Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to start by picking up on a comment that Mr. Green made very early in his comments. Mr. Chair, I think you made the same comments as well, about how we got off to a really good start at the beginning of this committee meeting. There seemed to be a really good spirit of collaboration. Right off the get-go, we passed a motion that had six items on it, and we passed it unanimously. I think it demonstrates our commitment to working together on this committee to get real work done.
I know that my colleague Mr. Green also in previous meetings put forward.... I know we are prepared. There are 12 motions on the table. We are prepared to support 12 of 13 motions. On our part, there is a real willingness to work together, to collaborate and to get important work done in this committee.
I've been clear, pretty much since the beginning of this committee's work, that where you're going to see push-back from me is where I see motions that are asking for the proliferation of committees, for the production of papers and the duplication of work without a clear and well-defined value added. That's where you're going to see me push back. I'm ready to roll up my sleeves, ready to support motions, whether by colleagues on this side of the aisle or by my esteemed colleagues on the other side of the aisle. The motions have to meet a certain standard. Again, where you're going to see me push back is when I see proliferation of committees, production of papers and duplication of work and I don't see a clear value added.
I guess where I may differ a little from the approach of my colleagues is that I do believe we are in a crisis. I believe it's the greatest health and economic crisis we have faced in our country, period. I do believe, with every fibre of my being, that this requires an all-hands-on-deck approach. It requires that we are laser-focused, and it requires us to make choices: Where do we want our attention to be focused?
My colleague mentioned that there are hundreds of thousands of public servants in the government, and that it's okay if just a few of them focus their attention on fetching emails and documents from 10 years ago. My argument is quite the opposite: We need every single pair of eyes, hands and brains, all that human capital, all those resources, all that attention focused on addressing and solving this issue and helping Canadians and our country get through this crisis. We need all hands on deck focused on this.
I want my colleagues to know that for me, there is a really high standard that I set, a high bar in terms of what motions will pass. Specifically, it's based on where we need to put our resources.
On this particular issue, we had members of PHAC and other government agencies in front of this committee in May, answering many of these very questions. May 15 was actually when we had a meeting on this exact issue, the national emergency strategic stockpile. We had folks—officials, vice-presidents, executive directors—from PHAC and Public Works. I remember one of the points that Mr. Green made at that meeting, which stuck with me. He highlighted the fact that a Senate committee in 2008 underscored and highlighted and concluded that the previous Conservative government had severely underfunded and mismanaged the NESS.
As much as I'd love to read emails and documentation and spend hours talking about how the Conservative government mismanaged the national emergency strategic stockpile, let's save that for another day and focus on the work in front of us. Let's focus on the crisis at hand. Enough of the political stuff; we need to focus on this crisis. We need full attention. We can't afford to lose even a handful of public servants being distracted from the work they need to do.
What I will highlight from Mr. Green's testimony is that when we had the officials here in May—I remember really appreciating this—he asked them what we were doing now to ensure proper supplies and what the plan was for the next wave. Keep in mind that this was in May, and Mr. Green was asking them some very fine questions: “What are we doing to prepare for the second wave?” That was very prescient.
I would rather have us focus our attention—because other committees are looking at this work—not on what happened in the last 10 years but on what we are doing now and what we are doing next. That would be a much more appropriate use of our time and resources.
I want to go on the record here to simply state where I have trouble with this particular motion. It's simply that I want to make sure that all our resources and attention are focused on the crisis at hand.
Thank you very much, Chair.