect to confidentiality rules. It would be nice to have the minister here to ask him questions and to have him respond by saying, “I can't say anything”.
We also know the regulator, within a week or two, will hopefully have a response.
I think at that point Ms. Nash's motion might be more appropriate. But I also caution the NDP that they would want to make sure this motion is presented before the foreign affairs committee, which in fact has the teeth and which in fact can go in camera and look at the details of the sale but cannot take information with them. So I would suggest that might be an area they will want to explore on their own.
I think it's clear I want to see the minister, we want to see the minister, and this is going to continue to be a recurring theme for the committee. We're all doing great work, but we need to hear from this minister once and for all.
Thank you, Chair.