Madam Speaker, I am glad the member for York—Simcoe mentioned his bill, Bill C-280. It is a great piece of legislation. If any senators are listening to the House proceedings today, I would like to add my voice in urging them to pass that important bill because it would be very important for the Canadian Produce Marketing Association.
On the issue at hand, let me be very clear that I absolutely am in support of Parliament's right to obtain documents. That is a very clear rule that is solidly laid out in the Constitution. At the same time, we are being presented with an impasse right now. Every hour of House of Commons proceedings costs tens of thousands of dollars, and there are many bills that are not being looked at at this time. I think Canadians, at some point, are going to be looking at the House and wondering what the heck we are doing here.
The RCMP has raised some concerns, and we cannot ignore those. Would it not make sense for the Conservatives to stop putting up speaker after speaker so we could arrive at a decision to send this to the procedure and House affairs committee? Maybe then the Conservative members on that committee would have the opportunity to question the RCMP as a witness and we could come to some kind of an arrangement. Maybe the RCMP could explain what the procedure is and what kind of an investigation it is going through. I am just trying to throw out some ideas to get through the impasse here.