Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I gave the clerk a motion requesting that this committee meet. I wouldn't call it a special meeting, but rather a regular meeting. Last Tuesday, on May 8, at this time exactly, we were scheduled to have a meeting in order to discuss the Court Challenges Program. Through you, Mr. Chairman, we had witnesses come here. We were very surprised—and I'm speaking for myself and the members of my party—when you cancelled the meeting with no prior notice, approximately two minutes to 9 o'clock.
I would like to state on behalf of the Liberal caucus that there was no reason to cancel that meeting without discussing it first with the committee members. Do not forget that they elected you. You are responsible for your actions and you are accountable before the committee members. That is why I asked for this meeting. I saw no reason justifying the cancellation of that meeting. Until Tuesday morning, two minutes to 9 o'clock, everyone had agreed on that meeting taking place. We all agreed, all parties included, on holding a meeting and on the subject of that meeting. Furthermore, the witnesses who had come from Winnipeg and Montreal were just as surprised as we were to find out that the meeting had been cancelled.
Mr. Chairman, because I have the floor for a few minutes, I would like to add that this may not be a breach of the standing orders, but it is very clearly unusual. I would also like to add that taxpayers' money was wasted that day because witnesses flew in from Winnipeg and drove in from Montreal. Their travel costs were paid by this committee. Let us never forget that costs incurred by the House and this committee are always covered by Canadian taxpayers. If you had discussed the cancellation of this meeting with committee members and if we had made the decision to cancel, then we would also have had the time to notify the witnesses.
For all these reasons, I felt it was important to have this meeting this morning in order to ask you to report to all committee members and to respect the agenda that we all agreed to approximately 10 days or a week ago.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.