Sure.
I have a few things. First, I want to thank Mr. McLean for bringing this motion forward. It is a really extraordinary time and the government is taking some extraordinary measures. It's appropriate that we, as parliamentarians, provide oversight and that this oversight begin as quickly as possible.
What I would add to our understanding of this study.... I'm not sure if we even need an amendment for what I'm looking for. I note that the motion already says, “Any other issue or topic related to the extension of powers or their effect on the Canadian financial system by the invocation of the Emergency Measures Act”.
What I'm concerned about—and we've seen this sometimes in cases where extraordinary powers have been granted—is that the police may pass on to financial institutions the names of people who have nothing to do with the convoy that is the justification for the invocation of emergency measures. They might have people on watch-lists for other political causes and might see this as an opportunity to flag them, to get information about them and to pass on information about them. It's really important that we, as parliamentarians, endeavour in our study to add that to our oversight work and look for reassurances—not just reassurances but concrete accountability mechanisms—to make sure that law enforcement isn't taking this as an opportunity to cast a wide net, but is respecting the very limited scope of the powers that it has been granted under the government's declaration of emergency powers.
That's something I would like to be part of our understanding of the study, if there are no objections by any members of the committee. I would take that to be understood as part of the study under section vii. Otherwise, I'd be happy to seek to amend it, because I think that's an important part of our oversight work.
Those are my comments on the substance of the motion.
On the process, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to vote on this today as something that we need to move forward with. If we want to try to meet as early as next Tuesday on this matter, it's important that we settle it.
If we have agreement from the committee that this is what we want to study, I'm happy to have a subcommittee meeting to do the real work of figuring out how to work that into the schedule and how it interacts with the other priorities that we've already identified. This clearly has to be the priority, given that it pertains to emergency measures in an emergency. It's incumbent upon us to get to this right away. If we can't deal with this and get an approval for the study right away, the other option would be to have an emergency meeting of the committee in order to discuss this motion and get it approved so that we're on our way.
The subcommittee is definitely there for planning, but I don't think we need a subcommittee meeting.... In fact, the subcommittee can't adopt this as a study for the committee, so we do need the committee to say that this is something we want to study, and then the subcommittee can meet to decide how we study it and when we study it.
Thank you.