Mr. Chair, I feel I need to respond to that quite absurd intervention.
What I said was that the members of the committee are not aware of what the stock is. I didn't say that the public servants who are responsible for it are not aware. I said that we are sitting here, having received a motion 10 minutes before we started debating it, and none of us have researched any of these questions as to what contracts are currently in place or when the stock that is currently being used on the Hill—and this is also speaking about other government departments—was actually purchased. We don't know if it was a one-time buy in March or April of last year, or whether there are ongoing purchase orders and there's another purchase order that could easily be changed to a Canadian company, or if we have stock in place that will not run out by January 31 and may only run out in March.
I don't know those answers. I might know them if I had a day to study this, but I never saw this motion before, and so I am not the person who would be aware of that. There would be many people who would be aware of that, and the committee, if we really wanted to do our proper due diligence, would ask about it. We didn't ask. We're now voting on things where we don't have a basis for understanding the contract that is currently in place and when the stock that is there will run out.
Again, if this were a motion to say we would like an answer because we're very concerned about the situation as to when we can replace these masks with Canadian masks, I'd have no problem with it. I tend to not be a very partisan person, and I don't really think this is a great way to start, but I never said what I was alleged to have said.
Again, I continue to support Mr. Johns' subamendment. Thank you.