I'll speak slowly so that anyone can understand what I'm saying, with the help of the interpreter, if necessary. A big thank-you to the interpreters, who are doing an extraordinary job.
I'm going to respect our guest's presentation, but I'd also like to talk about this topic for a very long time. I don't know if you listened carefully to my speech this morning. I spent 10 minutes discussing the motion that was tabled today. The Bloc Québécois is obviously in favour of this motion. We want to know what the situation really is, and we want to have the real facts. However, I wonder about our role as parliamentarians.
I'm talking to you now about how I feel. What I was talking about this morning was raising awareness. This committee has to look at ethics; it's about morals. What is morality? It's analyzing together what is right and what is wrong, communicating, dialoguing about it in order to move forward. These are terms that have been circulating for the last few weeks; I'm not making this up. Today, my conscience tells me that I was elected to spend money so that, all this time, we are trying to go begging for information. Basically, however, it is up to our committee, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, to make proposals to correct the Access to Information Act.
What's going on? We're stalling for time. I have a bad feeling in my stomach, which tells me that what we're doing is partisanship. I agreed to sit on this committee because we were going to talk about ethics, human realities and privacy. Please respond to the fact that 30 million Canadians out of 37 million have had their identities stolen. There is an urgency: where is your willingness to act as parliamentarians?
One of the mandates of our committee is ethics, and I want us all to show respect. I've been very respectful, and I've listened to you, but I think that respect should be collective, and first and foremost, we should have respect for our fellow citizens, who are also taxpayers. I'd like to remind everyone that there are 37 million Canadians in Canada.
You heard my heartfelt appeal today. I am a new parliamentarian, and I have a lot to learn. However, I can't wait three years to name things. In closing, I repeat, we are members of a standing committee with a mandate to study access to information. There are motions and legislation, including the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, that have a major impact on our lives—all of us—but also on ethics.
Thank you for listening. You now know how I will vote and what I consider important.