Chair, there's not a lot that surprises me in this place, but I am quite shocked, frankly, by the approach the NDP has taken.
Here's where we are.
The federal government is planning on spending over $40 billion on these various subsidies. Information has come out that these subsidies are in many cases going to fund foreign replacement workers—not creating paycheques for Canadians but supporting foreign replacement workers.
As a result of a lack of transparency around these contracts and concerns about how this spending of Canadian tax dollars is going to bring in foreign replacement workers instead of creating good jobs here in Canada, Conservatives have sought transparency from the government. We've tried to get copies of the contracts. We believe the shareholders, the taxpayers, who are the people who are paying these subsidies, and the workers who are affected by them deserve to see the contracts.
We signed the required letter and brought this committee together. At the time, we had the support of the other opposition parties, saying that these contracts should be made public. That is a principled position that, I think, is widely supported by Canadians and especially supported by workers. We stand with workers. We believe that creating good jobs for Canadian workers is critical. The government has an obligation to be transparent in these cases about a public subsidy and about what the impact of that subsidy is going to be in terms of workers and jobs.
After Liberal filibustering to block that motion, we just had the NDP fold at this committee. After grand statements by Mr. Masse on transparency and supporting workers, the NDP folded like a cheap suit and voted against our motion. We just had a vote on our motion to require the disclosure of these contracts. The Liberals have been filibustering, and they ended their filibuster. Our motion came to a vote, and the NDP, despite saying it supported the motion and despite the fact that we had incorporated a number of its amendments refining the language, voted against it.
So much for transparency, and so much for workers. A bit of pressure from the Trudeau Liberals in the form of a filibuster leads the NDP to change its position, abandoning all other stated principles.
What do we have before us? We have this motion from Mr. Masse that says a parliamentary committee should file an ATIP.
Mr. Chair, as news for anybody watching, any member of the public has a right to file an ATIP. Parliamentary committees have a constitutionally protected unfettered right to send for documents and to set their own timelines in the process. We don't have to go through the long-drawn-out and, frankly, as a result of this government's actions, increasingly troubled and broken ATIP process. We can send for an order for the production of documents, and this committee has an unfettered right to request those documents.
After a bit of pressure from the Liberals, the NDP position is, “We're not going to order the production of these documents. We're not going to make them public. We're going to have a parliamentary committee file an ATIP request.”