Thank you, Chair.
Chair, I do want to start by making a comment with respect to the rules of committee and how committees abide by the rules. Mr. Green and I actually first met at a debate hosted by the Catholic archdiocese of Toronto. I think he'll appreciate, if he did sufficient preparation for that debate, my reading of this section from the great play, A Man for All Seasons about Sir Thomas More, in which William Roper, Thomas More's rather eccentric son-in-law, says to the future saint:
So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
to which Thomas More replies,
Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
to which Roper replies,
Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that.
to which More famously replies,
Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
This is an important reflection, I hope, for members as they consider whether or not it is wise and judicious to show shameless disregard for the long-established rules of parliamentary committees simply in order to achieve the objectives that they want. Members who think that overruling those rules, through constant challenges to the chair, is going to be in their long-term interests are fooling themselves. They should understand that adherence to the rules, be they certainly “Man's laws, not God's,” to quote the play, nonetheless is what preserves us in our roles as members of Parliament and our ability to fulfill our functions.
Minister and Chair, where are we right now? We have Minister Anand, who I don't always agree with, but I certainly appreciate being able to ask questions to; a very busy minister, as all ministers are, who has come before this committee to answer questions for merely one hour, whereas I would have hoped we would have the opportunity to ask questions about the work she is doing as President of the Treasury Board. Instead of allowing those questions to proceed, we have a member of the NDP who is on a crusade to get parliamentary committees to work as little as possible, in case anyone wants to know what the animating causes that Mr. Green is excited about are.