Thank you, Mr. Chair.
For a few minutes, we discussed an amendment that seemed clear, but anyway….
I have a bit of experience in committees, and I feel that delay tactics are being used.
I find the amendment superfluous. It's superfluous because section 67 clearly states that the act must be reviewed every five years. However, what the committee is doing today is asking the House to give it the mandate that some would like it to have. I don't think that encouraging or not encouraging someone from the private sector to apply, to get elected, is part of the act or should be part of it. That position can be defended and will be discussed during our work, but I don't think it is relevant. I mentioned this to the Ethics Commissioner on Monday. In my opinion, there are stations, jobs and structural positions of people in the private sector that, unfortunately, are incompatible with public office. We will be able to assess that aspect. We'll need to hold that discussion.
Now, to say that we as a committee need to make sure that these people are going to be solicited…. I don't want to solicit anyone. Someone who wants to get involved in politics has to meet the criteria established to ensure there is no conflict of interest or perceived conflict of interest. Full stop. We are not a recruitment agency. Competence has nothing to do with wealth, and it has nothing to do with the interests someone defends. Competence has to do with a person's experience, and that's it. They have to prove it. We, as elected officials, have to prove it to the public and will be judged by the public in an election. Those are my thoughts. Therefore, I will be voting against this amendment.
However, I want to say that the motion is written by the book. What needs to be understood is that, earlier, during the first interventions, I understood that the Liberals wanted us to conduct a study calling for a review of the act. In our opinion, we are already at the stage of reviewing the act.
We are asking the House to give the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics the mandate. Full stop. If we agree on that, we can add things to the recommendations and amendments during our study. However, right now, what's important is to know whether we want to have this mandate and ask the House to review the act and to do so as soon as possible.
What the Liberals are proposing, or what seemed to be coming out of their remarks, is to conduct a study so that one of our recommendations to the House would be to review the act. We'll move past that. In any case, it is consistent with section 67 of the act.
Let's speed up the process. I know I have been speaking for a while, but we need to speed up the process.