Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I really sincerely hope that the members of the opposition don't start charging rent for how much I am living in their heads right now.
I find it particularly interesting that when you have a very weak argument you instead go to personal attacks. That's all we've heard in these last ramblings.
Let me do a bit of a recap here.
What we heard today was that thousands of pages or documents—however you want to define them—were provided to the law clerk. They are continuing to be provided in unredacted form when appropriate. The law clerk confirmed that. He also confirmed that the government has never indicated that they are withholding anything. In fact, he confirmed that the documents are still being produced. In fact, he also didn't argue in any way—and didn't take the bait from the opposition—to say that the government was in any way in breach. He clearly said that he is continuing to do his job. He is receiving the documents that are being provided.
I think the Conservative and NDP coalition's big day today was to try to get some gotcha moment that just didn't happen, because it's not happening because the government is providing the documents.
That's a quick recap.
What has happened here since then is this whole kind of like throwing of spaghetti to see what sticks. Mr. Morantz spoke about national security. Nobody in the motion before us is talking about national security. He perhaps is at the wrong committee. The reference to national security was simply on some of the parameters in the House motion for redactions, but the law clerk never suggested that any of the documents from the October 26 motion were not being complied with. In fact, he said he's still receiving them, and that work is still ongoing.
Then what did the Conservatives do? They called this a dictatorship. They referred to Watergate, Richard Nixon.... I mean, has there been a substantial argument on the facts before us? No. It's nothing but name-calling. This is the Conservatives' big moment.
Documents are being presented. In fact, I think the clerk said that over 6,000 documents have been provided to the clerk. I received notification of them, and guess what? Not a single member of the opposition has called to have a meeting to review any of those documents. We haven't had a meeting talking about them. The Conservatives just received them. The conspiracy theory that I'm referring to is the fact that there's this conspiracy theory that there's some big set of documents not being provided, and they don't receive anything. In fact, they've received the documents, and what they're not telling Canadians is that there is no scandal in them, so “let's pretend that there's some big thing here that's missing”. It reminds me of the U.S.—the big lie. There's no scandal in the documents that they've received, the thousands of documents that they've received, so now it's about innuendo of what else is out there.
Well, Mr. Chair, let me move on, then, to the next part that was brought up. Mr. Lawrence and I forget who else mentioned it, but they talked about the contracts. The contracts are the base of this issue. Mr. Maguire said that: the contracts are at the base of this issue. Mr. Lawrence said it's “simple”. Well, Mr. Chair, I have the October 26 motion in my hands right now. It is four pages long. There are 30 clauses in this motion. The opposition even included an amendment through the process—30 clauses, four pages, and not a single mention of vaccine contracts. How simple is that?
I think what has happened here is that the Conservatives went on a fishing expedition with the NDP, and nothing came up. Then they get into revisionist history with what I keep referring to as “the Barlow motion”, because again, Mr. Chair: four pages, 30 clauses, and not a single mention of the vaccine contracts that the Conservatives say are at the heart of this. They have a funny way of showing what's at the heart of something.
There's been more mention of personal attacks on me than vaccine contracts by the opposition today. I think Canadians can see through the games.
After the October 26 motion was put in place—30 clauses, four pages and no mention of vaccine contracts—the Conservatives realized that, oops, they didn't mention that, so in walks the Barlow motion on February 5.
In this motion they actually acknowledge in the third paragraph—I kept referring to it today—that, “If the Law Clerk does not have such documents”. Well, if it was so simple and in the October motion or order of the House, why would you put in a provision like that? It's because it didn't exist, so the Conservatives are trying to rewrite history.
But, when you take the Barlow motion, it clearly says that if the law clerk doesn't have these documents—because the law clerk was never required to have those documents—it sets out parameters of how these documents should be shared with the committee.
Here's the big thing that Conservatives don't want Canadians to understand, Mr. Chair. It asks for the vaccine agreements with the suppliers, that they be tabled with the committee in both official languages and that the documents be vetted in accordance with the parameters set out in the House motion.
The law clerk confirmed that was done. The documents were provided to the members of this committee. They were provided in both official languages and they were set out with the parameters of the motion. The vetting was done based on the parameters of the main motion.
The difference is, and what the Conservatives are trying to argue, that the law clerk should have done the vetting. If the members of the opposition wanted that, why didn't they include it in their motion? It is not the government's fault that the Conservatives create this web of lies, confusion and procedure upon amendments, motions and orders that don't actually make sense, and then come back and say that government never did the thing they never asked it to do.
No Canadian would see this as a logical way to do business. Instead, the government, in an attempt to be as transparent as possible said that here are the documents in both official languages and that the government had vetted them based on the parameters of the October motion. The government complied. The Conservatives are so unused to the government because when they were in government.... These members are so not used to committees actually receiving this information that I think their heads exploded and they didn't know what to do.
I guess to conclude, Mr. Chair, I'm pretty animated on this because I feel like it's such a misuse of this House. The insults that have been said, that this is somehow a dining club and why are we here....
If the members want something to do, why don't they go through the thousands of documents that have been provided to them? Why don't they speak to Canadians about those documents?
It's because there's no scandal. The only things Conservatives know how to do is make up conspiracy theories and suggest that there is some horrible thing happening and Canadians just need to know about it.
When you actually look at the facts in front of you, I think it says a lot that the Conservatives and the NDP actually tried to filibuster their own motion today because they know they don't have legs to stand on. Instead they resort to personal attacks, name-calling, referring to this as a dictatorship—a dictatorship that provided all the documents. I think they have a pretty messed-up view of what a dictatorship looks like because we complied with the motion.
It's not the government's fault that their motion doesn't make sense. It's not the government's fault that the October order didn't include vaccine contracts. The government complied with it. It's not the government's fault that after 30 clauses, four pages and not a single reference to vaccine contracts, now the Conservatives, propped up by the NDP, are crying conspiracy theory and crying that there is some horrible thing happening here.
This is my last point, Mr. Chair. I think it's pretty horrible that.... I couldn't disagree more with Mr. Lemire's comments about vaccines being too expensive. I'd be super curious to know what he thinks the price of one of his constituent's lives is. He wanted us to wait and not purchase vaccines, but I would say, Mr. Chair, that we worked to save lives, to procure vaccines for the saving of those lives. I think his constituents would be very interested to know that he felt we spent too much money trying to save their lives.
I think what we have here is a classic case of the Conservatives really not having any facts to back up their accusations. Instead, they turn to innuendo and name-calling. That's fine, Mr. Chair. I think Canadians can see right through it because we have the documents right in front of us. The committee has been provided thousands of pages and not a single thing has been raised by these committee members. I think that says it all.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.