Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the member opposite for his contributions to improving parliamentary democracy throughout his career.
As a lawyer, as someone who practised constitutional law for 14 years, I share a concern about the primacy of the rule of law. It is absolutely fundamental.
What I would put for the member is that we heard from two witnesses about this very issue, and I want to quote what they said.
One said, “I do not want members of this committee or Canadians to think that the integrity of our institutions has somehow evaporated. The integrity of our justice system, the integrity of the Director of Public Prosecutions and prosecutors is intact.”
The second person said, “I think Canadians should feel assured that they work in a democracy under the rule of law....Canadians need to be assured that their police and investigators with the power of the state operate independently and that the prosecution service, the state charging people with offences, are completely independent.”
The former quote was from the former minister of justice, who testified yesterday, and the latter quote was from the Clerk of the Privy Council.
Given that testimonial record, is it clear by the tenor of what we have heard today that if we want our institutions, as he said, to get to the bottom of this and to do their work, that perhaps the best institution to do this in a non-partisan, apolitical manner is the ethics investigator who has more robust powers than the powers—