Mr. Speaker, I will make my intervention blessedly short. Perhaps the government House leader has not understand what we are seeking to do, so I will repeat it for him now. I am quoting from my friend just minutes ago, “No party in this House can say that they have an unblemished record and claim to have never questioned a witness appearing before committees of Parliament about their partisan activities or beliefs. But I believe this in every case is regrettable and wrong”.
Let us allow the accusations of sanctimony and hypocrisy to die down just a little. If this is in effect the affairs of a committee, and I am sure you may be of some similar opinion, Mr. Speaker, let me offer this for the government House leader. If his party is willing to stand down on this practice that we equate much too close to McCarthyism, then we will do the same. We in fact will go one further and I will commit to report to my caucus that I will ask that we never use this practice again. There may be some mistakes made, but those will not be by intention. They will be by our efforts to sincerely attribute some respect to the place, that is the House of Commons and the committees that we strike.
I wonder if the government House leader would like to commit to the idea of this being a no-go zone in terms of committee members asking questions of witnesses who we invite, as members of Parliament in front of the committee, and we think this is reprehensible practice and unfortunate, as my colleague said in his statement. If the government House leader agrees with me and will so instruct his members to say that this is not a subject we should approach trying to undermine and undercut the credibility of witnesses if they have ever made a donation or ever run for one of the political parties, then we absolutely will cross the floor and shake hands and say that this shall be the practice of the House and all the efforts and influence that we can make on the members of the official opposition.
In the spirit of the season, redemption is in fact possible. We said as much in our statements. I am sure the government House leader will enthusiastically jump to his feet and support such an effort by all members of the House, so when we invite witnesses to the committees, that we treat them with the respect they deserve.