Indeed, Chair, you are reminding me of some of the discussion we had around this motion and how it is going too far too fast when there are intermediate steps that could be taken. Indeed, I think it behooves us as a committee—especially as the public accounts committee, which is already going into ground that is not normally that of the public accounts committee—to treat potential witnesses with all due respect.
I think at that time I had asked for the clerk to advise us, through you, Chair, as to what steps had been taken and what the responses were from the potential witnesses. Indeed, I would prefer to see the chair—and I have been in this position before on other committees—having a discussion with the witnesses individually regarding the modality of what would work, because to be summoning witnesses—and I have seen that now on this same topic in other committees—seems premature. Witnesses have been making themselves available, and there may be good and reasonable grounds as to why a witness for personal or professional reasons or for matters of mandate would not wish or would decline to appear before this committee.
The first reason I can think of is that they would not be dealing with the proper and normal authority we deal with in this committee, which is the Office of the Auditor General. Indeed, it would be her office that would most appropriately be in the position to meet with these individuals, if indeed she chose to do so and if indeed an investigation was appropriate to her office. I see members wondering why I'm putting so many qualifiers around my statements. It's because, of course, I don't think it is appropriate that this committee, in essence, investigate individuals who represent professionally or personally a charitable foundation, an organization that has been conducting its affairs.
I mean, what would be next, Chair? Are we going to start investigating—I don't know—Food Banks Canada? Are we going to be investigating the Heart and Stroke Foundation? Where are we going with this? This is over and above and outside the purview of this committee, so it is not surprising to me that these witnesses....
I believe—but I can be corrected—they have already appeared before other committees. They've already provided testimony. I hope there are Canadians watching this, ordinary Canadians, those Canadians with the common sense that my colleagues so often vaunt. They say, “Why would it be that the public accounts committee, which has to do with audited public financial statements, with performance reports, with value-for-money reports on departments that provide services to Canadians, is calling individuals to testify before it when there are other committees and other agencies that are better fitted to do so?”
I have seen committees call people in—ordinary people going about their own business—just because of some tie they had to some partisan point that the opposition wanted to make, and those individuals were grilled. They were publicly humiliated. They were subjected to harassment, both online and physical harassment. They were people who were running a business. Speakers Spotlight is the group I'm thinking of. Their employees were harassed in their offices, and the individuals themselves, the owners. Why? They happened to book speakers that happened to be in some cases related to our Prime Minister. Of course, they booked many other speakers as well, but that point was lost in all of the publicity.
I think that when ordinary Canadians saw that, they were horrified. That's just one case that I remember vividly. Of course, there were other cases of people being subjected to a witch hunt for partisan purposes. It had nothing to do with any kind of governance issue, nothing to do with any kind of proper execution of the work of the parliamentary committee at that time, when there was also an independent commissioner who was charged.... We're talking about ethics. We're talking about the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. That work is done properly through that channel.
Now we're dragging that kind of dirty politics into this committee, where we're going to be dragging people in front of this committee. We're not even giving them a chance to explain to us why they decline to appear before us.
Chair, it is more than disappointing to see this committee being dragged to that level in what is essentially a partisan witch hunt. I say that because if there were real concerns about the Trudeau Foundation and how it operated and how it conducted its affairs regarding the collection of donations, regarding how they accounted for those donations, regarding how they issued receipts, regarding anything else in the line of what this committee is occupied with, which is, of course, good governance—