Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, I just want to make sure you have our speaking order. It will be Mr. Benzen, Ms. Alleslev, Ms. Gallant and then myself.
Also, as we have yet to hear from Elder Marques, who I know indicated to the clerk, according to correspondence, that he was willing to appear a matter of couple of weeks ago, I move the following: That the Standing Committee on National Defence, concerning its study on Addressing sexual misconduct issues in the Canadian Armed Forces, including the allegations against former Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance and Admiral Art McDonald, summon Elder Marques to testify as a witness; that the witness appear individually for no less than two hours; that the meeting be held in public and be televised; and that the witness testify within seven days of this motion passing.
If I may speak to that, we have correspondence from the clerk confirming that Mr. Marques had agreed to appear before the committee, and that as late as March 31, he was willing to appear. That hasn't happened, of course, we know, with the move by the Liberal members of the committee at the last meeting on Monday to shut down the study.
I think it is imperative that we hear from Mr. Marques. As you can see, all the other witnesses who have been called have been very accommodating in appearing, including former chiefs of staff of Conservative ministers and the Conservative prime minister, so I think it would be only fitting that we have Mr. Marques appear to give us more information about what he did with the information that was passed to him by Zita Astravas, as we have learned from testimony from a number of witnesses, including the Minister of National Defence.