Mr. Chair, perhaps you can help us, actually, while I have the floor.
Have you checked to see how much money we've spent in this committee to get these documents, or does the clerk have a rough estimate of how much money we've spent? It's a lot of documents. We're talking thousands of pages of documents from departments, and it takes time. We know that. It's evident that five weeks was not enough time for what we were requesting, given the limited resources the government has, especially the translation bureau. I completely support what Mr. Barrett said around respecting minority rights, as well as Ms. Vignola's concerns. They are all of our concerns. The quality of translation is completely unacceptable. When our office has ATIP requests, they often take months to get back, even for just a small number of documents, let alone tens of thousands of pages, even in their original language and not translated.
Can you share whether you—or the clerk—have a ballpark figure of how much money has been spent to get access to these documents? Are we into the tens of millions of dollars, right now?
I don't want us to be spending more money getting these documents and getting them translated than McKinsey got in contracts from the federal government. I want to be mindful of taxpayers' dollars and where we're going. Initially, this whole study started with concerns there was a link from the government to McKinsey. Later, it became about McKinsey and their connection to the toxic drug crisis. Now, it's about parliamentary privilege. I'm not saying these aren't valid concerns, but I am concerned about the time this committee is spending, where we're going with this and the amount of resources we're spending.
I take my part of the responsibility here, as well, on this committee. However, I'd like to get some idea of where we're going and how much money we've spent. It is important we get an idea, in order to make some sound decisions here at this table. I know our greater committee concern—