Mr. Speaker, a member opposite said we have to get to the truth. That is exactly what we have to do. This forum or parliamentary committees should not be the places where people banter back and forth on this subject. We need an objective inquiry.
What would an inquiry do? What would be the value in having an inquiry? It has been suggested recently by a distinguished professor of law that there are five important attributes of a public inquiry: one, independence; two, effectiveness; three, an adequate mandate; four, investigative powers; and five, transparency.
The primary one has to be independence. Regardless of how reasonable I am being here today, and I think I am being extremely reasonable, I am obviously being regarded by members opposite and probably people in other parties as being somewhat less than independent, somewhat biased. That comes with politics. Equally true, of course, is what is being said on the other side by ministers who have a stake in whether or not mistakes were made in the past. They have a bias as well. Independence is extremely important.
As to the effectiveness of an inquiry, an inquiry would be much more capable than a parliamentary committee of doing a proper job, such as examining witnesses.
The investigative powers, and in fact, the transparency and openness of a public inquiry is what Canadians want and what Canadians need.