Thank you, Chair.
As you know, I'm not a regular member of this committee. I'm substituting for Mr. Byrne, who, I'm sure everyone will be pleased to know, is recovering from pneumonia. He may be not present for a while. So I've not been privy to all the machinations, shall we say, with respect to this committee and its setting of the agenda.
I don't disagree with Mr. Saxton's observation that most committee agenda-setting is done in camera. I don't dispute that. I've been here 14 years, and that's generally true.
It ceases to be in camera when there's a sense that there's an unfairness that has happened, or may happen, or could happen. So the working presumption of being in camera--i.e., there's some give and take, everybody gets a little something, opposition parties get to direct some part of the agenda--all of that is a working presumption of a steering committee. That presumption seems to have gone out the window here. It appears to have gone out the window because of an enthusiasm, particularly on the part of the government, to not have the deliberations of the committee with respect to the F-35 any more public than they absolutely have to be.
As a consequence, the deliberations with respect to the direction and agenda of this committee are, at the opposition's desire, in public and on television thus far. I just thought that there is an irony in the name of this standing committee. It is the public accounts committee. Generally speaking, public should be preferenced over private, because it is one of the very few opportunities members of the opposition have to actually ask real questions and potentially get real answers with respect to issues such as the F-35.
I'm here to move Mr. Byrne's motion on the F-35, and I'm just flipping through it--actual statement of operational requirements, full life-cycle analysis, bid evaluation criteria. All of that is stuff the public is interested in. Why there would be such a resistance.... If there's anything that is in a nature of a secretive aspect to any of this stuff and that imperils national security in any way, I'm sure any witness will bring that to the clerk's or your attention, sir, and say that on this item, or this item within this item, the committee should not be studying it in public and possibly no one outside of the Privy Council should be studying it.
Working on the presumption that a public accounts committee is first and foremost public, my sense of it is that motions and even this discussion need to take place in public. Your ruling is correct.
I would say finally that this entire matter can be resolved in a heartbeat, if in fact Mr. Saxton on behalf of the government simply allows the motions that the opposition wish to put forward to take place in public and the votes to take place in public. It's pretty simple that way.
Thank you for that opportunity.