I have never said that before, Mr. Perkins.
This does not help us get to the bottom of what we're trying to do.
Absolutely, we have concerns about what happened at SDTC. Absolutely, we have concerns about trying to recover the monies that were misspent. Absolutely, the minister took action to try to get to where we need to be. Absolutely, our committee has a role to play in all of this. Is that role bringing a privilege motion before the House or this committee? It absolutely is not. That is partisanship to the nth degree and does not solve anything for anyone.
I would be more than willing to have the Conservatives withdraw their motion. I would be the first to propose a motion to bring in the witness again within 14 days, and then decide where we go from there.
As Mr. Drouin said, no committee member is precluded from writing to a witness when questions are not answered or when they feel questions have not been answered. Mr. Chair, I've heard you ask this many times of many witnesses: “If questions are not answered, can we write questions to you and then have you give us a written answer?”
Throughout this whole evening, as we've gone through this process, we discovered this privilege motion was drafted before the witness was able to answer all of the questions. The witness was not given the opportunity to answer all of the questions. The questions had not been posed to the witness. Mr. Chair, I know you usually do this. I know how difficult a meeting today has been, but the witness was not asked to respond to written questions.
What we've seen here is a consistent, deliberate approach—oh, my dad's calling—to delay. It's what's happening in the House of Commons, which is already stalled and delayed. Let's not do that in this committee, Mr. Chair. We have such important work to do here. This is not it. There are so many procedural ways around this.
I understand and appreciate that members may think their pretentious motions are the solution and they are the Messiah for how things are going to get resolved. They absolutely are not. Mr. Chair, at your discretion, you have the ability to get the answers these members need, whether it's bringing back the witness or sending questions in writing to the witness to ask for those answers. I'm not sure why we went from zero to 100 within the span of two or three minutes of the witness trying to answer questions and being consistently cut off.
Mr. Chair, at your discretion, I would propose, in quite a friendly manner, that we suspend for the evening, have cool showers, have discussions with each other and figure out the way forward.
That includes you, Chair, because I think it is your discretion to be able to get to the answers that committee members are looking for. This is not the way that we get answers. This is absolutely not the way.
If members wanted to submit in writing whatever questions they have that they feel have not been answered, they can tell you, Chair, and through the clerk, we can send those questions off to the witness, as we have done numerous times in the past.
I will park my comments there, Chair. I believe Mr. Drouin is on the list as well, but I will leave my two cents here for you, Chair.
Thank you.