Good afternoon. I see that it's my turn to speak.
I'm very fortunate. I'll speak slowly so that the interpreters, who are doing an excellent job, can follow what I'm saying. As usual, I won't take up much time.
I want us to take a few moments to review the chronology of events leading up to today, November 9. As you may recall, summer was quite busy. We've been working on building trust and enhancing the integrity of our experience as parliamentarians. We've found that this doesn't involve you or us, but it does concern the events surrounding a student scholarship. This issue was brought to light. Unfortunately, just as we were getting down to business, there was a six-week break and we lost some time. That said, our constituents' issues are serious in every respect.
In terms of ethics, I must say that I'm very concerned about privacy issues dating back to before the prorogation. After the prorogation, a request was made. The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics first requested that we create a special committee together for the following two reasons. We wanted to finish what we were in the process of completing. This involved integrity and maintaining the trust of all our constituents. We then wanted to continue the work that concerned us greatly as 2020 draws to a close. We're seeing a great deal of fraud and identity issues. Of course, this motion hasn't been adopted yet.
On a Conservative opposition day, we raised essentially the same issue, which is shared respect for democracy. As I said before, we must do our job. We must help Canadians and Quebecers and shed light on issues that are unclear. The sad thing about these events is that, when we reconvened in August, we had to spend countless hours on a request. We reached agreements—I'm very proud of this—to respect privacy as much as possible.
There were many amendments. When the final vote took place, an error occurred. There was an error and I want to point this out. I attended every hour of the meetings. Several of you, if not the majority, had replacements. I was there with you from the start. For 12 minutes, I was replaced. We asked that the decision be repealed. We weren't asking for an interpretation of what I believed. We were asking for a review of the decision.
What I am hearing is that no one is allowed to make mistakes. Have you never been a first-time member? Have you never been the victim of a translation issue during this virtual Parliament? I urge you to go back and listen to the French audio, not the floor audio. I urge you to make the connection between what you hear on the telephone and what you hear on ParlVu.
For hours upon hours, we listened to people go on about terminology and give history lessons. For a few moments, when someone was standing in for me, there was a breakdown in communication. We submitted a request. Other committees are more accommodating—I checked. Anyone who has not been on other committees should know that they are more open to being accommodating than we are. What happened? The motion was defeated because of a mistake, not because of a change of heart. That is important.
Since we do things properly, we asked that the error be corrected, but our request was denied. We were told to put forward what we had to put forward, with the necessary amendments. What happened? I don't know. Others changed their minds, but we are the ones being accused of that. It's a good question.
We have been talking about this for four months now. A motion was put forward, and once again, the amendment to the motion was adopted. We are here until 5:30 p.m., but I could stay until tomorrow morning. Something has to be done. By the way, I want to thank the technical support team.
We took the time to find the information and do the work that a special committee could have done, according to everything my fellow members have said. The initial objective was for the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics to consider the ethical issues and for a special committee to complete the work we began.
I wonder about your good faith and integrity as parliamentarians. You will tell me that you have orders, that you have to follow the guidelines or that you have to save someone's skin, and I recognize that. You made a commitment to study ethical issues as a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
I told my children that, when people drag things out, either they are trying to protect someone or they want to keep the truth from coming out. What are they afraid of? When people are sure everything is hunky-dory, they have no problem doing things properly, but when people have doubts, they draw things out. That is what has been happening for hours upon hours now.
People are out there struggling and they need our help. Today, we should be delivering results. There was no change of heart; that is borne out in the chronological sequence of events. We absolutely must show our constituents that we have integrity and are worthy of their trust.
Regardless of partisanship, regardless of one's level of commitment, this can go far, very far. I have been a member for a year now, and I'm disappointed to see the ethics committee engage in so many political games. Other standing committees encourage active listening and consensus-building among their members, so they can actually achieve their objectives.
We would not even be talking about this today had we given consideration to amending the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's powers, so as not to go through this again.
I am speaking to those people, those members, those individuals who are trustworthy. It's time to wake up and take action. It's time to think about our constituents. With all of our efforts and all of the compromises we have been able to make, I cannot understand why we aren't making things better right now. You will bring up what came before, but this is now, so we must take a forward-looking approach.
As I said in the beginning, the first time I had someone stand in for me, a mistake was made, but I wasn't even given a chance to change my vote. I appreciate my fellow member replacing me for 12 minutes. Now, there are two strikes against the Prime Minister, and the third…. It's time to do something about this, please.
I welcome your history lessons and all the information you have to share. I am learning things, and that is wonderful, but enough is enough. Everyone knows what's going on. Our own children are watching us in action and saying very clearly that this would not even happen in school.
I hope the next speakers will take less than 10 minutes. We are bound by rules everywhere but here. It's very unfortunate. I urge you to get to the bottom of this and to fix what needs fixing. Today is November 9, and we need to deal with the motions that were put on notice. It will be a four-week sprint to the end of the year. This is an appeal to your conscience.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.