Again:The House has never allowed the sub judice convention to stand in the way of its consideration of a matter vital to public interest or to the effective operation of the House.
We've had 35 years in which we've lived under this rule as parliamentarians. We're quite comfortable with it, so the motion that I put forward today was an attempt to combine the concerns raised.
For my friend Mr. McKinnon, if the only witnesses we ever invited to committee were only those who self-identified in the middle of a fraud, we'd never have witnesses at committee. We can't necessarily wait for them to put their hand up and say, “Oh, yes, I put pressure on the former attorney general of Canada. Please invite me to your committee.” Sometimes we have to go out and seek them.
Mr. Bouchard met 15 times with SNC-Lavalin. What did he talk about? It was justice and law enforcement. This company met over and over again with senior members of the Prime Minister's Office to discuss justice and law enforcement. That is an incredible interest in justice and law enforcement by a construction and engineering company.
If there is nothing untoward here, which is what you Liberal members keep telling us, the first accusation you have made is that opposition members are making accusations without evidence. Then you go on to say that the evidence can't be true because of your unfounded allegations that somehow the Prime Minister said this, and so then everything must be clear. The Prime Minister's arguments have not worked out well. If you want to alleviate the suspicions of Canadians that there is the potential of any effort to cover up—I'm not suggesting the PMO is instructing you to do it. You might just be doing it on your own. If you want to alleviate that suspicion, then allow Ms. Wilson-Raybould to come forward. Allow the principal secretary to come forward. Allow Mr. Bouchard, who met 15 times with SNC-Lavalin, to come forward.
It's frustrating for me.
On Mr. Ehsassi's point, I'm not going to give you too much credit for showing up; you had to show up. The opposition members have the authority under Standing Order 106(4) to call a meeting like this. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad we're talking about this, but in the attempt to find some joint resolution that would allow us to do a proper investigation into this, which is what committees do from time to time, the Liberals seem to have dug in and said we are going to invite only these three witnesses—