There's no issue in the definition of “suspend”. There's no issue in the interpretation of that. I'm quite clear, because I told you that it was a fine study, but what I would say.... I go back to the Liberal promises on the independence of committees: that they would be independent, independent of parliamentary secretaries, independent of the cabinet ministers, and independent of the PMO. That's great. We'll assume that it is.
However, the logic that because.... I can't remember what Mr. Longfield's committee is that he was going to study it, the operations committee or whatever it is. The idea that we should stand down to the operations committee is the incorrect logic. They should allow us to conduct the study. If there are some supplemental things or in tandem or in parallel that they would like to look at....
We know what Stats Canada falls under and it's our job. It's not their job. It's our job. If the Liberals just wanted to say, in their opening comment on this motion, that they're not going to support it because they disagree with me and they don't want to support it because we're going to protect our Prime Minister, that's fine.
But with all due respect, to say you're not going to support it because the government operations committee is going to look at it is ridiculous. We're supposed to have independence on this committee. That was a promise that somebody made in the Liberal Party at some point in time, and we should have the ability to study what we need to study when it's appropriate to study it.
We're not going to be studying Veterans Affairs issues on this committee. We're likely not going to be studying defence issues on this committee. We're studying issues that are germane to this department, which is Stats Canada. If the Liberals want to vote against this motion, that is their right and that's their individual choice, but they shouldn't do it under the pretext, in the context, that they're not going to do it because somebody else is going to do it. It's our job to do it on this department, just like the agriculture committee would look at an agricultural issue.