Mr. Chair, I think it's important to remind colleagues and Canadians that the Ethics Commissioner is undertaking a probe of this matter. The role of the justice committee is not as an investigative body. I think today's testimony and comments, particularly from the Conservative opposition, demonstrate that, at best, committees of the House of Commons are political theatre that can occasionally achieve good studies. We don't have the tools, the budget or the mechanism to go through the fishing expedition and the kind of witch hunt the Conservatives would like to see.
Let's be clear. The Ethics Commissioner is looking at these issues. That is the impartial body of the Parliament of Canada empowered to look into these matters. Our job is to take a look at issues that will shine a light on exactly what is appropriate behaviour. Quite frankly, it's completely legitimate for the attorney general's office to have conversations with government colleagues about legal matters. The Shawcross doctrine, as Mr. Cullen quite rightly read out, provides very clear parameters for that.
Let's understand what remediation agreements are. I can state that the reason we made a change to the Criminal Code to deal with remediation agreements was to harmonize with our trading partners. The other side is engaging in rank speculation as to why we would make a change to our laws, when the United States has had remediation agreements, called deferred prosecution agreements, since 1999. The United Kingdom has had deferred prosecution agreements since 2014. Australia is studying deferred prosecution agreements now. This is a normal course of business with trading partners around the world. For the other side to engage in some sort of rank amateur speculation that somehow one corporation is going to move the Government of Canada to change our laws is specious. Quite frankly, it's not parliamentary.
Our job here is to help Canadians understand remediation agreements, to look at the Shawcross doctrine and to have these three people on this witness list come.
To my colleagues across the way, it is completely legitimate for this committee to have a conversation about the witness list. To Mr. Cullen's point, we are going to have meetings, but we want to discuss next week the number of meetings and the witnesses we would have come forward. Quite frankly, to your point about Ms. Wilson Raybould, she can't speak. Colleagues here know that she can't speak about her time as the former attorney general. She has invoked solicitor-client privilege, and she has one of the best lawyers in the land advising her. To have her come before this committee would be to invite her to speak about things that she simply cannot talk about. I think it's important for Canadians to understand that as well.