I'd like to call the meeting to order, and I want to welcome everyone here.
This meeting is called pursuant to the Standing Orders.
The first item of business, members, is a study on the report on discrepancies in the testimonies of certain individuals who appeared both before this committee and subsequently before the Gomery commission.
We are joined by legislative counsels Rob Walsh and Greg Tardi. I think they're very familiar with all members of the committee. They have been before the committee before. I want to welcome Mr. Walsh and Mr. Tardi.
Thank you for your assistance in this matter.
I will give a little background, if I may. Some members were not involved back when this originated. I guess it has its origins in 2004, or probably before that.
The issue was to consider discrepancies in the testimony of certain witnesses who appeared before this committee on the sponsorship hearings and those same witnesses who gave subsequent testimony before Mr. Justice Gomery. Certain members had concerns about what appeared to be apparent discrepancies, and we have to bear in mind that we were basing our concerns on what we heard before this committee and what we were reading in the media. Anyone involved in politics knows that sometimes the reports in the media are accurate and sometimes they're not accurate. So we wanted to probe the matter a little further to see if there were actual discrepancies.
On October 4, 2005, this committee passed a motion. I will, for the record, read the motion. It said:
—that the committee request the Library of Parliament to draft a comparative report on discrepancies in the testimony of those individuals who appeared before both the committee's hearings on the November 2003 Report of the Auditor General and the Gomery commission.
And there is also the testimony of Charles Guité on July 9, 2002, meeting number 64 of the first session of the 37th Parliament.
That basically instructed the clerk to ask the Library of Parliament to do this comparative analysis so that we were no longer relying on media reports. The Library of Parliament, through the leadership of Mr. Walsh and Mr. Tardi, have done that comparative analysis. There has been a summary circulated to all members, and I want to have a discussion on that.
I am going to turn it over to either Mr. Walsh or Mr. Tardi for their comments.
Before we do that, in a situation like this, it's certainly my advice that we're looking for materiality. There are always going to be certain discrepancies based upon the way the questions were asked. Other relevant issues—they have to be material. The discrepancies have to be deliberate. They have to be contradictory or deliberately incomplete. If we decide that those tests are met, then we would be seeking the direction and advice of legislative counsel as to our next steps.
Mr. Walsh and Mr. Tardi, the floor is yours, but just before you go ahead, Mr. Williams has a comment.