I'm still talking on the subamendment, Mr. Poilievre.
The next point I want to make is the following....
Let me just get my pages; I have so many pages in front of me, I have to organize myself.
I want to point out the inconsistencies in the motion. I think it's important to reiterate here, for the media and anybody who might be listening, that this gets a little bit to the heart of where there is some disagreement between the Liberal government side and our opposition. When we passed the motion on July 7, we had all agreed as a committee that all of the documents related to the contracts that were concluded with the WE Charity and ME to We, all the briefing notes, all the memos, all the emails from “senior officials prepared for or sent to any Minister regarding the design and creation of the Canada Student Service Grant, as well as any written correspondence and records of other correspondence with...Me to We from March 2020 be provided to the Committee no later than August 8”. Then there is a semicolon, after which it says, “that matters of Cabinet confidence and national security be excluded from the request; and that [the] redactions necessary, including to protect the privacy of Canadian citizens and permanent residents whose names and personal information may be included in the documents, as well as public servants who have been providing assistance on this matter, be made by the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons.”
The disagreement is that for us what is typical, to my understanding—I am only starting my sixth year of being a politician, and my understanding of this has been my experience as well—is that when these types of documents are requested, it is very typical that matters of cabinet confidence and national security are excluded. Our understanding, when we all agreed to it, was that anything else, that didn't include cabinet confidence and national security, would actually then move on to the law clerk for his redaction.
My point is that this is what we agreed to on July 7. Then, I will say to you, in the original motion that Mr. Poilievre has proposed, he basically is recommending that the unredacted version of all the documents produced by the government actually be sent to the law clerk. So there is an inconsistency with that, between what it is that we had agreed to and what it is that right now the opposition wants us to do. They want us to go to the beginning, get the 5,600 documents, completely unredacted, and send it over to the law clerk.
It's problematic in a number of ways. One, it is inconsistent with what was agreed to initially. Two, it's also, in what I have been told and what I understand, unprecedented. It's not done. It is not something that typically goes to the law clerk. It is the role of our civil servants. They are independent civil servants. They work for our government, but if there were a transition in government, you might still have the same Clerk of the Privy Council. Their role is to be independent. I completely trust that this is what they have done and that they have honoured to a T what was set out in what we had agreed to at finance on July 7. I want to point out that inconsistency in terms of what was agreed to and what is now being asked for, and also that it is unprecedented.
This takes us to our current stalemate. I think the unfortunate thing is that we are wasting a lot of time. In the end, I think it really is Canadians who end up suffering. It is Canadians who are going to lose in the end. Unfortunately, we are going to start losing public trust that we are going to be able to work together to be able to resolve this, find a way forward, and do the important work that we need to do for Canadians at this time.
I also want to mention two other key points before I sign off.
If you look at why we proposed the subamendment, again it was not only to dispel the fact that there was anything that our government was trying to hide but it was also an attempt to bring the key actors forward to be able to answer questions.
As to whether there is an attempt to hide or not be accountable for anything, I think it's important to bring forward that we also, as a government—and the House leaders of each of the parties have been working on this—suggested a special committee to provide oversight on COVID-19 spending. It's really important for the public to know that our government believes in 100% transparency and we have proposed a special committee to provide that oversight.
If you actually just look at the first paragraph of that special committee—