Thank you very much.
Just so we don't get too far off track, again I want to emphasize that there are two separate issues. I can see how the government, giving it some due here, would look at it and say, “Televised, in public, committee business? That's not the way we normally do things,” and leap to the conclusion that there's something untoward going on. I can at least see the pieces that you pulled together to get there.
I need to emphasize this, and I ask especially the government members to listen. In the past, it was debatable whether we were going in camera. That's what the race was about. Originally the race was about the government getting the floor right after I gaveled the meeting, because they wanted to place an in camera motion. Politically, we all know that the quicker you do that, the better.
But it does suggest that we do not have a rule that all committee business is automatically in camera. Given that it's the public accounts, it seems to me the default position would be that we are in public unless and until a motion is moved to go in camera. No one has ever questioned that. When we've been in an open public session, and there's a race to get the floor, when the government does get the floor, they move to go in camera.
There's no debate on that motion. We have a vote, the government wins, we clear the room, and then we do our business. But it was debatable whether we needed a motion. We do not have a rule that all committee business is automatically done in camera. The only thing that stands close to that, where there are no exceptions, is report writing. That we do in camera for obvious reasons, and that serves us and the public very well, particularly when we can find unanimity around a report, because that has impact.
The second thing is on the cameras. If you take what I just said and remove the TV question, the only difference here is that the media—as in every other meeting we've had on the F-35—advised me that they wanted to cover this meeting, and therefore they would have brought in their crews. And as in every other F-35 meeting up until now, I've said at that point, and only at that point.... There have been a few exceptions in the past, and nobody from the government questioned me when I made those decisions, when it was so obvious that it needed to be televised—just so obvious—but not very often. I don't do that. It's not my role.
But when the media says they want to come and they're going to have these crews here, I have said in the past, “Just flip the switch.” As you can see, that's what we're doing now. The only difference on that piece of paper is that it says the word “televised”. That's just a courtesy so that members know to wear their prettiest ties, that they're going to be on TV. Other than that, nothing is different about the procedure.
Had I not had the cameras in there, and had the call of this meeting not been on the notice paper, then we would have had those very same camera crews in here and doing what they do. It seems to me that all we're doing is making life difficult if we say we're not going to flip the switch and we're not going to use the built-in camera system to cover committees in this room, which is what it's designed for. No, we're going to keep those turned off, and we're going to force the media to come in here and drag their portable cameras and drag their crews in and do the whole thing. We've seen what that looks like in here.
They are two separate issues. I would urge the government members, in particular, to please respect and acknowledge that they are two different things. I did not, by virtue of what you've received, make a unilateral decision that we're going to do this in public and that we're going to have the glare of the cameras, whether the government likes it or not. That's not where we are. That's not what I did.
I have explained myself on the TV side, I've explained myself on the opening of this meeting, and I remain accountable for all my actions and all my decisions.
Mr. Hayes, you now have the floor, sir.