That is why I am asking Mrs. Shanahan to agree to withdraw her amendment so that we can expand on that idea a little more.
If we hand this issue over to the Board of Internal Economy and do like we are doing today, nobody here will be any further ahead. The media will be reporting that things are not going well. In my opinion that is false partisanship, and I find that really sad.
There is a problem. Either we close our eyes and continue to play political games or we do a little digging to figure out what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to partisan activities. If we find things that are unacceptable, let's submit them to the House of Commons and have the House provide us with the tools we need.
Why did you have to pay $30,000 for a software program? If every member paid $30,000 for that software, it would cost approximately $3 million or $4 million and we cannot even benefit from it. Can we benefit from your software? I do not know. Maybe it is better than the systems we have.
We should not have to design these systems ourselves. However, we are being forced to do so because no one wanted to design that kind of software for MPs. No one had the guts to do so. Perhaps we will be told that no one asked for it either.
There is an ethical side to this issue because we really need to determine the tools that will be used for partisan purposes, for which the parties are responsible, and the tools that will make it possible to protect the confidentiality of data, for which MPs are responsible. These are issues that fall under our committee's purview. We are talking about the confidentiality of personal information in these software programs. We are the ones signing off on the procurement. It is our responsibility. It is your responsibility. It is the responsibility of the 338 MPs. We need to resolve this problem.
I don't know whether Mrs. Shanahan wants to withdraw her amendment.