Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to remind my colleagues opposite of an instance when our committee did a study that lasted just one meeting. It was relating to the Frank Baylis contracts. There was an ethical problem: Mr. Baylis had a government contract worth $237 million, although the whole market said it was not worth more than $100 million. He got an absolutely excessive contract to make 10,000 fans. Our committee held just one meeting on the subject, and we never got to the bottom of the matter. It is big ethical issue. We never found out how a company called FTI, that was created a week before receiving the contract from a guy who manufactures auto parts in Ontario, who was later linked to Frank Baylis, obtained a contract worth $237 million. That would have warranted several meetings.
Mr. Chair, we can see the structure and organization in the Lacolle sector: there are clearly-identified conflicts of interest and ethical issues, and there are other unknown relationships with companies that received contracts in recent years. I have visited the site myself several times when I was responsible for public safety. In 2018, for instance, I saw tents built to accommodate 3,000 people that were never used. Who won those contracts? How did that come about? Why can we not get any information about it? We need a lot more than one or two meetings to get the full picture of what happened there. We are talking about half a billion dollars spent in the past five years. Now the contracts are being renewed.
I think six meetings would be entirely reasonable, given the complexity of the whole mater. If, after three meetings, the committee has obtained all the information it needs, we could wrap it up then. It is essential that we schedule six meetings though, even if we finish earlier if everyone has answered. If we simply present an amendment saying that two meetings are enough and sweep it under the carpet, it will be the same outcome as in the Frank Baylis case.
There are problems with Tango Marketing, for instance, a contract worth a hundred million dollars for masks from China, which in the end were rubbish. Fortunately, the government took it to Federal Court, but the fact remains that it is a contract with old friends of the party. That is not the first instance of questionable practices since 2015. In that case, there were quite specific factors that merited further attention.
In this case, two meetings with five-minute blocks to ask a question would not be sufficient.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.