Mr. Speaker, the answer, in short, is no, I was not part of that decision making process. No, I did not agree to having those witnesses shoved through committee so quickly and the procedural unfairness that went forward.
I would like to read a letter from the clerk of the committee as a result of that decision. The letter reads:
As a result of this decision, I had to contact 57 witnesses for the hearings, right after the end of the May 30th meeting. Based on that final list, I called the witnesses to invite them to appear on May 31st and the subsequent meetings and because of the committee's decision to hear those 57 witnesses in a short period of time, some of the witnesses had less time to prepare, especially those who appeared on May 31st, June 1st and June 2nd.
How many witnesses were not able to appear before the committee that were invited to testify?
On the final list, 7 persons or organizations declined our invitation....
They could not appear because they did not have time to prepare. It was procedurally a joke. I would use the example of Bill C-48 last week. We knew it was on the agenda but all of a sudden a fast one was pulled and we were called in from airports and everywhere else around the country in order to vote on something with half an hour or an hour's notice.