Yes. When I first raised the issue, the parliamentary secretary immediately moved a motion to adjourn the debate, which placed my motion on the back burner. But I had said that I would raise it again. I think it's particularly important today, given the fact that the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure that we were supposed to have today has now been cancelled. So it actually deprives me of the opportunity to address the issues at the subcommittee level, and I have to raise the matter before the full committee now.
Before I move the motion, I wanted to provide the committee members with more information to help the parliamentary secretary and government members see just how serious the issue is. Accordingly, I'd like to provide copies of the Hansard, which I have provided to the clerk, from both July 14 and July 27. This was when the Liberal MP for Hamilton first asked for an independent investigation into the case of Staff Sergeant O'Farrell. So while I expect that my colleagues on the government side will want this matter dealt with in camera, I believe the issue is not simply an issue of committee business, nor is it a matter to be hidden behind closed doors. That's why I'm raising it as a point of order.
I would urge the members to consider this information and to govern their conduct accordingly. This case has lingered for 25 years, but we have a chance today to deal with this. The issue is not what's going on in the civil court. It's about what criminal activity went on then and unfortunately continues to go on today. I believe it is imperative that we, as committee members of the status of women and as parliamentarians, listen to the comments from Staff Sergeant O'Farrell as we do this study. It is important that she have this opportunity. How can we possibly do a study of this importance without having an opportunity to hear from someone who, 25 years ago, tried to get justice and didn't get it done and got it done from no government and has been asking for that to be done. It's not an issue of money. It's not a civil issue. It's about a criminal activity that went on and has never been pursued in a criminal court, which is probably where it should be.
Again, I'm asking that we deal with this issue now that we have this particular time and that we take whatever time we are taking from our current witnesses and add it on at the end of our meeting, since we have an open hour for the second hour.