Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There was a question from Ms. Khalid regarding the selection of that date, and the date is roughly aligned with when the conversations happened surrounding Canada's first so-called safer supply program in London, Ontario, which began in 2016. This would just allow us to encompass those historical data.
It's worth noting that a while ago, Dr. Ellis put forward an Order Paper question, and in it we got a whole bunch of data back on SUAP, which is the substance-use funding agreement. In some parts of it, it literally lists the project title as “Safer Supply”, and then in the activity, it says, “Service Delivery”. It leads us to believe that there would in fact be federal government contracts for this. It's just one of those situations in which we've tried, through OPQs, to get to the space, and considering this is a space where taxpayer dollars are going towards these substances, I do think it is incumbent on us to just make sure that we're looking through this.
While I appreciate the conversation that contracts can be looked at in different committees, which is very true, contracts regarding government money do fall under the purview of OGGO. So as to not continue having these conversations, I would prefer to see paragraph (b) stay in, with respectfully asking provinces and territories to provide us with these contracts.
However, I do understand the concerns that have been raised regarding provincial jurisdiction; I just hope that we can support this in order to get these documents and see where the contracts lie.