Mr. Speaker, it is an old trick for people to avert their eyes if they are trying to get a few more words in.
I appreciate my friend's points of agreement and disagreement.
Partisanship is actually a problem. If we take the recent case of Ms. Meilleur, she has admitted that her partisanship was so much so that she could not sit in the Senate. She has admitted that her partisanship put her in a conflict of interest in investigating the Prime Minister.
We would get to a point where the person was unable to perform the duties we were asking them to do if there were certain members and parties they could not investigate because of that conflict of interest.
If someone went to a Conservative fundraiser 20 years ago and put $20 in the kitty, yet has had a stellar career, those are things of consideration. I do not think there is a hard line. Clearly, with the cases the government felt comfortable with, nobody else felt comfortable. That is a problem.
Contrary to the alternative model the member has suggested, one committee member cannot stall the entire process. It does not require a unanimous vote around the table, because that is not how our committees work. Second, if the government wants to put a few names, we are giving the government the opportunity to vet and put a few names forward to the committee. He wants to reverse it and have the opposition work with the government to come up with the names. It is an alternative way. We are actually allowing the government more discretion. We will hear from the government House leader in a bit what the official party line might be.