Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I kind of assumed that the more the government talked about their position the more they'd expose about their position. I think we've seen the light as to exactly where the government stands on a major issue.
It has been suggested that it is outrageous for a member of this committee to come before the committee with a selection of proposals for who could appear as witnesses on a particular topic, that it's outrageous to include those names in a motion--how dare he suggest that he's got all the answers when we're not involved in this? Well, that was never the intent. It was clearly never the intent when I said that it would not be limited to the following witnesses.
What I find really interesting, Mr. Chair, is if it's so outrageous that somebody dictates to this committee who the witnesses are going to be, why did Mr. Saxton just say that they'll accept the Auditor General, they'll accept Kevin Page, and they'll accept deputy ministers, but it will be deputy ministers who decide who joins them to appear before this committee? So this committee won't decide which officials appear before us; it will be the deputy ministers' prerogative, and the committee has no right to establish which officials below the deputy minister level should appear before us. So it's outrageous that a member of the committee could actually suggest who the witnesses will be, yet the government are prepared and have actually decided that they're going to delegate who the witnesses will be to deputy ministers. That's rather a self-aggrandizing sort of position to take.
It clearly leads to deputy ministers having the capacity to prevent testimony from being presented before us. I personally would like to hear from Colonel D.C. Burt, director of new-generation fighter capability at the Department of National Defence; Michael J. Slack, the F-35 project manager; Lieutenant-General Deschamps, Chief of the Air Staff. But you know what--we'll let the deputy minister decide that.
With that, Mr. Chair, we have exposed exactly where the government is going with this.
Let's just have a vote.