Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I fully support Mrs. Vignola's amendment and motion.
I like the fact that she quoted Bosc and Gagnon's House of Commons Procedure and Practice, because it is the authority on the procedural rules we are supposed to follow at all times.
In my opinion, Ms. Vignola's use of this source is extremely important. It is also important to get to the bottom of things to find out exactly what happened.
I think Mrs. Vignola's motion and amendment are reasonable because it gives you, Mr. Chair, the opportunity to provide for any accommodations the witnesses might require.
With a few weeks' lead time, you can arrange the necessary accommodations. This is entirely reasonable and it is important for the committee to get to the bottom of things.
I lived through the Harper years, when the Conservatives were in power.
For the four years of the Conservative government, committees were completely blocked, so we could not get to the bottom of things.
That's the way it was, whatever the scandal involved: SIST, Phoenix or the G8.
When Harper formed a majority government, his team prevented us from getting to the bottom of things and demanding transparency.
With a minority government now, it makes a difference because our committee may decide to invite the witnesses it wishes to hear from. With reasonable accommodation measures, we will be able to ask questions and get answers.
I should mention as well, Mr. Chair, that the reason we're supporting the motion and the amendments is that this has not been a practice of committees.
I'll give you the best example that I can cite, which was at the Canadian heritage committee when we had Meta corporation. It's one of the largest corporations in the world. We tried to convene Nick Clegg, who is their president of global affairs, and it was simply refused. There was no interest from Meta. Because Mr. Clegg is not based in Canada, there was no way to do a follow-up to compel him to be a witness.
The reality, as you know, Mr. Chair, is that Canadian taxpayers indirectly finance Meta and Google collectively. As the Library of Parliament has indicated to us, over a billion dollars a year in taxpayers' money go to an indirect subsidy. We subsidize the advertising on Meta. There are many problems with Meta, yet members of the heritage committee—particularly Conservatives—didn't want to press the issue of making sure that Meta was convened and forced to testify.
In this case, the amounts involved are smaller. However, the reality is that we still have that responsibility as a committee to convene and bring witnesses forward and make those accommodations that their medical conditions may require.
To give a reasonable period of time makes sense as well. That's what the amendment does. It talks about a 21-day period. It makes sense to do this.
I recall the Harper years. I recall how committees were shut down and unable to do their work when Harper's Conservatives were in a majority. However, I certainly believe that in a minority Parliament we have the ability and the obligation to call witnesses forward to get to the bottom of what happened with ArriveCAN, why so much money was spent and why the paperwork was not done in a responsible way.
I also flag, Mr. Chair, that this dates back to the Harper regime, and that some of the contracts that were given to the predecessor company of GC Strategies were provided during the Harper regime. It's important to question the witnesses about those contracts as well, contracts that date back to 2012 and 2013 with the predecessor company.
For all of those reasons, I'll be supporting the amendment and I will be supporting the motion as amended.
I think this is a measured approach. It gets us to the bottom of the information that we need to obtain on behalf of Canadians. It provides a long enough period for the witnesses to ensure that they are able to come forward, and it provides time for you, Mr. Chair, to ensure that reasonable accommodations are provided for any medical conditions that apply. For those reasons, I support both the amendment and then the motion as amended.