Look, I understand and appreciate the importance of the work that this committee does. I understand and appreciate why we do this work because, ultimately, we need to find accountability for the hard-working taxpayer's dollars, which Canadians spend to keep our democratic institutions going and alive.
I'm not sure why we are wasting those dollars, which Canadians have worked very hard to build, on a privilege motion whose intent and purpose is to delay democratic proceedings in the House of Commons and in our Parliament.
Our job as members of Parliament is not partisan. I support my constituents regardless of which party they support. That is my job. I do it because I love to do it. I have conversations with Conservatives in my riding all the time. I have conversations with New Democrats in my riding all the time. I try to understand and appreciate where they're coming from.
That is, ultimately, who we are as elected representatives in our communities and how we bring those voices up in Parliament. It is a diversity of opinion that we really have high regard for. What really hurts, not for us individually but, yes, for us individually and collectively, is partisan games, and this is exactly what this motion is.
It is not about getting to the bottom of what happened with SDTC. It is definitely not about what happens going forward. We see that there is a plan from the minister as to how we go forward, and that is the transfer to the NRC. That is a really concrete plan as to how to move forward.
This entire program has been implemented over the past decade. What I have seen over these past number of meetings from my Conservative colleagues, my Bloc colleagues and my NDP colleagues are very partisan questions where any witness who comes here is not given the opportunity to actually respond to the questions that are being posed. They're being cut off. They are props in how the opposition wants to be somebody.
That's not fair to Canadians whatsoever. I am more than happy to have the witness in question come back before committee for however many hours the committee wants, but when we're questioning whether a witness has been able to answer questions to the satisfaction of the questioner—in this case, the opposition—I find that to be quite damning, because, first, the Charter of Rights is implicated with respect to how people are able to express themselves.
Our parliamentary rights and privileges are implicated with respect to how we determine what is satisfactory to one party versus another party versus another party. When we're talking about satisfactorily answering questions that have been posed, regardless of who they've been posed by, what is the ultimate goal? What is the objective?
Why do we have to now question who's right and who's wrong among us as members of Parliament? Not even the witnesses who are here to provide expert testimony on the issues we discuss on a regular basis....
Yesterday, I raised the point that the motion presumptively called the witness a liar beforehand. How do I know that members opposite are not trying to use this motion to create their partisan games and work with Russian Rebel News—