Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
To my colleague Ms. Rempel Garner, I don't know if I've ever been called “elegant” before. I will definitely be putting that on my resumé.
To my colleague Ms. Sidhu, we have talked for the last hour about how important it is to get this information and get to work and answer questions for Canadians. To me, your adjournment attempt means that this is something you don't want to talk about.
I want to be clear that we are not asking for anything that is not going to come out eventually. We are asking in this motion if the law clerk has already received the contracts or the documents that are part of the contracts. If he has, this motion is asking him to prioritize the translation and the release of those documents to the committee for us to review. If he has not received those documents, this motion is asking that the government put a priority on providing those documents, those contracts, to the law clerk for review, translation, and again, to come to this committee.
We are trying not to prolong the inevitable. We're actually trying to speed it up. We have now seen that this is a critical issue for Canadians when we see just how far behind other countries we are in terms of accessing vaccines. Even more so, what are the [Technical difficulty—Editor] of these manufacturers if they do not meet their obligations with the Government of Canada? Are Canadians assured that the manufacturers are going to meet their obligations and...not do their best but actually have a hammer in those contracts that ensures that Canadians get the vaccines the government has promised them? If not, then what next?
Really, this motion is just to put a priority on the documents that the law clerk is already going to receive. If he hasn't, it ensures that he gets them as quickly as possible and we get them in front of committee. That's really what this motion is. It is not asking for anything different or over and above. This is just trying to expedite or accelerate access to those contracts. I am sure they will be heavily redacted, but some information, as my good friend Mr. Davies says, is better than no information. I think what Canadians are asking for right now is some insights and some transparency on what these contracts entail.
I hope that clarifies a little bit what this motion really entails.
Thanks, Mr. Chair.