Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just to continue on with what my colleague has said, we have established—long-established—democratic institutions in this country, one of which is the system of standing committees in which we are participating right now. In this particular case, Mr. Chong introduced a motion that was passed by the House of Commons in the last Parliament. It is a very thoughtful motion and deals in a very reasonable manner with the idea of making sure there are redactions and that the documents are reviewed by the law clerk and parliamentary counsel and by this committee, which reports directly to Parliament. The ad hoc committee that your government has proposed is not responsible to Parliament. It really begs the question whether something very serious happened, whether there was a serious national security breach at the Winnipeg lab.
It's vital at this point that this committee, which has been seized with this motion since December, debate this issue, get these documents, discuss what needs to be redacted or doesn't need to be redacted, and that this idea of an ad hoc committee be dispensed with. As parliamentarians, we don't tell judges how they should decide their cases. Frankly, three retired justices shouldn't be telling us, as elected parliamentarians participating in this committee as a democratic institution, how we should be deciding this matter.
I urge you, to ensure the confidence of all Canadians in the integrity of our democratic institutions, that on an issue as important as this, where we've had a call for production of documents over and over again in this Parliament and in the last Parliament, to make sure this matter is handled in accordance with long-established historical systems that have been established specifically for this purpose. This motion is rightfully before the committee and I urge all our colleagues—