Mr. Speaker, in case my comments were misinterpreted by the member, let me be clear that I was not by any stretch of the imagination suggesting we leave aside our political labels and forget about the party system. I am a firm believer in responsible government and in the role of political parties. I bring to this place my views as a New Democrat.
I want to be clear with the member that when I talked about independent research at the committee level I was talking about work that is independent and free of political manipulation by the government of the day. That has been the experience of those of us who have served on the health committee for the past four years.
I am not sure if any other committee has experienced this, but each and every time our committee sat down to determine the agendas and the projects we wanted to undertake, the Minister of Health sent a letter to the health committee suggesting the topic of discussion and the Liberal members around that committee table sat and said “Yes, sir; no, sir; three bags full, sir”.
That is the kind of difficulty I am talking about. I am not talking about giving up our party philosophy and our commitment to the beliefs that brought us here. I am talking about a process, a system of committees that allows members to sit around the table and reach some agreement based on the priorities of the public and based on the issues of the day. We have not been allowed to do that in the health committee.
I ask the member for Mississauga South to work with us to end political manipulation and interference by the government in the work of a standing committee of the House.