Thank you very much, Chair. I see the growing list of members who want to speak to this motion, so I think we will hear the debate for a little longer.
I'm very pleased to have a chance to speak to this motion, as I haven't had a chance yet.
My honourable colleagues on the committee would all agree that, although we may disagree on certain things, especially when it comes to this very important study, we all agree that a member's right to speak—a member's privilege—should be respected. That's a very important point for all parliamentarians.
Chair, one benefit for me listening to all my members is that I listen to their points and make observations. The one observation I can share with you is the consistency in inconsistency that I've been witnessing here. Whether it's the government members today or a government member in the past, there is evidence of records being pulled out out, showing that when members were in government in the past—a previous government—their positions change. I understand that. I will be very mindful to what I say today so it won't be used later on against me.
I'm actually looking at this motion as part of the larger motion to study the procurement policies of the government. In fact, I should share with you that going back to the very early debate of the study, I had questions on whether or not it was appropriate to do a study that parallels the commissioner's investigation, because we know there is an ongoing investigation on what we are talking about. We've heard from witnesses—people like the former integrity commissioner and other professionals—who warned us, basically, of the dangers of contamination between this study and the finding of the actual investigation that's taking place.
We debate that; we spend a lot of time debating the merits of the study—the details of it. We debate amendments, and we move forward. It's been a long time. I see that there was a big change to the membership of this committee, but Monsieur Gourde, Mrs. Shanahan and I have been sitting through these debates on this study entirely.
For the benefit of the viewers today—some may get confused on what we are talking about, why there is such a difference in positions on what seems to be a detailed part of this overall study—I can share with you that, after we had extensive debate on whether or not this study was appropriate, we moved on. The members of this committee moved on.
We debated on the witnesses when we invited them. What I observed, again patiently sitting and listening to members and witnesses, is that that there were a lot of people affected by this study. We heard from the witness from Speakers' Spotlight on how their employees were affected, to a point that they were receiving threats and it was affecting their families' daily routine. That is sort of the negative outcome of this study. I want to make sure that we pay attention to this.
Then we entered the debate on whether or not financial information of a public office holder's relative should be shared publicly. After 5,000 pages being released by the government, we had extensive debate on this. We had amendments, we had votes, we had change of votes. We had a long history of looking into the details of this study.
I want to just point out that at the end of the day, we're studying the procurement policy and procedures to make sure the integrity of the government process is upheld. In this case, however, there was not a single cent of public dollars transferred to WE Charity. We are doing this work to prevent incidents in the future. It is for all good reasons, and I understand that.
We called witness after witness. To be honest, Chair, when we were listening to the testimony of the Kielburger brothers, I honestly thought I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I thought that was the last stage of this study and that we were all ready to complete this study that has been dragging on. It's been stalling a lot of other important work of the committee.
Then the honourable member for Carleton was subbed into the committee and asked a question on something that was already in the public. In August of 2020 it was reported that there was an exchange on LinkedIn between the Kielburger brothers and Ben Chin. It wasn't news. We had had almost eight months. If we had thought that was important, that a simple reply was important, we could have called a meeting a long time ago. We could have talked about this a long time ago. No, it came out of this questioning by the member for Carleton of the Kielburger brothers. There was an “aha” moment, which I still have difficulty understanding. What was so aha about it?
We heard Mr. Sorbara call this study a “fishing expedition”. I think at that time it felt as though there was a fishing expedition. You go on a trip hoping to catch a bass and you catch a perch—aha! There must be something else we want to dig into. That started a whole new chapter of this never-ending study.
I respectfully ask the members to go back to the original motive and the intent of this study. Ask yourself what we are doing here.
We had the study on MindGeek and Pornhub, and it was going well. It was so important that we thought to interrupt this study to allow us to invite the witnesses from Stella and whatnot.
Chair, are you taking a picture of me?