Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm greatly disappointed by the minister's announcement. Members will know that in yesterday's open session I resisted the pressure to call in these witnesses immediately. I very much felt that we deserved to give the minister the opportunity to address this issue, and if he did that, then in my opinion it made this moot; it wasn't necessary if he did that.
I know some of my colleagues on the opposition benches were a little concerned with that, but I really was very much concerned about the priority and integrity of our committee and our work if we're going to be dealing with the integrity of others.
I have to say I was hoping this wouldn't become partisan and that we wouldn't get bogged down, but it looks as though that's exactly what's happening. I have serious concerns. I'll speak to the details later, if I get the chance to place my motion today, or I'll wait until we come back if I have to wait the whole 48 hours.
I have to tell you straight up: my concern here is that eight to 12 weeks is a great opportunity for this to be fodder in an election campaign if something should come tumbling out at that time. We don't know who's going to do this report; we don't know how much of a proper inquiry they're going to do--again, I'll address that under the other motion--but this looks to me like a political charade, and I'm deeply disappointed that the Minister of Public Safety would take this road. Again, I'll speak to the details later on this one.
For those reasons, I am going to support this motion. My further motion later calls for us to formally request the minister to bump this up to a full commission of inquiry. My concerns before were that we would have two parallel tracks, two legitimate parallels, and that maybe it wasn't in the best interests of the public to have two, but I don't see the one issue going down the track and collecting all the things that need to be done here.
Two things, in my mind, need to happen. One is we need to tell the minister this is not good enough. The public deserves more. The history and the respect of the RCMP deserve more. It's not just what's gone on in the past; we're talking about the standards of conduct moving forward, so this cannot lie. If the minister won't do his job the way he should, then we need to step in and do ours. In my mind, that means two things: one, we call on the minister to bump this up to a full commission of inquiry so that we do get to the bottom of it; two, unless and until the minister does that, we start the process here. If he won't do it, we will.
I would much rather see it go the other way. I want to make that clear. I don't want us to go through another...I won't say “circus”, but at a certain point there was some question as to how useful the public accounts committee was in conducting positive work, when indeed from then on the Gomery inquiry was what really got things done.
The second thing is that until the minister does that, we start our process. I want to make it clear now that if the minister rises to the occasion and does the right thing, I'll be the first to say we should end our process and turn it over to the commission of inquiry. Then the public's business is being done in an appropriate, credible way.
All of that, Mr. Chair, is to say I will support this motion. It links with the one I hope to place before us a little later.
Thank you.