Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We're back to the main motion. I want to reiterate that the reason I signed the request for this meeting to consider this motion was primarily to give a voice to Vice-Admiral Norman. The motion we're considering is to invite witnesses to appear. We have a long list, and most of those, I would expect, would decline to appear. Even though we probably know the outcome, I would like to see the government members vote for this motion.

There are other people who might wish to take advantage of the opportunity to appear, such as the Minister of Defence. Once again, I know that the Conservatives asked lots of questions about Mark Norman during the estimates. I chose to ask about things more closely related to the estimates, in my mind, so I didn't have a chance to talk to the minister about that. I think he might want to come again and explain his regret statement.

Just to restate, apologies are about responsibility, about taking responsibility for something. If you apologize, you take responsibility. When you say “regret”, it implies agency, and maybe he would like to explain that.

The third person on the list who might like to avail himself of the opportunity to appear is, of course, Andrew Leslie, who had intended to testify at the proceedings. With the collapse of those, he is not going to have the opportunity to do that.

Again, mine is about allowing those people who wish to comment on this to have their say under the protection of parliamentary privilege. I would hope that the government members would vote for this, but I doubt that they will.

Randall Garrison

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