I said this in my opening remarks and it paired off with what the honourable member on the other side led off with, which is that if we are to continue to attract foreign direct investment into our country and have companies come to Canada and invest a great deal of money, employing hundreds if not thousands of people, they have to know, when they sign an agreement with the Government of Canada, that the commercially sensitive pieces of that agreement are kept confidential. That is the only way we will continue to attract that foreign direct investment. If they can't trust that we are going to keep commercially sensitive items confidential, they won't come here. That sucking sound that we hear going to the United States currently will be enhanced. We cannot allow that to happen.
It doesn't matter which party is in government, Mr. Chair. It doesn't matter. This will impact our country for decades. My concern is for future generations of workers, for my kids—and I know that some members of this committee have kids too. Are we going to roll the dice on attracting foreign direct investment because they believe that some committee at some point may be able to show commercially sensitive information that can move markets and damage Canada's reputation within capital markets and within the labour market more broadly?
I share a lot of the concerns my honourable colleagues within the Conservative Party and the Bloc have raised around workers, but we need to look long-term. All of you are very smart people. I have a lot of respect for you. If a short-term opportunity here to request documents could damage our country for decades, and damage our ability to continue to attract these jobs from around the world—as I said, this is regardless of which party is in office—I urge you to please reconsider your position about redacting the commercially sensitive pieces of these contracts. Maybe there's some other agreement we could come to. To just ask for a full release of documents into the public could damage our credibility as a country and impact future jobs that we would be able to attract.
Thank you.