Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you also to Ms. Vignola for her work in trying to find a compromise for this nuclear option, an option that might set a precedent that might cause some concern with regard to those health issues and the precedent that it would set. I appreciate Ms. Vignola's attempt to foster a means by which we can respect the concerns of the witnesses.
They've advised us that there's been legal counsel. We've attempted, I presume twice, to invite the witnesses to appear. Maybe a third time would be appropriate, but the motion before us will have consequences with regard to apprehending these witnesses. It will have implications for us regarding the matters that have been identified by my colleagues and by Ms. Vignola herself, who also appreciates these concerns with respect to the integrity and the privacy of the matter that has been addressed to us. We have been advised by the witnesses and their lawyers to proceed with some caution as a consequence of what has taken place.
The Globe and Mail and other media outlets have already commented on the circumstances of what has occurred—the impact it's had on certain individuals and the conduct by members of this committee who have gone beyond the scope of the committee to address witnesses directly, to circumvent at times the investigation and the investigators and to address matters with independent agencies of government which, by their own accord, do not report directly to a parliamentarian or elected official but to the circumstances at hand, including the RCMP. That's their job. They don't take instructions from us, nor should they.
What we're now trying to suggest is that we are taking the position that we certainly have the right to take as parliamentarians, given the supremacy of Parliament, but with a consequence of this nature in the way it's presented to us today, versus a circumstance that.... The investigation is still ongoing. The process of addressing the allegations of criminality, if criminality exists, is still under way. We need to have that process take place. We need the integrity of that process.
I get the frustration that we all have in terms of having the witnesses appear before us and affirming the concerns and the actions that have been taken by these particular witnesses and by the others who have been discussed and named throughout our deliberations.
However, there's also a responsibility, I believe, as to whether the consequences of some of the actions that we take are going to take will support the investigation. Are they going to enable those responsible to get to the matter at hand? Are they going to be prejudiced by our activities? I don't know the answer, but I do know that the way this motion is put forward—and I really appreciate Mrs. Vignola's attempt to foster something more co-operative, because we're all in agreement about fostering a way to enable these witnesses to appear before us—is that nuclear option. There is a precedent that would occur, and that is ultimately a concern that I think all of us share.
As I go through it, I appreciate that the front end of this motion has been amended to assess more accurately some of the situations that are before us. In other words, the partisan political stuff that's been removed is helpful, because in the way it originally played, it was as though elected officials and others were complicit with the activities of CBSA or others. Again, I'm not presupposing it. The way we were acting assumed that everyone was guilty. We haven't even attempted to determine what actions occurred. There are other matters that we have privilege to receive that address some of that.
There's also the fact that Kristian Firth and others did business with the Government of Canada years before the development of ArriveCAN. Certainly, during the time of the Conservative government, they were quite active in their engagement. We already have a motion that asks to determine and collect those activities to understand more holistically how these things have taken place.
Kristian Firth and others have already appeared before us, and they've identified some of the processes by which they have come to obtain contracts with government throughout the last 20 years, but it's important, given the allegations that are out there, that we get to the bottom of what has taken place relative to the application of ArriveCAN, which is a compilation of many IT initiatives.
The option then to detain the witnesses, to issue a form of an arrest and to supersede the caution that has been given to us relative to the matters of health give us pause. That gives us a reason to be cautious and a reason to offer alternatives, I believe, in the circumstances before us. We still have more results to come to us. We still have the finalization of the investigation to read and to address.
I've considered what has been spoken already by some of my colleagues with respect to the establishment of GC Strategies in the circumstances when the COVID Alert app came to be, the suite of tools and the guidance that was developed by government to slow the spread of COVID. This was to provide opportunities for international trade, to keep businesses going, to enable millions and millions of Canadians to cross the border and, frankly, to be protected from those crossing in.
I look at the establishment and the complexity of the application in the short period of time it was required to be made. Some will say that it was a very simple thing and that it was an off-the-shelf application, but that's just not true. On the initial proposal, the assessment, you can look at it as building a tree house in the backyard that cost $80,000, but this app is like a skyscraper. You had to have contractors and engineers and subcontractors. There was the complexity around different departments and the enabling and assessment of millions and millions of transactions. There was also the complexity of dealing with the privacy issues. There was a lot of complexity and a lot of background in establishing the application and protecting people's privacy.
I am concerned as to the way it reads now, only because of the fact that it may be considered a precedent. We may have concerns with regard to its finality when we go forward. I just want us to be sensitive to what that means, and again I thank Mrs. Vignola for her amendments. I truly appreciate that. I think our colleagues appreciate it.
For those watching, please note that all of us on this committee want to see resolution, and we want to ensure that if there was any misconduct, those things will be addressed. We want transparency. We want accountability. We want people to stand forward in terms of what has taken place. We want to ensure that any application or any processes that did not occur properly are addressed.
Much of that is occurring already with the reports from the Auditor General, the ombudsman and the Information Commissioner, whom we heard from today. I just leave it to the committee to appreciate the precedent and the motion that we're trying to put forward at this point.
I will pass it on to the next speaker for their comments.