Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate all the comments here.
For the record, I'm ready for us to discuss the other motions that we had already deliberated upon in previous committee meetings, but here we have a motion that was dropped from the sky on us. I feel it is imperative on all of us—we've only been here for an hour, to be fair—to at least be able to put on the table our concerns about this particular motion. These concerns that we're trying to raise here may be discounted, may be minimized by other folks on this committee, but these are legitimate concerns that we have with a motion that we're hearing for the first time today.
Numerous motions were brought forward and debated in previous meetings that I'm happy to discuss and move forward on. The motions that my colleague Mr. Green has put forward are things we debated in the last meeting, and I think we should advance and do our best to proceed on those motions, as opposed to being distracted by new motions that just happen to fall from the sky and whatnot.
This is an opportunity for us to put all our concerns on the table, and these aren't illegitimate concerns. These concerns are shared by many Canadians. I look at, for example, an article that was published in Maclean's magazine that calls the motion that was just before us in the House “a farce”. It says:
It calls for the Health Committee to study every imaginable aspect of the COVID response, “including, but not limited to,” rapid testing; vaccine development and distribution; federal public health guidelines “and the data being used to inform them;” long-term care; the GPHIN early-warning system; protocols for travellers...emergency stockpiles, the COVID Alert smartphone app, contact tracing, and more and more. It’s a breathtaking list but it’s not even exhaustive: the “including, but not limited to” wording means that anything else that pops into any member’s mind or inbox could be added at any time.
How shall this committee undertake its work? By calling on six government offices to provide “all memoranda, emails, documents, notes and other records” on “plans, preparations, approvals and purchasing of COVID-19 testing products including tests, reagents, swabs, laboratory equipment and other material.” That’s just one of seven wide-scale fishing expeditions listed in the motion.
And here's the important point that I'm trying to make here:
All requiring massive deployment of government resources. All with potentially zero utility even to the motion’s stated purpose, because if this committee sat until Doomsday it would not be able to examine or discuss the thousandth part of the haystack this motion would order up.