Thank you, Chair.
Watching the time, I note that I may be in the same situation I was in last week, but thank you. I'm very happy to still have the opportunity to complete my remarks from our meeting last week.
You can imagine how surprised I am to be here on Monday morning of a constituency week discussing pretty much the same motion again. I was definitely under the impression after the defeat of this motion two weeks ago and again last week that we might finally be moving on from this matter to the matters that concern Canadians during COVID.
I was listening to the comment of my honourable colleague Madame Gaudreau. One thing I do agree with her on is that enough is enough. This was voted on two weeks ago. We all take this committee business very seriously.
When this came to the committee again last week, it received another decision, but now in front of us the same motion has been put in the form of an amendment, effectively stalling the progress of Mr. Angus' motion. As I said, it had received a decision.
I do have concerns, as I was saying last week, about the precedent being set here, Mr. Chair, so I look forward to hearing from you on this topic. My argument last week was that after being voted on twice, the same motion made its way back, so what if it fails again? Is the honourable member going to try for the fourth and the fifth time?
She used the analogy of being in school. I think it could be viewed from another perspective, that the honourable member is, obviously, upset that she's not getting her way. A committee consists of members from all parties, so I humbly ask that the rights and position of other colleagues be respected as well. Again, I look forward to hearing from you, Chair, on the issue of the precedent being set here.
Last time I was going back through the history of our committee since February of this year, when we met for the first time after the election. We had gone through the list of motions, and they had been brought forward by Mr. Barrett, Mr. Kurek, Madame Gaudreau and Mr. Angus. I think we had left off talking about a motion by Mr. Fortin, who, it should be noted, is not a permanent member of this committee, and it was promptly defeated.
Following that was a motion by Mr. Green, also not a member of this committee. He moved that we conduct a study on conflict of interest and that we call witnesses from PCO and the PMO as well as ministers. Oddly enough, none of those witnesses was the Ethics Commissioner. And, by the way, I think it's a big part of this committee's job to study and review and discuss the findings of the commissioners, and to provide our recommendations, and make sure that the recommendations in those things studied by the commissioner are being followed through.
I view that as the main job of our committee, rather than running a parallel investigation, by doing which, we heard from witnesses last session, we would be running the risk of contaminating or interfering with the commissioner's work.
Finally, Chair, in that session we had a motion from Mr. Kurek asking the committee to write letters to all members of cabinet again.
Now fast forward to this session of Parliament. I am sure all members here are familiar with how things have played out. In our meetings we started with the motion from Madame Gaudreau that the committee recommend to the House a special committee to review the Canada student service grant. After some debate, Mr. Barrett moved that we adjourn that debate so that we could get to one of his motions again. Mr. Barrett then moved that the committee issue an order for a copy of all records pertaining to speaking appearances arranged since October 14, 2004, and so on. After much debate, that motion was defeated last week.
Next up was Ms. Gaudreau again, this time moving a motion that the committee request Speakers' Spotlight to produce a document of all records relating to speeches organized since October 14, 2008. I'm sure my dear colleagues are familiar with this by now. This motion was defeated for a second time.
Finally we come to Mr. Angus's motion, which we are debating right now, that this committee undertake a study into issues of conflict of interest and the Lobbying Act in relation to pandemic spending, and so on and so forth. It was amended by Madame Gaudreau to include a request to Speakers' Spotlight to produce a copy of all records relating to the speeches organized since October 14, 2008.
Why the history lesson, Mr. Chair? Since this committee first met in February this year, in what feels like a year ago with everything going on with COVID-19, there have been 14 motions—14 motions—put forward for debate, with 14 MPs called upon to move their motions to study the issues they think are the most important ones to Canadians. Of those 14, four have been from Mr. Barrett, three have been from Mr. Angus, and two have been from members who do not even sit on this committee.
How many motions have been allowed to come forward from the Liberal side, Mr. Chair? Zero; zero motions.
That does not come from lack of effort. My colleague Ms. Shanahan provided notice on at least three motions in our last session. I gave notice of motion on digital currency weeks ago. Here we are debating the same motion for the third time in a week, when no one on this side of the table has even been given a chance to move a motion yet this year. That's not right. In my opinion, it is not fair to members from all sides...to be recognized, to bring forward their ideas on this committee.
One of the ideas I've been trying to bring forward, Mr. Chair, is about digital currency. It's been a popular topic and has received a lot of attention recently. I will quote an excerpt from a speech in 2019 by the Governor of the Bank of England, the former Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, entitled “The growing Challenges for Monetary Policy in the current International Monetary and Financial System”.
This is important because we've seen increased online activities during COVID, so the whole discussion and study of digital currency is an urgent matter. I'll spare the members the whole speech, but getting to the core part I think might be of interest to the members of this committee. You'll understand why I see it as a priority that we must look into it in terms of privacy and access to information, which this committee has the responsibility for.
The quote starts with this: “Even if the initial variants of the idea prove wanting, the concept is intriguing.” It continues: “It is worth considering how a [synthetic hegemonic currency] in the [international monetary financial system] could support—