Madam Chair, I gave notice of motion on Friday. I would like to deal with that motion right now when we're dealing with committee business.
I will read it into the record:
That the Committee take note that the Government misled Parliament by tabling a document at this Committee in February of 2019 that erroneously stated that Canada's Quick Reaction Force has been registered with the United Nations, and that the Government has publicly apologized, therefore the Committee is of the opinion that the Minister should issue a written apology to this Committee, that the chair table this motion as a report in the House of Commons, that a copy of the relevant testimony be appended to the report, and that the testimony in question be stricken from the record of this Committee.
Just to go on with that.... I do appreciate the fact that the deputy minister has already sent an apology to the committee. To go to the rules and procedures that govern us as Parliament, I refer to Bosc and Gagnon, 2017. Chapter 1, under “Responsible Government and Ministerial Responsibility”, reads:
The principle of individual ministerial responsibility holds that Ministers are accountable not only for their own actions as department heads, but also for the actions of their subordinates; individual ministerial responsibility provides the basis for accountability throughout the system. Virtually all departmental activity is carried out in the name of a Minister who, in turn, is responsible to Parliament for those acts. Ministers exercise power and are constitutionally responsible for the provision and conduct of government; Parliament holds them personally responsible for it.
On that basis, I still expect an apology directly from the minister to this committee or to Parliament, and, in keeping with actions we have taken in the past, Madam Chair.... We have had to deal with false testimony in the past; we've had to remove it from reports and strike it from the records. Because we're in a different session, I think the best we can do is amend the actual report that has been tabled in the House on UN peacekeeping.
I ask that the committee quickly accept this motion so we can get on with getting the apology directly from Minister Champagne, and ultimately ensuring that the report and our record have been corrected.