Mr. Chair, these are a critical times.
The pandemic is having unprecedented health and economic consequences.
Millions of people and hundreds of thousands of businesses are experiencing great difficulties and we have a duty to listen to them and ask the government to better adapt its programs.
All the members of this committee are convinced of that. This is our raison d'être and this is what we do.
It's not just the job of Liberal MPs to do that.
At the same time, because the government is managing programs of unprecedented magnitude, it must be trustworthy.
Did the government act ethically, beyond all suspicion, to avoid creating doubt in the population?
This is another issue that is crucial and essential. It is our duty as committee members to address it. We have asked the government to provide us with documents, and they have provided us with documents that have been redacted and censored. Hence the motion of privilege that has been moved by our colleague Mr. Poilievre, which is entirely appropriate and which I will be supporting.
Will the committee suggest, as Mr. Julian asked earlier, that the House be asked to create a special committee to continue to shed light on the We Charity scandal?
I would like us to move and adopt this motion so that we can look at the pre-budget consultations and continue to hear from stakeholders on the economic impact of COVID-19.
All of this is essential, but we must not forget—this is really important—that the government must be trustworthy and beyond suspicion. This includes the documents we ask for. We want it to provide them to us, not redacted or censored.
That is why I fully support the motion presented here by our colleague Mr. Poilievre.