On the amendment by Ms. Church, I want to make two important points about good faith and the opportunity we have to proceed with the consideration of the amendment. Should the amendment pass, the motion as amended does two things.
First of all, if I were to presuppose that Ms. Church's amendment were to pass with a view to having this motion adopted by the committee, that would demonstrate a level of transparency that shows, after last week when we saw a series of committees move in camera, that everyone takes seriously the opportunity we have to provide ongoing transparency for Canadians.
We had a change a week ago—it seems longer than a week ago—with the makeup of committees. We have new regular members on this standing committee. Welcome, all. That changes the dynamics, including on accountability committees, of which this is one. This is why the chair is selected from the official opposition for this committee, for the government operations committee and for public accounts as well.
What I'd say is that the substance of the motion as amended does allow for a level of information or an amount of information that satisfies ongoing concerns that we've seen raised. We get submissions from members of the public about information they want us to receive. We see the public discourse. We read the news and there are questions about the use of this conflict of interest screen in the Prime Minister's Office. Providing that detail to a standing committee allows us to serve the function that we're supposed to serve. It's not simply by adding a couple of members from the governing party to committee that we're going to lose the opportunity for that accountability.
I won't seek to impugn the motives for why committees were moved in camera last week. It happened at multiple committees. Instead, I would offer publicly to all of my colleagues that if the amendment were made to this motion to strike (b) because it was too much information—the volume of information and the work that it would generate would be too much, and it would slow down the Prime Minister's department in being able to deliver on its mandate—and that's the reason it's being deleted and it's with a view to pass the main motion, then I would concede that I wouldn't impede the amendment from moving forward. Section (b) could be struck and we could proceed with passing the main motion, which consumed many hours—more than a dozen hours—of public debate last week.
I think we have that opportunity. The government House leader spoke last week on television about how it was merely a coincidence that committees had been moved in camera.
We have that opportunity in public today to pass this motion and provide that ongoing transparency in a rolling way. I think the Privy Council Office has demonstrated that it has the capacity to furnish us with the information already. It would just be having that occur on an ongoing basis. Let's see that. Let's get that accountability. Let's do what we can collectively, as members, to bolster public confidence, because I fear that if we do not simply enact this transparency mechanism, we would see ourselves potentially undermining what is a fragile thing, which is the confidence that has been entrusted to us by Canadians.
At the same time, by passing the amendment, we would be achieving what had been suggested to be too onerous an ask for the department. I disagree, but I've never worked in PCO. Perhaps it is too onerous for them.
Let's assume that it is. Let's move past that, adopt the main motion and provide that transparency for Canadians.