I think that convention and courtesy would suggest that the first mover of a motion within a committee would have the precedence to have that motion heard first. Mr. Saxton did indeed use an opportunity to advance his motion; it was basically verbatim to what he had placed some time ago, but it was well after I had already placed my motion.
I'm not going to get caught up on that. The facts are that my motion was tabled on April 3. There was a notice of motion that went around. In reaction to that, at committee on April 5 Mr. Saxton then tabled a counter-motion, which is basically the substance of what we're discussing right now.
I just think we should get on with this. I don't think anyone should be afraid of bringing forward bureaucrats who were directly involved in all this. If my motion is just not acceptable to the government for some reason, what they really need to do is explain to Canadians, at least to all of us here, why they don't want the senior officials who could shed so much light on this issue to appear before us. Otherwise, are we simply going through an exercise in which they'll be included anyway? If that's the case, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We're wasting time.
Mr. Chair, we'll get to the business at hand, I hope, and we'll use our time more productively.