Mr. Speaker, the role of the committee was to provide comments. The committee members did that, they sent them to the Prime Minister's Office, and this was disposed of.
The fact is that the Prime Minister reviewed the comments, but again, as the hon. member points out, the three opposition parties did not support Mr. Murray. The fact is that the Prime Minister also appointed non-Liberals to the national round table, as he has done with other appointments.
In fact, to suggest that there is cronyism or patronage means that these words are bandied around with very little evidence or understanding of what they mean. The fact is that when Audrey McLaughlin was appointed there were no complaints. The fact is that we see appointments of people from all political parties and all political stripes.
The member is right when he says that he is not a member of the committee. He did not see the nonsense that went on, in my view. He did not see what I would say is another member being brought in who clearly has a political vendetta given the fact that he defeated the individual in question and the fact that the comments were extremely partisan.
What I was interested in was this. Can Mr. Murray chair? Does he have past experience in chairing? Is he a consensus builder? Is he prepared to reach out? In my view, all of those questions were answered. Therefore, the arguments made across the way have no relevance.
The relevance that is important is the fact that the recommendation was sent to the Prime Minister and was reviewed. In fact, now we have another motion. Maybe those members were asleep at the switch. Now they say, “We have to send it to the House and we want to debate it in the House”.
That is not our consideration or our concern. Our concern was that it was duly dealt with and it was disposed of. The fact is that this is what the chair said in his letter and I think that is what the members of the House need to be aware of.