Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague from the Bloc, with whom I have spent many hours sitting through the ethics committee meetings on, as the report calls it, “The Mulroney-Schreiber Affair—Our case for a full public inquiry”.
I must take some exception to the Bloc member's view of how things are going. Out of respect for Mr. Johnston, he was asked to do a job, in terms of coming up with some preliminary concepts. He did that. Then he was asked to come up with a set of recommendations, in terms of what the inquiry's scope would be. He is a fully qualified, independent commentator on this issue.
If the Prime Minister had done it without an independent individual, and I have not heard from any side of the House, from any party, that Mr. Johnston was not qualified, the opposition would have said, “Look at the bias. The Prime Minister is trying to hide something”, because that is kind of approach it likes to take about the integrity of the Prime Minister.
First, there was a call for an inquiry from all parties, and that is what he committed to. To be clear and to be fair to not only everybody in this House but to all Canadians, he asked an independent adviser to work on the terms of reference. That is exactly what he did.
The Bloc's approach tonight is an attempt to bring some sort of cloak-and-dagger attitude toward the issue. That is totally opposite. It is completely transparent. The member may not like what the special adviser has submitted, but that is what happened.
At committee, the Bloc member was very keen on getting a report to the House so that Mr. Johnston could get started on his activity and get back to the Prime Minister so we could get started on it. That is what happened. Then tonight I heard her complaining that we did not have enough time to finish, that our recommendations were not included in what he looked at, that he had it out the next day.
Is she not satisfied that the inquiry is going to begin and that there are a set of recommendations from an independent adviser that this Parliament and Canadians trust?