Thank you, Chair.
We are disappointed in the government's position on this. The idea that the U.K. advanced that way shows that there's a closed-mindedness to learning lessons from our Five Eyes allies in something that has worked very well. Lessons from our own committees, including the public accounts committee, as I mentioned....
I'll read in for the record the quote from the McDonald commission. It says:
If the parties are represented on the Committee roughly in proportion...
We've already defeated that amendment.
...the Committee should be chaired by a member of an opposition party . We understand that the combination of a government majority and an opposition chairman has worked well with the Public Accounts Committees . We think a similar balance would contribute to the effectiveness and credibility...
Those are two things that we believe are key to this, and it's unfortunate that the government doesn't seem to think so.