Thank you. Those were my thoughts exactly.
With that, Mr. Chair, I move:
That the Chair be instructed to present the following report to the House forthwith, provided that dissenting or supplementary opinions, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(b), shall be filed with the clerk of the committee within 24 hours of adoption of this motion:
The Standing Committee on Health has met pursuant to its Order of Reference of Monday, October 26, 2020, and recommends the following:
That the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, when vetting documents under subparagraph (aa)(ii) of the Order adopted by the House on Monday, October 26, 2020, be instructed to prioritize the vetting in the following order: (a) documents, produced by the Public Health Agency of Canada in response to paragraphs (y) and (z) of the Order, concerning vaccines; (b) all other documents, produced in response to paragraphs (y) and (z) of the Order, concerning vaccines; (c) documents, produced in response to paragraph (w) of the Order, concerning rapid testing; (d) other categories of documents which may be specified, from time to time, by the Standing Committee on Health; and (e) all other documents; that all documents be circulated to the committee in both official languages; and
That the Standing Committee on Health may, on the request of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, grant one or more extensions of the deadline, prescribed by subparagraph (aa)(ii) of the Order adopted by the House on Monday, October 26, 2020, for his vetting of documents, provided that he shall provide the Committee with a weekly status report on the vetting process.
Chair, while the clerk is here, I think we've heard a lot of interest in the Canadian media, putting it mildly, on the vaccine production process and distribution, etc. The documents that are going to be relevant to the committee could be prioritized, as the clerk just said. What this would do is, per the clerk's suggestion, give him some directions on what to prioritize first and foremost, and produce first and foremost. It would also give him the ability to come back to our committee at future points.
What I'm thinking here is that we prioritize the topics that are first and foremost in the minds of Canadians and that I think have been in front of Parliament the most frequently over the last few months and are probably the most material to our response to COVID, so that we can look at those in an expeditious manner, and then allow the clerk to come back to committee and essentially tell us how it's going. I think this is an elegant solution to perhaps some challenges that have been outlined. It would allow us to move forward as parliamentarians and to be able to scrutinize the government's response—the adequacy of it—while providing some direction and clarity.
I will note this. I do find it odd that the clerk has not received any documents yet. For the PCO, in a letter today, which is now public—and I can speak to this—to say that there is a substantive quantity, to quantify that volume and not to have passed anything to the clerk to date, is odd.
Again, I would like to commend the clerk and his team for helping parliamentarians do their job. It is my hope that the committee will support this motion so that we can give him some direction on what to prioritize, and then what we can be scrutinizing in the first order.
Thank you.