Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I want to also reiterate that we have prorogued. We have just reconstituted our committee today. We have you as chair, and we have vice-chairs. My understanding is that we as a finance committee have not accepted the documents that were indicated by Mr. Poilievre. I don't think there is any question of privilege that should be considered at this point.
I want to indicate that there was a substantial amount of time allocated to looking at the CSSG and the WE situation. It was important for us to do. It was important for us to make sure that we validated whether there was any money misspent or wasted. We've confirmed and proven that was not the case. We have also eliminated a number of the myths that were promoted by the opposition throughout the summer, including that the Liberals were giving money to their friends. That was completely not true. That the Prime Minister or the ministers had picked WE intentionally was not true, and that was confirmed by a number of our very senior leaders and bureaucrats within the government. There were a number of other things that we completely dispelled throughout the many hours during which we actually looked at this particular motion.
I don't know why the opposition would want to bring this back onto the table. I agree with my colleague Mr. Fragiskatos that we as the finance committee have an obligation to hear from stakeholders on pre-budget consultations. I don't know why this would not be the absolute number one priority for all of my colleagues in opposition on this committee. It's my understanding that almost 800 submissions have been made. To my understanding, the number of submissions made is historic. There are many people who are very anxious to present to our committee.
I know many of them have called our offices. I know many of them have ideas on how we can ensure that Canada has a competitive economy going forward as we come out of this pandemic. They have ideas on how we can attract more direct investment, how we can accelerate growth and how we can invest in productivity-enhancing capital, many ideas.
I know they want to make sure that, after they've heard about the Speech from the Throne, after they've heard about our vision and our direction and what our goals are moving forward, there are a number of specifics they want to be able to provide to us in terms of information, in terms of things they think we might have missed. They have ideas about how we can implement the specific commitments we've outlined in the Speech from the Throne.
Mr. Chair, I truly believe this is where we should be focusing our attention. I'm very disappointed with our opposition members that this is not what they want to be focused on. We also know there are many industries that are disproportionally impacted by the COVID pandemic. We need to hear from them. While I'm hopeful that our government has plans under way to help them in the interim, we need to hear from them on how we can help them pivot after this pandemic.
We also know there are a number of industries that are in transition. We heard an announcement by Premier Kenney last week about new industries that Alberta wants to be transitioning into. I think there are many who want to relay to us the kind of support they'd be looking for and that they need in the transition. The world is changing. We will have changed after this pandemic. We all want to be getting the very best ideas and providing the platform that's needed so that we can hear back from stakeholders, whether our industries, our companies or our non-profits, about how we can get Canadians and Canada back on track to succeed in a more sustainable and equitable way.
Mr. Chair, I'll end there.