Okay. Thank you, Chair, for clarifying that.
I was listening to Mr. Angus's points and comments on the WE Charity, which were a long review of information that came forward through the finance committee. There was a lot of information there, to the point that I was wondering.... We have already received tons of information from WE Charity. Are we still going back and trying to find out more through this motion?
What else are we looking for? Are we going back going through the same thing again? In my colleague Mr. Sorbara's words, are we going to keep on going with the fishing expedition or can we move forward on something new, something that the Canadians trust us and this committee to do? That's my initial thought after listening to Mr. Angus's comments about WE.
I want to start with the tweet by Mr. Barrett following the last meeting. There was a lot of attention brought to his tweet on breaking news. Through Twitter, a very popular social media platform, he was alleging that Speakers' Spotlight had destroyed committee's documents and implied that there is a conspiracy, that there's something illegal happening because they didn't keep the documents over a certain period of time.
There was a lot of assumption of guilt on his part. Then, later on, we all know what happened. Speakers' Spotlight came out with a response to the tweet. I would like to read this response into the record, because I think it would clarify something for the committee. Following that, I will comment on the response.
The response from the Speakers' Spotlight started off with this:
On Monday, November 9th, Michael Barrett, M.P. posted a video on his Twitter feed, with the description, “BREAKING at Ethics Committee we learn that legally ordered WE documents have been destroyed.
That's a quote taken from Mr. Barrett's tweet. The response continues:
In the video, Mr. Barrett states, “Speakers' Spotlight has destroyed all the records of speaking engagements for the individuals named in the motion, the Prime Minister and his spouse, for any period [of] outside seven years”.
The statement is patently false and misleading.
We believe what Mr. Barrett is referring to is a conversation we had with Ms. Miriam Burke, the Clerk of the Committee, a few weeks ago. Ms. Burke had reached out to let us know that the Committee was voting on a motion, and that an Order for documents may be forthcoming. She wanted to get a sense of the volume of the documents that were to be produced, so she could make the necessary preparations, including arranging for translation services.
We let Ms. Burke know that because all of the [speakers'] engagements took place more than 7 years ago, we did not have hard copies of the files, as these had been purged in the normal course of business.
We also let Ms. Burke know that we do have some digital copies of documents that we would produce, along with records of all the speaking engagements dating back to 2008 that were legally required by the Order.
It is standard practice for companies to purge documents after 7 years, and we have always followed this practice. Furthermore, under Canadian privacy law, we are required to destroy all personal information as soon as it is no longer necessary. Therefore, it is not just good legal practice, but a legal requirement that we have been following.
This next sentence is in bold:
To be clear, we have not destroyed any legally ordered documents. Any reports to the contrary are entirely false.
We encourage Mr. Barrett to consult on this matter the office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada who, as an Agent of Parliament, would be in position to fully explain the legal requirements to destroy personal information as soon as it is no longer necessary.
It's signed by Martin and Farah Perelmuter. I don't know them personally. I hope I didn't offend them with my pronunciation of their names. They are president and CEO and co-founders of Speakers' Spotlight.
We can see from the response that the company mentioned in this motion has objection, and rightfully so, to Mr. Barrett's tweet quickly following the committee meeting. I want to bring this to the committee, because as elected members, especially members of this committee, we are tasked with tremendous responsibility, which comes with tremendous power as well.
I always tell myself, with respect to my position on the committee, that we have to be extremely careful with what we say and not to assume innocence or guilt as we go on with our investigation of our studies.
I'll come back to the point that there is an ongoing investigation by the commissioner. I completely respect the process. The commissioner will complete his or her study, whichever commissioner, and then come back to the committee. Then we can ask questions. Then we can provide recommendations. To me, that's a much better practice than if the committee....
Mr. Angus has spoken about this quite a few times. The committee has as the power to do its own study. I understand that. However, there is an ongoing investigation happening. I think we should trust the expert, the professional, the unbiased officer of Parliament, to complete his investigation, so we don't run into a situation where we may say something or put forward some recommendations that would contaminate his investigation, or even worse, cast some doubt on his investigation. I don't think that's productive. I don't think that's helpful for Canadians finding out the truth that they're entitled to.
The other thing I want to talk about, and lead off my debate today with, is that in the last meeting, I put forward a motion purely because of the fact that in the last almost year now, if you look at the motions being discussed by the committee, there were no motions put forward by a Liberal member. The record, and I spoke to that, is 14 to 0. I think that is not the spirit of the committee.
I know this is a non-partisan committee and members of this committee can put forward motions, but I was quickly dismissed by a substituting member from the Conservative side. I think it was Ms. Gladu. I don't think she participated in my earlier debate or even in the last meeting. She came in and called the motion disgraceful. I took offence to that.
As a permanent member, I don't think that an attempt to put forward a motion that is on an important matter and is very important to Canadians in the context that there is quite an increase in online activities and online purchasing during the COVID period, and that it is very timely for us to look at how digital currency, despite the fact that it is a very hard discussion—