Thank you, Chair.
I'm sorry to see that this may not be as simple as I thought it would be.
Let me state what I think all members know: There are different officers of Parliament and different organizations with very different mandates. Obviously, we have the RCMP looking into allegations of criminal activity. I suspect we will hear from them at some point. There's the Auditor General's report. The Auditor General is acting as an auditor, with specific scope to look at a set of things related to money and value for money, processes, etc. We have the procurement ombudsman's report, which has a distinct mandate related to procurement.
The role of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, as an officer of Parliament, is to investigate wrongdoing and to investigate clearly allegations of problems in integrity in relation to people in government. We have allegations of reprisals against public servants following their committee testimony of the destruction of documents and of extortion. There are many serious allegations flying back and forth, with senior public servants accusing each other of lying to parliamentary committees. These are very distinct issues related to integrity within government. I think that the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner has the right mandate to investigate those specific issues and, crucially, has the advantage of independence.
We oppose efforts by some to bury this matter or to limit the scope of the investigations. There was a clear agenda, I think, on the part of the government to want to have this limited to an internal investigation that ultimately they can control. When we have an officer of Parliament responsible for making investigations into public sector integrity issues, I think that is a clear and appropriate way of getting to the bottom of this situation.
Look, if we wait until other reports are complete before this process starting itself at all, then we are just continually pushing off actually getting to the truth. I think it is right and responsible for this committee to ask for the support of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner as an independent actor, as someone with credibility and as someone who will look at issues distinctly different from those in the other reports.
Again, I hope this motion will have the support of colleagues. It's a simple, straightforward motion. There's no extraneous commentary in the motion at all. I think it's something that all members should be able to support to allow proper investigations to take place.