Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my Conservative colleague's attempt to bring this debate into the realm of ethics. I would just like to point out that I taught ethics, political philosophy and democracy for 30 years.
Let us be clear. The primary job of a member of Parliament is to hold the government to account, regardless of its political stripe. It makes no difference whether it is a majority or minority government. Our job is to hold the government to account. When the government has a majority, it usually tells us to take a hike. The fact that this is a minority government helps us enormously, because it means we can end up in a situation like the one we are in today.
Let us be clear. The government made a mistake. When the House votes to demand that documents be tabled, they must be tabled. An investigation will eventually be needed to get to the bottom of this. If the RCMP does not want the documents, it does not have to accept them. However, we need to have a say in the matter.
I have a question for my colleague. If there were an election tomorrow, the Conservative Party would form a majority government. In ethics, we say that a principle is a real principle when the choice is made to put it into practice.
If my colleague ends up sitting on the other side of the aisle, will he still stand up and staunchly defend the principle of tabling documents, as he is doing now, or will he play the Conservative government game and tell opposition members to take a hike?