Mr. Chairman, number 3 is one of the reasons why I have had a problem with simply adopting the report and assuming everything falls as being accepted. In my understanding of this process, once the application of bias is removed, then there is really nothing left for the committee to extend.

You cannot extend a mandate that is not there anymore. The mandate was based on the fact that the bias application is being filed. Once the application is removed, there is no more mandate for the committee, so you cannot extend the mandate.

Furthermore, if there are other aspects of this investigation or process that we are going through that suggests bias, someone has to file it. Someone has to file a complaint. There is no more complaint, so we cannot very well give the committee the authority to do something that is not there.

Furthermore, if we assume to follow the thought that there is in fact a bias and it is going to clear the situation up that the Conflict of Interest Commissioner has raised, as far as her reputation being affected, that is totally something separate from the issue at hand here. She has an opportunity to file like everyone else, but I am beginning to wonder how this is going to sell.

Let us take into consideration, Mr. Chairman, if I may, a public document that is not tabled, and I am open to someone objecting to me using it here, but it is the letter from the Commissioner to the committee that was made public yesterday from Carol Roberts, and it is the letter she wrote to the committee.

She writes in the last paragraph:

"Finally, the Minister says that despite her request to abandon the proceedings before the special committee, she continues to remain convinced of the merits of her application. I respectfully request that should the special committee determine that the Minister's request to abandon ought to be accepted, then it ought to be recommended to the Assembly that the Minister, having had the opportunity to present her application in the forum established solely for that purpose and having now abandoned her application, should not be permitted to again assert those allegations on the floor of the Assembly where I will not be able to respond to them."

Mr. Chairman, I take this to mean she would be satisfied that this stuff being withdrawn, provided there is no opportunity for someone to bring these allegations up again where she will not have the opportunity to respond. So therefore, she should be satisfied. If it is withdrawn, it is withdrawn. What is the committee going to be investigating? There are no more allegations. It has been withdrawn. I cannot see myself voting in favour of this motion and spending more public money for something that has no results. It has no mandate.

I also have to take into consideration the fact that in the end, after this process is over and done with and the Conflict Commissioner's report is before this House and this committee, it will be up to us to decide if it is biased or not. It will not be up to the committee. They may recommend it was or was not, but in the end, in my mind and everyone else's mind, the House is going to have to decide whether the thing is biased or not.

That is one of the points the Conflict of Interest Commissioner raised in the letter. What was the point of all of this special committee process, if in fact it is the responsibility of this committee and this Assembly in the end to decide whether the report stands as is or is biased and thrown out?

I raise questions here that in my mind justify saying no, this thing should stop. I will vote in that manner.