Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate your getting this on the agenda.
I made a couple of comments earlier about the proceedings here. I think that what happened after I made those comments goes on to reinforce--and I think by the end of this meeting it ought to be crystal clear to anybody watching--that we do not have the means, the structure, the ability to do justice to the kind of investigation that needs to be done. But I also want to say that as far as the NDP is concerned, the appointment by the government of a contract person to conduct some investigation is equally unable to rise to the task. I believe we need a public inquiry under the Inquiries Act, for a number of reasons.
One, this individual has no legislative authority, no legal authority, no investigative authority that can be based on anything where Parliament has the power to give someone to do something. That's why we have the Inquiries Act. That means, Chair, that unless it's under this act, witnesses will not necessarily be under oath, and there will not be the ability to summon individuals to come. Certainly those who are outside government wouldn't have to pay any attention. The Inquiries Act allows summons that would supercede the Privacy Act and other matters that could hide information that needs to come out. Under a public inquiry, they'd have the ability to pierce through that.
It's far more arm's length. Certainly a retired judge would have a lot better standing in our mind, as opposition people. Notwithstanding that I don't know the individual personally involved, it's an appointee of the government with a limited track record. And even it has some questions around it, although I'm not going to focus on that a lot. It's not the greatest choice in the world, but it's a bad process.
I want to emphasize again that there's more protection for the witnesses. We see our witnesses today jumping to get their point of view across when someone has said something that may implicate them, and they want a chance to do that. We do not have the mechanism. It's not a court of law. We need that court of law to do it.
The last thing is that there's nothing at all that guarantees that all documents presented during this review will be kept as part of the permanent record of the investigation. That only happens under the Inquiries Act.
So for good common-sense reasons and good legal reasons, Chair, I hope that at least the majority of this committee...although I'd like to see the government come on side and recognize that we need to say to the minister--and that's what this is--that the investigation he's appointed is not nearly good enough and we need a full public inquiry. That's what the committee is asking the minister to undertake.