Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I won't be long. Mr. Gerretsen asked for my viewpoint on this. When I go back and look at the original letter that was provided by the parliamentary law clerk, I was struck by that one paragraph where the parliamentary law clerk notes that the power the House and its committees have to order the production of records is absolute and unfettered as it constitutes a constitutional parliamentary privilege that supersedes statutory obligations such as the exemptions found in the Access to Information Act. That's it in a nutshell. That's it, full stop.
We're now dealing with a subamendment to an amendment to a main motion. I get what the Liberals are trying to do. They've talked repeatedly about wanting the finance committee to get on to more important matters, whereas members of the opposition are saying, yes, let's get to a vote so we can get to those other matters. However, for me it's the fact that various departments took that step of deciding what the committee could see and what the committee could not see. It just really goes back to that one sentence in the letter from the parliamentary law clerk. Our power to order the production of records and the production of papers is an absolute authority. It's rooted in centuries of tradition. That's what we're standing up for. Ultimately, we are the ones who make the decisions on what we view and so on.
I don't think, ultimately, any member of this committee.... I've heard members of the governing party allude to the fact that we may want to go on a witch hunt, or that members of various ministries and deputy ministers.... We're not interested in going after those people. I've worked very closely with deputy ministers at the agriculture committee. They're fine, upstanding people. In no way do we want to impugn their records or what they contribute to the way our government functions.
At the heart of this matter is our upholding the rights and privileges of Parliament as an institution, a convention and a set of rules that are rooted in centuries of tradition. That's really where the opposition is at.
I was at the great PROC filibuster of 2017. I remember taking part in that. I wonder why the Liberals are choosing this hill to die on. If you're going to filibuster a committee—if you're going to delay our actually getting to a vote—you should have a reason.
In 2017 we were legitimately filibustering the procedure and house affairs committee because we were trying to stop the executive from unilaterally changing the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. That was a hill we were going to die on, because it was affecting not only our rights and privileges as members but the rights and privileges of all MPs—present and future. I think that was a more noble cause. It was something that could be easily explained to the Canadian public.
You have to ask yourself.... People who are tuning in right now—not only to the Standing Committee on Finance but also to the Standing Committee on Ethics—are wondering why it's still October 8 on the Standing Committee of Finance's website when we are now more than 176 hours in, and why we keep having subamendments to an amendment to the main motion. It's continuous delay to not allow us, as members of the committee, to see information that we are rightly allowed to see, given Parliament's absolute power in this regard.
I'll end there by saying that I understand the Liberal argument on why they have to do this and the process they're going through.
To Mr. Badawey's comments, I believe that Parliament and its various committees are able to walk and chew gum. The business of government is going on. The House of Commons is dealing with justice bills. I know the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food is looking at agricultural matters. This Standing Committee on Finance is doing something that's related to its mandate, as is the ethics committee.
The government is still functioning. The various ministries are still functioning. The House of Commons is still looking at other things. I believe that this committee is exercising a power that it should be exercising. I hope the Liberals on this committee understand that the longer this goes on, the reasons they have for delaying our getting to an actual vote are going to start wearing thin with the Canadian public.
You don't have, on your side, a plausible argument for delay like we, the opposition members, did in 2017. We had the public on side with us for that fight. The public inherently understood that it was about the rights of Parliament, the rights of its members and the rights against executive overreach. In this particular one, the longer this goes on, the more it looks like there's something to hide.
I would ask my Liberal MPs to help us get along so that the Standing Committee on Finance can have those pre-budgetary hearings. I know we're already in October, but there is still time left in this year to allow this committee to get to a vote on the main motion. We can uphold Parliament's right for the production of papers in order that we, as a committee, can exercise our right to look at the fully unredacted documents and work with parliamentary law counsel to decide what information should ultimately be withheld. There are numerous ways that committees can protect private information, but ultimately this goes to the heart of what parliamentary privilege is all about.
I would draw the attention of all members of this committee to that very important sentence that is contained in the original letter from the parliamentary law clerk.
With that, Mr. Chair, I'll conclude my remarks.