Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's desire to have this matter dealt with some place other than the procedure and House affairs committee. I wonder whether the hon. member would have supported, had he been able to, my initial desire to have the House deal with this matter, as I argued.
All of the evidence that is evidence is actually before the House. All of the relevant people to be questioned are before the House. All the material that is necessary to make a disposition is before the House.
My first question for the hon. member is: Would he have supported, had he been given the opportunity, the initial motion, which was to have the matter dealt with in the House and have the hon. member apologize to the House in front of the bar of Parliament?
My second question has to do with his argument that I should have asked specific questions, longer questions and quite a number of questions. I wonder which particular questions he thinks I should have asked.
I said, “Madam Minister, you've just said that you signed off. You were the one--” Then I was cut off by the minister, who said, “I sign off on all of the documents”. I said, “Yes, and you were the one who wrote the 'not'”. The minister said, “I did not say I was the one who wrote the 'not'”. I asked, “Who did, then?” The minister responded, “I do not know”. I asked, “You don't know?” The minister said, “I do not know”. I stated, “That's a remarkable statement”. It is still a remarkable statement.
We have had so many explanations of what happened. Had the hon. member been giving me advice at the time, would he have told me what other question I could have asked or specifically what other answer the minister could have given which would not have brought us to this point, i.e., an honest answer?