In the spirit of trying to get to the vote—I can sense we want to move forward, and I think that's a good thing—I have a couple of brief comments.
One of the problems with the subamendment by Ms. Gladu is that there would be no controls whatsoever on confidentiality, and I'm a bit concerned by that. I haven't read the whole contract, but again, when you have a commercial vendor that is tendering with the government, I think there needs to be at least some examination or possibility of ensuring that the contract isn't just floated out in public without any controls on it. I don't see those controls in the subamendment.
The issue is, as well.... I'm going to repeat again that, in my reading of this motion—and I think Madame Vignola asked this question without an answer—we can speak about it. We can share it. We just can't reproduce it. I think that's a measured step.
I would also say to my colleagues that this isn't the end of the matter. Once we read the contract, it's open, for any member of the committee who has concerns about what they see in the unredacted version, to put forth another motion if they want. Maybe the time will come when a deeper dive will have to happen. I'm just not necessarily convinced that's happened yet.
To the notion of whether this is a priority or urgent, nobody's saying that this issue isn't important or it's not even a priority. The question, I think—and I agree with Dr. Powlowski—is whether or not this was urgent. I don't think anybody can make a credible case that here, on Friday, January 19, this issue is urgent to deal with, given the context. We can debate how much of a priority it is, but I will still stand with the 20 people dying each day and the opioid overdose crisis being a bigger priority than the nuances of this contract, as important as they may be.
Finally, I want to say that my issue with Dr. Ellis.... I didn't know clairvoyance was part of his medical skills, such as to anticipate what I would or wouldn't agree to. Interestingly, when he asked me to consider a 106(4) on the other issue of $2 billion—which, by the way, has not been established yet—my only issue was that I didn't think it was urgent. I didn't think it warranted our meeting today to discuss that. I may support it in the future or not. I don't know about his mind-reading skills, but interestingly, if his argument is that he wouldn't have the courtesy to show me this motion in advance because I didn't vote or didn't support one much larger, one might ask the question, why didn't he introduce the motion that he said he would on the much larger issue? If there's a $2-billion scandal, why didn't he introduce a 106(4) on the $2-billion scandal, not the $150-million scandal? The logic there is as distorted as can be.
Anyway, I'm happy to just go to a vote on this. I think this is an important issue. I think it warrants further investigation. I'm happy to support transparency. I'm happy to support all committee members to see the unredacted version of this contract, and I'm happy to see where it goes from there. I think the attempt by the Conservatives to frame this as, if you don't support their motion with all of the issues involved—like the six meetings and involving the industry minister in all this—somehow you don't support transparency and accountability, is simply wrong. I think this is a measured step towards more transparency, and I'm prepared to support it.