Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm bringing up my favourite subjects—Stellantis and Volkswagen contracts. We've had a number of motions since December. I think MP Masse had one on here that attempted to find a solution back then to narrow the scope rather than having just the whole contracts. There has been lots of discussion by Liberal members about how, if we released the whole contracts, there would be some sort of commercial sensitivity in that.
In the spirit of compromise, I've circulated to the clerk a proposed motion that tries to accommodate the concerns that were expressed by several other parties. While I believe there is very little that's commercially sensitive in the contracts—because the Liberal ministers, the Prime Minister and this committee have spoken at length about the number of jobs associated with each contract in both the construction and production phases—there should be absolutely no commercial sensitivity if the government releases the clauses in the contracts related specifically to the job commitments in those contracts and makes them public.
Since all those numbers that have been talked about in the House, in public and in the media—the 2,500, the 2,700 and the 1,300—are not obviously commercially sensitive, the clauses around those should be released.
The first part of the motion, which I won't read here because we're short on time, basically lists the companies we're talking about. The second part says basically that we want the contract clauses that detail the job commitments, including any and all prohibitions or limits on the use of foreign replacement workers; any requirements that require Canadian citizens or permanent residents to be employed; any and all references to direct, indirect and induced job commitments; and any penalties for failing contractual obligations to be outlined.
There are a few other things it asks for. Once the committee has those, it asks for ministers and officials from both the companies and the departments to appear to answer questions related to those job commitments.
Since this is basically what the NDP has been asking for and since the Liberals have been saying that they can't release the whole contracts because they're commercially sensitive, this part isn't. I would find it hard to believe, then, that anyone in this committee would vote against this motion. If you would, that means there's obviously something else to hide that says that these commitments don't do what the government has publicly said they do.
I'll leave it there, since we're short on time, Mr. Chair, and consider this tabled. Hopefully, we can vote on it today.
