Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
It's nice to see everybody.
I want to start by just addressing this off the top. I believe there was a comment earlier about the Prime Minister instructing us to do this filibuster. I don't know how other parties work, but our Prime Minister doesn't instruct our committees. I just wanted to indicate for the record that this is absolutely not true.
I can also personally say that I have zero desire to have this meeting go any longer than it needs to. I only have a great desire to move as quickly as we can to pre-budget consultations, which is why I was delighted that you, Mr. Chair, suggested right off the bat that we move right to a pre-budget consultation motion. You asked for unanimous consent, and I do want the record to formally show that there was no support from the Conservatives, no support from the NDP and no support from the Bloc Québécois for your ask in terms of unanimous consent for us to move directly to pre-budget consultations.
I also want to address a few of the comments that Mr. Poilievre started off with. He talks about a WE scandal. Saying one million times that there's a WE scandal doesn't make it true. There was no WE scandal. There were some legitimate concerns when WE was selected about how WE was selected. There was a motion that we as finance committee had agreed to study it in terms of how the decision came about and how much money was actually spent in providing that contract over to WE.
I want to remind everybody once again—I know I said this last time, but sometimes repetition is important—that for almost two months over the summer we met to actually deliberate on those questions. Again, transparency and oversight are absolutely critical. If there are questions, or if people think there are mistakes, it's absolutely important for us to be looking at that.
I do also want to remind the public, the media and anybody else who's listening that it isn't typical for committees to meet during the summer, but it was extraordinarily important for us. We're in a pandemic. I think that initially we were meeting as the finance committee to provide proper oversight of the emergency support programs, which is absolutely appropriate. Then, I think, when the decisions around WE being selected for the Canada summer student grant program came up, it was determined that it was important for us to look at it. I just want to remind people of what we heard, because, again, I want to continue to dispel the consistent sorts of statements about WE scandals or WE cover-ups. There was no corruption.
There was no corruption. We heard—under oath—from both of the Kielburgers, Craig and Marc Kielburger. We heard from Prime Minister Trudeau. We heard from Minister Morneau.
We heard that they're not friends. They don't have each other's phone numbers. They don't socialize. There was zero attempt by anybody in our government to be able to select WE for any personal benefit or to benefit people who might have been their friends. They're not personal friends.
We also heard very clearly that WE was selected by our civil servants. I was actually going through Rachel Wernick's testimony again. There was a day when we had Ms. Wernick come in. We had Ms. Gina Wilson come in on the same day, I believe, and we had Minister Bardish Chagger come in as well. Ms. Wernick very clearly stated that, given the fact that we had very specific parameters and very quick time frames, it was suggested by the bureaucrats, by herself, that WE could be the only organization that could actually deliver the program in the timeline and the time frame that we had asked them to do it in. That was validated by Ms. Wilson and also by our Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Shugart.
There was no misuse of funds. The other thing we were asked to look at was whether or not.... How much money did we spend on all this? What we heard for all of the monies at the time of our last meeting was that it was about to be returned. I think it was in a bank account, and I think they just needed some final details, but my understanding is that at this moment all of the dollars have been returned. We also heard that there was zero profit to WE. It was just costs that they were covering.
Then the contribution agreement was selected because of the expediency of actually being able to deliver the actual program. I don't know if there were 13 or 17, but there was an extraordinary number of checkpoints to try to ensure that there was accountability for any of the dollars that were actually given to WE for the delivery of the CSSG program and to ensure that it was actually doing what it was meant to be doing.
We talked about why it was rushed. We talked about why it was not a sole-source contract and why it was a contribution agreement. We also gave lots of examples of other contribution agreements. We also proved, time and time again, that it was absolutely for students, that we actually made this decision, in terms of selecting WE, because we absolutely wanted to support our students and that this was just one of many programs in the over $9 billion we've actually allocated to support students in a number of different programs.
During our last session I did read out the names of some of those programs, and if we do have to go on for a long time this evening, I'll continue to read the full list of all the programs a little later. I'll talk a little bit more about this in a minute, although my colleague Mr. Fraser has done an excellent job talking about there being no cover-up in terms of the redacted document.
I also want to continue to remind everyone that there continue to be two independent investigations by two outstanding, long-term civil servants: our Auditor General—who will continue to provide oversight of the spending, including that for the CSSG program, all the other student programs and all the other programs that are currently under way—and the Ethics Commissioner, who is currently investigating both the former Minister of Finance, the Honourable Bill Morneau, and our Prime Minister, to see whether there indeed was any type of ethics violation.
That is what we recall.
I also want to address Mr. Poilievre's other point around a WE cover-up. Again, mentioning a cover-up one million times does not make it a cover-up. There were 5,600 documents were released. It could be a little bit more. Maybe it was 5,693. I'm not quite sure of the exact number. I am just saying approximately 5,600 documents. They were released on the day that our Prime Minister announced the prorogation. Our Prime Minister made sure those documents were actually released publicly before he actually prorogued government.
I want to remind everybody that any of the redactions that were made to the 5,600 pages were made by our independent civil servants. That again has been validated by my colleague Mr. Fraser, or at least we have been reminded us about it. This subamendment that is before us right now seeks to address any issues there might be in terms of any political interference in making the decisions on what was to be redacted.
The subamendment is trying to say to bring forward those senior civil servants, whose job it was to do the redactions. Let's bring them before this committee. Let's also bring forward our parliamentary law clerk, as well as our parliamentary legal counsel, so this committee can actually ask questions, and so they can explain why the redactions happened and answer any questions that maybe have not been brought out into the open. That is what this subamendment to the amendment to the original motion is trying to do.
I want to point out once again the four key parts of this subamendment: the first is to suspend the main motion and the amendment that Mr. Poilievre has proposed. Again, it's just suspending it. It's not eliminating it. It's not putting it away. It's suspending it.
The second is to have the chair authorized to schedule meetings with the witnesses—which is what I had mentioned to you before—and invite the relevant deputy ministers or signatories of the transmittal letters—so those who were actually responsible for the actual redactions—as well as the law clerk and parliamentary counsel of the House of Commons.
The third part of it is that we resume debate, after we do those sessions, to debate Mr. Poilievre's motion once the meetings have actually taken place.
I don't want to have anybody think we're trying to cover up anything. I truly don't believe we're trying to cover up anything. I have complete confidence in all of our public servants. They have, to the best of their ability, sought to only redact those items that deal with cabinet confidentiality and any personal or other items that should not be disclosed, like conference call numbers, or any items that might be completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. I have 100% confidence in our public servants to be able to do that.
Now I want to go for a couple of minutes to what Mr. Julian mentioned, that we are trying to do away with the pre-budget consultations. I want to directly say to Mr. Julian that there was an opportunity at the onset of this meeting to support the chair's suggestion to us to vote on pre-budget consultations so that our clerk and her team could start calling witnesses and preparing for the meetings. We know that we have 793 submissions to come before this committee. There's a lot of work ahead, and it's important work that Canadians need us to do.
I think we have to make a decision as colleagues. Do we want to make our Parliament work? That includes the work here on this committee. I genuinely and truly believe that every one of us ran because we want to serve not only our local communities, but also our country, and we want to make much better the lives of the people we're honoured and privileged to serve. I think this particular moment is especially important because we're going through an unprecedented pandemic. It's a health crisis. It's an economic crisis. Canadians need us more than ever to step up and make our best efforts to help them and our country through this unpredictable time.
This committee can provide that space for the pre-budget consultations so we can hear some of the best ideas from those who are being impacted in both the short and long terms. We can also hear from some of our economic and financial leaders. I truly believe that if we make a decision today to move to pre-budget consultations, you would have very willing partners, at least on the government side, to move forward as fast as possible. I urge us to find a way to unanimously approve going right to a pre-budget consultation motion and moving as fast as possible to pre-budget consultations.
I also want to make reference to a letter that our government House leader has submitted to the House leaders of each the Bloc Québécois, the Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party. I know there were discussions behind the scenes about a special committee to oversee the investments in COVID-19. I'm not quite sure whether that's completely off the table. I would like to believe that maybe that could still be on the table. I think it's a really great idea. It's a committee that would do two things. One is to provide continued oversight of COVID-19 spending, particularly since we're spending over $300 million on the 80 programs we've introduced. I think it's really important for us to continue to be transparent and accountable and provide as much oversight not only on federal spending, but I would love us to also be able to ensure that we get accountability for all the dollars we've also sent to the provinces, the municipalities and other groups and make sure money is going to where it needs to go; that if some adjustments are needed, that we're able to do so.
I like this proposed motion for a special committee. I particularly like it because it would allow the finance committee, which had already been doing some of this oversight prior to prorogation, to engage fully and completely in pre-budget consultations, to focus on budget 2021 and the best recommendations and the best ideas and the best thinking out there and have another committee provide that proper accountability and oversight. It also gives the committee a mandate to take over the responsibility for the issue of the document redaction, anything to do with anybody still worried about any of the redactions of the WE documents that were submitted.
I think, if there are some additional steps that need to be taken, I think that is an option and a committee that could be looked at.
I want to end maybe at this point, because I've lots of other things to say, but I'll let some other colleagues talk. I do want to reiterate that there really is zero desire, at least on my side—and I truly believe I'm speaking for the government side—for us to be going any longer than we need to. I think we're trying to find a path to the pre-budget consultations as quickly as possible.
All of these other motions, to be honest, are unneeded diversions. I think they're diversions that we should find a way to maybe withdraw simply because, at this point in time, Canadians need us to step up and do the work at hand on pre-budget consultations and to find a way to restart our economy as quickly as possible and support them as workers, as Canadians, and support our businesses as we try to come out of one of the largest health and economic crisis we've had in almost 100 years.
I think with that, Mr. Chair, I'm going to sign off at this point and allow the next speaker to speak.
Thank you.