Mr. Speaker, I take note of your concern that we keep to the actual motion referring the matter to committee. I would like the hon. member to comment on what I see as a potential problem by sending it to committee. Obviously I support the motion. I think it should happen. I do not see any way around it now that it has been ruled a prime facie case. We need to investigate it and it is the proper procedure and the proper place to do it in committee.
I raise the concern that this issue will drag on in committee for a considerable length of time. I have been through several of these when I was on the committee. As I mentioned earlier, there will be witnesses on procedure. There will be witnesses on precedent. There will be witnesses on what happened. They will review the tapes. They will have the minister and his officials there. This could conceivably go on for a considerable length of time.
My concern, as has already been mentioned by the hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough, is that in the meantime life does not stop. Members of the military need to know if their minister will be there for them in the long haul, if he is really on the ropes, if it is just a procedural shenanigan or if it is serious and so on.
The first question I would like the member to answer is whether he thinks we can do this quickly. That is in the best interests of both the minister and the credibility of the department, which is not to blame for it as it is strictly a ministerial problem.
Could he comment, if he can, on why the issue of conflicting statements is important? We were told today that it did not make any difference because the arrests would have been made in the same timeframe and nothing else would have changed. I would argue that it does matter.
The Prime Minister is down in the United States talking about the loonie, but he is also no doubt talking to people about our role in Afghanistan. Without the proper facts, without a consistent message from the minister in the House, he will get a grilling not on Canadian involvement but on what parts of the minister's statements are true.
It is a pretty serious matter when the Prime Minister heads off to our neighbouring superpower and has to say “I really do not know what is going on; the minister does not tell me”.