Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The members say they want to get to the bottom of this matter. I believe we all agree on that. The ideal would be to vote in favour of the motion put before us. Getting to the bottom of the matter does not just mean hearing the version of people from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. That's only one version, part of the story.
Earlier Mr. Lauzon talked about a regime of terror. I don't think that an agency employee would publicly say that he is opposed to a plan to make $24 million in cuts solely because one person was dismissed for disclosing the plan, not to the public, but to his union. That was the right action to take, when he learned that the government was intending to cut the food inspection budget, the budget of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
The people who come to testify before the committee will be somewhat afraid to speak. With all due respect for the people who will appear, and whom I trust, this should not stop here. If we want to examine the entire matter, we should also hear from the union people and the minister, and the sooner the better. On the government side, we can get to the bottom of things. If we manage to obtain this report, that will give us a good indication of the government's intentions.
Before moving on to the vote, we must pay attention to what Mr. Lauzon has said. He seems to want us to believe that the $113 million constitutes an increase in the budget of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The committee had a breakdown done of that $113 million figure, which was spread over two years. The agency didn't receive the entire $113 million. In fact, they received $23 million in the first year and $39 million in the second, a total of $62 million. No one was talking about an increase.
This summer, we learned that an employee discovered a plan for $24 million in cuts. Make any calculations you want; there is no $113 million increase, as Mr. Lauzon would have us believe. We're indeed talking about cuts. The proof is that no one in the government—and it's the minister who should have done this—when this came out in the media, denied the fact that a plan had been put forward. If he had said there wouldn't $24 million in cuts, the problem would have been solved and the gentleman would not have lost his job.