Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I really do appreciate your once again ably chairing our meetings.
I would also like to speak in favour of this amendment. Mr. Angus' proposal has a lot of merit for several reasons. While I still don't like the idea of MPs investigating other MPs, at least Mr. Angus' amendment limits it to those who are subject to the Conflict of Interest Act. I congratulate him because he has found an elegant way to calm things down and let our committee move on to much more important matters.
If anything unites Mr. Angus, Ms. Gaudreau and myself, and other members of the committee, I am sure it is the desire to address the committee's priority, which was established long before this situation. It is to conduct a study on facial recognition to ensure that Canada will have legislation or regulations to address this issue. This is a high priority for me. We don't have a lot of time left to find that framework, and it's important that we think about it. Mr. Angus may be acting a little against his will, but I still think it's the right thing to do. I congratulate him for finding this solution.
I think the Prime Minister and Ms. Grégoire Trudeau, through Mr. Rodriguez, have shown that they had nothing to hide. They revealed all their commitments as speakers long before Mr. Trudeau became prime minister or party leader. I think this shows his good faith.
Add to that the fact that the Prime Minister testified for several hours before the Standing Committee on Finance and his chief of staff did the same. In addition, although it is natural, all of the relevant officials from our non-partisan public service testified before the Standing Committee on Finance.
If I may, I'd like to share something important with Canadians. In my view, Mr. Warkentin has made unfair accusations against the Prime Minister. Mr. Warkentin has presented himself as someone who always does the right thing and always takes the necessary steps to ensure transparency. However, in the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to review the minutes of this committee.
When Mr. Warkentin was a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, in May 2013, opposition MPs raised an issue concerning former prime minister Harper. Mr. Warkentin said something several times, and I can quote him:
He said, “You do know, Mr. Chair, that the Ethics Commissioner is currently reviewing the circumstances and the submission that has been brought forward. (...) We also know that the Prime Minister has answered questions with regard to this and said that he knew nothing of it.”
Later he went on to say, “We know that there is clarity that needs to be brought forward. We would look to the Liberals...it's an interesting and very partisan motion that he's brought forward.”
Mr. Warkentin therefore seems to use certain rhetorical tools whenever he feels like it, but when MPs from other political parties use the same reasoning, it is a little less legitimate in his eyes.
Having said that, we are here to talk about Mr. Angus' amendment. Again, I congratulate him for finding this very elegant way to make these changes so that we can move on. I hope people will do that.
We can make sure that these spurious allegations will be put to rest and we can finally put our efforts towards issues that are most important for Canadians, such as the facial recognition policies and other measures we identified at the beginning of this Parliament for the ethics committee.
There is just one element on which I wouldn't mind seeking clarification from Mr. Angus, my honourable colleague. I don't know what the proper procedure is to do this. I don't know if I should ask this question through you. I know it's not usually our habit to have a back-and-forth, but I was wondering if perhaps we or the chair can ask if the clerk could just read back exactly the full amendment. I think there's one part of it on which I would love to get clarification, but maybe it's just better that I ask the clerk to read the motion in full so that I could have a clear understanding.
Also, Mr. Chair, with your agreement, I would like to make a comment at the very end, after she reads the motion. Would that be all right?