Then it's Ms. Hoeppner's bill.
As I said, some of them have been public and some of them have been private; nonetheless, the chiefs of police and certainly front-line officers are divided on this bill.
I appreciate that both Mr. Holland and Mr. Wrzesnewskyj passed on their recent offers to speak to this motion, and I shouldn't impute any motives as to why they might not be speaking, but at some point I'd like to ask them what they have to fear. What do you have to fear from hearing from a police officer from New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, who might be in favour of Bill C-391? What do you have to fear? Why are you scared of his testimony?
I hearken back to my previous life as a civil litigator, wherein the rules of evidence simply would not have allowed this kangaroo gong show, this travesty of justice, that Mr. Holland has proposed to continue. Both sides to a dispute are able to lead evidence, and it's not for one side to decide who the other side's evidence ought to be, which is what has occurred here. Mr. Holland, or whoever created this odious list, has decided that Mr. Newman and Mr. Bernardo are competent and relevant witnesses, but that the rest of the individuals--I think there were 57 names submitted--ought not to be heard.
I'm surprised. I sit on two committees. Mr. Comartin sits on the other committee, as does Mr. Norlock. I think--and Mr. Norlock will certainly agree with me--that the committees operate in entirely different fashions. The committee on justice and human rights has a steering committee that meets periodically, and it irons out all of the issues well in advance of the actual hearing days. As a result, the committee is almost never caught up in the sort of procedural entanglement that we're in today, wherein it's alleged--and I would argue rightly alleged--that one member has hijacked the agenda and is trying to dictate the entire witness list, with the apparent support of the Bloc Québécois and my friend from the NDP, in whom I'm very disappointed and who I never would have imagined would acquiesce to this type of hijacking and this type of procedural nonsense.