Thank you very much, Chair.
I don't want to spend a lot of time talking. I think Mr. Barrett spoke about eight to 10 minutes, so if you give me a signal at the eight-minute mark, I'll wrap up. I don't want to speak more than the opposition members.
Chair, I've been listening respectfully and carefully to all members of this committee today. I thought what Ms. Shanahan said in her opening remarks, before she moved a motion, was very important: It was about the mandate of this committee. If we are talking about questioning the integrity of MPs as they perform jobs in their capacity as public elected members, we're not talking about just a few members; we're talking about the entire Liberal caucus. I think we should look at the process. What's the code of conduct? That falls under the scope of the Board of Internal Economy. Determining whether or not the members obey these codes of conduct, I think, is its job.
I understand that you said committees don't have the mandate or don't have the power to tell another committee what it needs to do. Simply put, I'm sure there are Conservative members on the Board of Internal Economy. They can, according to the result of today's debate, move a motion over there to start an investigation. I think that's much better than having a debate here. We are making a lot of assumptions that members are using public dollars, taxpayers' dollars, to somehow do partisan stuff.
What is within the scope of this committee is privacy. That could be expanded to the privacy of our constituents. I think that needs to be looked at.
I have heard members from the Conservative Party say that they don't use public dollars to somehow fund this kind of system. I'm very interested in knowing how these systems are being paid for and how constituents' information is being used. I know from Ms. Lattanzio on this side that there's a very effective firewall being built around individuals' data, around what's being accessed from the MPs' offices in terms of their constituents' information. Privacy is very important, and I've made that very clear to the staff in my office.
Speaking of wasting taxpayers' dollars, I want to remind the committee and the public watching that I've been here at this committee since day one of the 43rd Parliament, and to my recollection we've completed only two studies: those on WE Charity and Pornhub. It's a public taxpayer-funded fishing expedition. Our WE Charity study and investigation was parallel to an investigation done by an officer of the House. The Integrity Commissioner did an investigation.
As well, I want to point out that this meeting was not scheduled. It's not a regular meeting. It's a special meeting that's been called. We see all the support staff, all the wonderful translators and the clerk here. That's all on taxpayers' dollars. I have to question the efficiency of our committee.
Mr. Barrett, in his debate on the amendment, mentioned that he's quite happy to be in front of the committee and to talk about the practices of his office. I applaud his transparency and, quite honestly, bravery. Sitting in front of a committee and disclosing information, which we all know is to the public, is not an easy thing to do.
I have to point out some quick research.
The company he mentioned, CivicTrack, which he uses, is a software provider that is owned by Momentuum BPO Inc. Its president is Matt Yeatman, who has donated $12,556 to various Conservative EDAs and campaigns between 2008 and 2019.
According to the public record, another software company that he uses, which is online in his expenditure report, is called Softchoice. It is owned by Vince De Palma, who has made multiple $1,000 contributions as donations to the Conservative Party. I think there is merit to the amendment, in that if we're going to make assumptions that a lot of members don't know the rules and their integrity is being questioned, we should open up the questioning so we can improve the process, although, as I've said before, I don't believe that this falls under the mandate of this committee.
That leads to my final point. When I read the original motion, I found that it wasn't typical. Usually I'll see in a motion that we will refer the matter to the House and require a response from the government or require a response from, in this case, the Board of Internal Economy or whatever. We have to have some recommendation in the study; otherwise, what's the point of the study? I have not seen that, which leads me to question the timing of this proposed study.
Repeatedly the Conservative members have talked about being on the eve of an election. I haven't heard that the writ has dropped. What I know is that a motion was passed in the House by all members that we don't want an election until it's safe.
I haven't heard that call. They want to deal with this expeditiously. Do you know what that means to me? They want to pull a fast one. They want to pull a fast one against the Liberal members, on the eve of an election—