I would like to welcome everybody to the defence committee on Standing Order 106(4), as requested by the opposition parties.
Before I turn the floor over to MP Bezan, he's asked a couple of questions in the House in the last day or two.
I think they merit an answer, James, so I'm going to give you the answer that I think you already know, which is with regard to how this meeting is to be conducted, because it's germane to today's get-together.
You came to me and asked me if we could have this meeting televised, and I said I would check into it, which I did. I was told that although these rooms, the modern rooms—and we have many of them in this building and in the other new building—have the capability to televise, we don't actually have the capacity because we don't have enough crews. That was the answer that I received—because other committees wanted to be televised.
I then asked you if there was something else I could do to accommodate you, and you asked if we could move from our regular room to a bigger room so that we could accommodate more people and the press. I said I would check, and I subsequently moved the meeting to this room. As you notice, this is not our normal room. I did pretty much what I could to accommodate your requests.
I did look back in time and found that there have been three meetings called on Standing Order 106(4) in the history of this defence committee, two in the 42nd Parliament, while I've been the chair, and one that was held in public. There was one that was televised, one that was public, where people can come in, and we just had a whole bunch of press here. The third meeting, under a different Parliament and a Conservative government, was held in camera.
I think I've done my part. We've done our part to be as transparent as we can. This meeting is open to people who want to watch, listen or do whatever they need to do. This is a transparent process. Unfortunately, we didn't get exactly what you wanted, but I did the best I could to give you what I could.
With that, I'm going to give you the floor to move your motion and make your point.