Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I, too, just want to state very clearly that no one's impugning the reputation or abilities of the clerk. What we're disputing is the interpretation of the advice given by the clerk on what is possible and what is not possible.
I also want to say that I don't think it's useful in our debate today, which is about whether we're getting to the truth and whether we're getting all of the evidence, to try to cite outside sources saying what we should or should not do. It is our responsibility as a committee to find the evidence we need to find.
I will say quite frankly that, if I believed that Elder Marques was appearing on Friday and that he had been invited and was confirmed, I wouldn't think this motion was so premature.
What we had is a phenomenon—it's the first time I've seen it in my 10 years in Parliament—where the Minister of Defence referred us to staff. Rather than take responsibility for it himself, he said that his staff told the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister's Office did this and the Privy Council Office did that. The reason we are asking to hear from these staff is that we were referred to them by a minister who, instead of taking responsibility, has tried to pass it off to staff.
I have drawn no conclusions about what the Prime Minister knew or when he knew it. I believe he has said publicly that he knew there were accusations but not the details. The testimony of Elder Marques is quite crucial to finding out what exactly the Prime Minister was told and when he was given that information.
We know from the former military ombudsman that he had evidence that substantiated a complaint. I don't know if that information was passed along to the Prime Minister or not. I don't know that at this point because the Minister of Defence said his staff had taken care of this, and the Prime Minister's staff had taken care of that.
If we had confirmation that Elder Marques was coming and could tell us what the Prime Minister knew and when he knew it, then we might be close to coming to a conclusion of these hearings, in my opinion. Then we would know who should have taken responsibility for the failure to investigate, and we would know who should have taken responsibility for the fact that General Vance continued to serve for three years under this [Technical difficulty—Editor] and know who's responsible, really, for the failure of Operation Honour because of the activities of very senior officers in the Canadian military.
If we had that confirmation, then I wouldn't regard this motion as so premature, but we don't have that confirmation. We don't know when he's going to appear.
There is other important work of the committee that is still on the table. We have draft reports on mental health in the military, and we have a draft report on the impact of COVID on the military. I would like to see us deal with those.
If these witnesses aren't prepared to appear on Friday or can't appear on Friday, there's other work that we can continue to do until these witnesses appear before the committee. Then we can finally find out who was responsible for this failure to investigate and the failure to remove General Vance.
Thank you.