Chair, I wonder if you could ask the clerk to clarify a few things. If we are going to have a debate or discussion on this, I think we have to be aware of certain things, as a committee. I maintain that the motion is out of order. However, there are other things, as well, that I think colleagues need to consider before we continue with the debate we're having.
First of all, if we were to carry out this work, if a report were to be worked on and completed by the committee on the matter, would it be rejected by the Speaker if it was deemed outside of the mandate? The Speaker could come to the conclusion, and I think would come to the conclusion, to be frank, that any report focusing on this would be outside of the mandate of the committee, and all the work that the committee had done would have been for naught.
The second thing I would ask you to confer with the clerk on is whether or not the Governor General could ever be summoned to appear at this committee. I don't believe that's the case, but I think we ought to hear from the clerk on that.
Finally, could you get the clerk's advice on whether or not this committee has in fact looked at matters pertaining to the Governor General in the past?
I raised that before, but we didn't get an answer on that.