Yes, I would, just for clarification.
Our original focus, of course, is to respond to the report of the Auditor General. The Auditor General's report was supposed to be on the conduct and/or the office of Madame Ouimet. As such, that was a clear sense of direction. Now there has been some discussion as to expanding beyond that and going into other officers of Parliament, calling other extensive witnesses, etc. I'm not going to suggest that shouldn't happen, because, quite frankly, I think there's a great deal of anticipation that more information would potentially be required.
But what I'm suggesting.... And the government is certainly not against hearing further information, but we have to do it in a procedural manner, and the procedural manner says that if we are going to deviate and go into areas that are not ordinarily within the context of the public accounts committee and/or we are going to go in directions that do not respond to the original report of the Auditor General, then so be it, but first of all, we would have to pass a motion that suggests that we are going in that direction.
If we pass that motion, then Madame Faille's motion would clearly be in order. Then we can debate the merits of it, the how and why, and I'd be prepared to do that at length and prepared to make amendments that would be reasonable and that I think most members would find accordable. But I do believe that it's important that we do not move beyond.... If we are going to move away from our own procedure, we have a problem, because an issue isn't automatically...just because it's tabled doesn't mean that it's automatically in order. We have to go through a procedure.
That is my only concern: it's not the content and it's not hearing from witnesses. I'm quite delighted to do that. That's our job. I'm as eager as anybody else, but we first of all have to dot the i's and cross the t's before we go on. We haven't done that. That's why I've suggested this is out of order.
Should this committee pass that sense of direction to expand our scope, which we have the latitude of doing, arguably...we would discuss that, but if the committee decides that, then we go in that direction. But I really think that to just automatically accept this right now, we're really getting onto dangerous ground, because where do we go? Then are we going to accept any motion on the floor whether or not it pertains to the actual working of the committee...which would be debatable.