Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In the third line of the first paragraph, I would propose changing the words “the Committee deplores” to “the Committee is concerned” before “the fact that the masks”. So change the word “deplores” to “is concerned”.
In the second line of the second paragraph, change the date “January 31, 2022,” to “as soon as reasonably possible”, and after the words “Canadian companies including those from Quebec”, or however we amended the motion properly in the first go-round, in the second-last line of the second paragraph add the words “to the extent possible respecting all WTO rules”.
Mr. Chairman, I will give you the reasons for the amendment.
The word “deplores”, I think, is far too strong given the fact that these may well have been sourced at a time in the pandemic when we were desperate to get PPE from anywhere and the Canadian companies had not commenced operations. I don't think it is fair to say that we deplore something. I think we could say we're concerned that there are masks being distributed that are not from Canadian businesses.
I don't think January 31, 2022, is a reasonable date given that the holidays are coming up and nobody on this committee knows the terms of the contracts involved. We also don't know how much stock we have from what we have already purchased, and we don't want to waste existing stock. I think putting “as soon as reasonably possible” is a good compromise.
Finally, we can say we want them to come from Canadian companies as much as we want, but we have to respect all WTO rules and rules of agreements that we are part of. It actually is in violation—I know that—of WTO rules to say we simply want it to be only from Canadian companies, so I would like to include the words “to the extent possible that it be from Canadian companies...while respecting all WTO rules”.
If these amendments are adopted, then I will feel comfortable voting for the motion. If these are not adopted, then I will have to vote against it because I don't think at that point that the motion would be reasonable.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.