Mr. Chair, I had no intention of making another comment, but I have been following the debate and some clarifications must be made.
Refusing unanimous consent is no easy task. I know this because I have already experienced it in the House. I did so in the House when I was on the government side. So it is not easy and it comes with private and public consequences.
I agree with my colleagues who said they would have given their consent. I am hearing that consent can be unconditional, and it certainly seems to be. But the reality is that consent is often given to move things forward. I think that is what happened in the House that day. It was an issue of importance for Canadians who were waiting for information. We had been talking about it for a number of days. If it had been refused—and I agree with my colleague Mr. Godin on that—because the translation was not available for a 40,000-page document, there would have been two public debates in the country, one of which would have been very negative in terms of the linguistic duality issue.
I am one of the ones who gave their consent; I was in the House. However, I did so reluctantly, since I wanted to know why we had not previously sought the approval of members and parties. So I had let it go at the time because I thought the issue at hand was so important that it couldn't wait. My hope was that I would understand what happened afterwards. The goal was not to punish or reinvent anything, but to understand and try to make sure it didn't happen again. I think it's fair and it is part of the committee's mandate. That is why I support Mr. Godin's motion.
Yet some of the things I have been hearing here have made me frown and I have to put a stop to it. First of all, we have to stop insulting each other. We must understand that we have work to do. If the government decides to stop everything, it will become clear very quickly; we will understand and we will act accordingly, Mr. Chair.
But I intend to cooperate until further notice. I have shown my intention this morning and I will continue to do so until it becomes obvious, if it does, that the government has no intention of cooperating in any field whatsoever. If it is systematically blocking everything, we will know what to expect. We will see when the time comes. I have not reached that conclusion yet. Meanwhile, we should show flexibility and understanding so that we do not poison our relationships too much.