Thanks very much, Chair. I'm just checking to see that all of the members are back online.
It's incredibly important that we're able to provide transparency for Canadians with respect to the protection of their personal information. Questions have been raised about the ArriveCAN application.
Though there is another parliamentary committee that is reviewing different aspects of the app, I think it's incredibly important that this committee look at the impacts on the personal privacy of Canadians. For example, we know now that some contractors who worked on the app—though we don't know how many or who those contractors were—did not have to have the requisite security clearance in place before the work began. Where secret or top-secret clearance may have been required, that requirement was waived.
I think we know that an application in process for your passport doesn't get you on the plane, and a security clearance application in process should not give you access to the IT systems for the Government of Canada, particularly the ones that handle the biometric and personal information of millions of Canadians. That app was downloaded more than eight million times by eight million individual users, and those users could have then uploaded multiple profiles for members of their family or travelling party. It's incredibly important that we're able to provide those assurances.
This motion is measured, in terms of the number of meetings not being excessive, but it's also not prescriptive, and allows for all the parties around the table to put forward witnesses they think would be important.
Should we find adequate responses and be satisfied with responses from government officials and third parties, then the committee can move on to other things. However, the matter is pressing. It's time-sensitive. I think we should move on with this.