—when the other side is saying that they want to get to the bottom of this, how we can treat them seriously.
What they want is to ruin the reputation of someone who served Canada, someone who served his department well. They have heard over and over again that the minister, the former minister and the other ministers have nothing to do with SDTC.
As I wondered the first time I spoke on the committee, when is the committee going to stop with these never-ending investigations? I'm starting to wonder whether we are incredibly incompetent, because we've been discussing this for more than 10 meetings, if I count the other committees that have looked into this matter. There are people who have already given statements to the committee. This makes no sense. We need to be consistent.
Before partisanship reared its head in the committee's work and before the Conservatives had some wind in their sails, this committee always worked well together. Even though I wasn't on the committee, I followed its work. I was on the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates for six years, and we, too, had studies and issues we wanted the Office of the Auditor General to look into.