He'll be able to speak soon, Mr. Chair. As I said, I'll be wrapping up shortly.
Let's take a look at an email from Ms. Wernick to officials across the public service, including PCO and the Department of Finance, on pages 326 to 330 of the Department of Finance release. The redactions that the opposition is taking issue with include Ms. Kovacevic's cellphone number. It really is absurd here, Mr. Chair.
On pages 411 to 426 of the Department of Finance release, we seem to be looking at a decision document of some kind. On pages 411 to 426, again, what you'll notice here is that all the information relevant to the CSSG is unredacted and present for everyone to see. The redactions are unrelated cabinet confidences, as determined by the non-partisan and professional public service. As was expressly permitted for in the motion from this committee, all cabinet confidences that are related to CSSG would be released, but unrelated information was to be redacted, and it was.
There's nothing too complex here, Mr. Chair. It's not rocket science. It's already a rare occurrence for cabinet confidences of a sitting government to be released. The clerk took the extraordinary step of releasing all information as it related to the CSSG, while also maintaining protection of necessary and unrelated cabinet confidences. Everything present here has been done in the spirit of that promise and while respecting the committee's motion for information.
I'll conclude in a moment, but let me look at two more examples of broad redactions. These are the famous blacked-out pages that Mr. Poilievre wanted to bring to the attention of the country, again at a time when the country was focused on COVID-19 and not the musings of, with all due respect, Mr. Poilievre. Beginning on page 219 of the PCO release, we have a summary of a full cabinet meeting. The discussion could have been related to vaccines, PPE procurement, national security or other matters. A cabinet document such as this is rarely, if ever, made public. Cabinet confidences unrelated to the Canada student services grant are redacted, as per the terms of the motion adopted at the committee. In keeping with the spirit of the FINA motion, CSSG items are, however, entirely visible.
As a second example, on page 348 of the PCO release, we have a second cabinet note that is redacted. This is the later cabinet meeting in May of 2020. CSSG implementation was discussed and is unredacted, as ordered by the finance committee motion and as agreed to by the Clerk of the Privy Council. However, the rest of the information is redacted, as it falls under cabinet confidence. We do not know what the topics of discussion were here. There could have been talks related to national security issues or legal discussions with solicitor-client privilege, protected as such. There could have been discussions related to further PPE and vaccine procurement that, if public, would have put our competitiveness at risk.
To sum up, Mr. Chair, I think I've demonstrated here—and I'll admit I was exhaustive, but again, we have to put everything into proper context—that the redactions the opposition have been turning into political theatre are in fact in line with the motion they proposed at this very committee.
Mr. Chair, I'll now turn to you. I know that there are other speakers on the list. I'm glad to put this on the record, where it needs to be.