Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the member's parliamentary work, having watched her in action during the entirety of my time as an MP.
To be clear, I did not make the suggestion that it is inappropriate for the Prime Minister to appear before committees. In fact, I supported his appearance before the finance committee on some of the same issues for which they are seeking to have him come back. What I think is important, though, is that it is not necessarily the Prime Minister who is the appropriate person to testify before all committees in all circumstances. When I look at some of the individual staff members who the motion contemplates should actually be testifying, in many cases I think a different minister would actually be in a better position to do so than the Prime Minister.
I must say I am a bit jaded after my own experience, having been through one of these fishing expeditions at the finance committee. I literally sat through hundreds of hours, watched thousands of documents be produced and watched numerous ministers, including the Prime Minister himself, come to testify, only to see the opposition continue to try to drag the proceedings out, rather than getting on with the important work of government, including pre-budget consultations, and most recently, the consideration of Bill C-14.