Clearly, Chair, the reason I've asked for this to happen is that the government has acquiesced today. Normally committees can go in camera or not. It's their decision to make. The government decided that it wanted to have an open and public meeting today, and that's gratifying from our side.
Clearly, we're going to be talking about people we call for witnesses. We're not talking about personnel issues, where there are breaches of privacy. These are public figures we're asking to call, and the debate is around the merit of whether one witness should be called versus another, or indeed what is the merit. As Mr. Kramp quite ably pointed out earlier, if I propose a particular witness X, and I put forward a good case for witness X, the government would say “Let's call witness X”. There aren't any privacy issues around these individuals that need to be hidden away.
Seeing the efforts of my colleagues in the other two parties over this issue of whether it will be limited or it will not be limited, what I would say to the government side is that the way to prove that you don't intend to limit the witness list or try to curtail a full and wholesome piece is not to go in camera, but to go in the public view. Therefore no one will be bound by that confidentiality and will be faced with the optics—and I say this to my friends over the way—of perhaps having done something that was untoward, because statements get made that aren't wholly accurate because they are made in a political context. So you may have actually done something well in camera, but no one would actually know you did it well because you did it in camera and no one can speak to it.
This is the way to move forward. Your planning meeting will be on Tuesday. Clearly, you've determined that's the day you want to have it, as much as I was prepared and my colleagues were prepared over here to do it today. I would have preferred to do it today, and as Mr. Byrne said earlier, I'm willing to stay. I'm here for however long it takes to get it done, if that is the wish of folks, but seeing there probably isn't going to be acquiescence from the other side, then I would simply ask them to support the amendment so that we can actually show that indeed we just simply hammered out a witness list, we hammered out a plan, and we got it to full completion in the public view. Folks will see what the arguments are. There won't be any worry about who said what in camera. It will be absolutely open.
Folks will then take from that what they want because they will have witnessed it, rather than us on the committee going behind closed doors and hammering out a witness list. We all know if there is somebody not on my list or someone else's list, the conjecture will start about why that person is not there, whereas we might have all unanimously agreed after a discussion that “You know what, Malcolm? You don't need that particular person on the list”, and I said, “You know what? You're right, Mr. Kramp; I don't.” We'd never be able to say that.
If it is held in public view and Mr. Kramp makes a valid argument as to why I shouldn't call witness X, and I say “You know, Mr. Kramp, you're right”, people are going to see me say that Mr. Kramp was right. That is fair to both parties in this endeavour.
I want to relinquish the floor, Chair, because I do want to actually finish this business. I will relinquish the floor.