Mr. Speaker, I shall stick to the facts. In making your ruling, you should, I suggest, look at the notice of meeting for meeting No. 30 of the Standing Committee on Transport; in it we see that the committee was to meet on Wednesday, May 28, 2003, from 3:30 to 9:00 p.m. In fact, the meeting was suspended at 9:30 p.m., for lack of a quorum.
For your further understanding, I refer you to the notice of meeting for meeting No. 31 of the Standing Committee on Transport which reads as follows:
The meeting scheduled for Thursday, May 29, 2003 at 9:00 a.m. in Room 209, West Block is cancelled.
This morning's meeting was an informal one. We cannot fault the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel for requesting an interpreter. Contrary to what the Chair of the Standing Committee on Transport was saying, the fact that the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel asked if he could be accompanied by an interpreter was not tacit consent: he wanted to be accompanied by an interpreter for this informal meeting that took place at 8:30 this morning because the meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. had been cancelled.