First of all, it would be my preference to defer this motion. If we want to deal with it, we can deal with it. My view is that the committee is not fully constituted until the chair and the vice-chairs are in place and we're ready to roll, in a manner of speaking. The 48 hours should commence then.
I propose we defer this motion and deal with it as we look at our work plan at the next meeting to figure out what we need to do as a committee.
If that's not where the majority of members are, however, it would be my view that.... If you look at the practice in the House of Commons, when you move ministers from portfolios, they aren't answerable to Parliament for their actions in previous portfolios. I believe that if we begin to veer away from that in our practice before the committees, we would be opening up a Pandora's box and playing partisan games with these issues. Then we would have leaders of all the opposition parties, and any other member of the House, before us on a rotating basis.
I don't think that's a good way to start the work of this committee. I am told by all of you who previously were members of this committee that it functioned in a serious, sober fashion because it deals with a very serious issue: defence. Therefore, my view would be that we not pass this motion, that we defeat it as it's currently worded.
There will be opportunities to have the current Minister of Defence before us, either through estimates or otherwise, and we should talk to him respectfully but probingly. But if we go back to asking questions of ministers in the previous government or in their previous portfolios, we're on a very slippery slope towards a disruptive, partisan approach to our work. I submit that shouldn't be done.