Thank you, Chair.
I have much to say, but I start by offering my sincerest apologies to Mr. Laporte, Mr. Mills, Mr. Albert and Madame Poulin for this shameless display of a cover-up, between the Liberal government and the NDP coalition partners, because we're all here to do a job. You all have jobs to do when you get back to your respective offices. We are taking you away from your respective offices and the good work that you do day in and day out, and it's no different for politicians. As parliamentarians, we're parliamentarians all year long. We're not parliamentarians when the House is sitting. We don't take a three- to four-month break and not worry about our responsibilities to Canada and to address ongoing issues that are of a prevalent concern in Canada, which is the issue with respect to the fraudulent billing and the broken procurement system we have in this country, which allowed fraudsters and grifters to take advantage of a broken system that didn't provide the appropriate oversight.
The Liberal government, and the members on this Liberal committee with their NDP partners, don't want to get to the truth. When I say we're parliamentarians for the entire year, that's exactly it. As my colleague Michael Barrett articulated, members of my community in Brantford—Brant, my constituency, know that I have to work year-round, and work from time to time and for extended periods of time in Ottawa in addition to my responsibilities to my community. In essence, parliamentarians can walk and chew gum at the same time. As my colleague indicated, 90% of the Liberal members of this committee and the NDP member are not physically here in Ottawa. They're taking advantage of what Parliament has allowed, in terms of a hybrid format, to do just that—walk and chew gum at the same time—to take meetings before and after.
I too had an extremely busy day today and a very busy day tomorrow, but do you know what? We all have incredible staff and we can reschedule meetings. When I tell my constituents, “I'm here fighting for you, to be your voice, to ask the tough questions,” they want me to do my job. They don't want to see me flipping hamburgers, stuffing a hotdog or handing out balloons and other trinkets to children. They expect me to do my job as a parliamentarian. When I have the ability to spend time in my constituency, I do that, all while balancing a family life. I'm the proud parent of twin daughters at 15 years of age. I can tell you, that's quite challenging.
It really angers me...and for you, witnesses, this isn't your first rodeo. You've all been either party to or heard how many of your colleagues across a number of departments prepared and attended in person—even though you have the ability to appear virtually as well—and, after working hard on and giving opening statements, got one round in from the Conservatives, only to be met by gamesmanship by the Liberal bench, supported by their NDP colleagues.
For me, it has happened at least a dozen times since January 1. In my view, it is so disrespectful to you as professionals. That's why I offer my sincerest apology.
However, should we be surprised? Where there's controversy, there is risk. The government clearly knows they're not currying any favour with Canadians. Depending on the poll, they're at least 20 points down and have a leader who refuses to smell the coffee and realize he is the most disliked Prime Minister in the history of this country and who is completely tone deaf to the reality and tone deaf to his own caucus, who quietly and quite often publicly voice their displeasure with his leadership. They will take cues from a failed leader as a Prime Minister. They'll take cues from a Prime Minister's Office who loves to control and mitigate the damage.
We've been exposing the damage of this issue every single week at government operations. That's the mandate of government operations: to take a look at problems, to identify those problems, to get the full picture and to look for solutions so the problem can be resolved in the future. If these members view that to be political or acting as a prosecutor, as Mr. Sousa has often indicated from time to time.... “We're being too prosecutorial. Mr. Brock, you've given up your former career as a crown prosecutor. You're a parliamentarian now. It's time to be nice and throw the softball questions to witnesses.”
That's not our job. Our job is to ask the tough questions and get the answers to what Canadians are asking.
We talk about political gamesmanship, and that is exactly what happened today, because there are a lot of problems with this issue that need to be explored.
We all remember the famous slogan that Justin Trudeau used in 2015: “Sunny ways”, Canadians, “sunny ways”. He even then wrote an open letter to Canadians, and I'm going to read various passages of that letter. It was dated November 4, 2015, and it starts off with “My dear friends”—