I think we want to get to the vote, but having said that, I'm sufficiently ticked off about this that I want a couple of minutes to speak about it.
Yes, this is an important matter. How the government spends public money is important, and that's why we're willing to vote with the opposition so we are able to look at the contract. So be it. Go ahead. However, to bring this forward as a Standing Order 106(4) motion, I think, is a real abuse of process. That's for something that's urgent.
These are contracts that are at least two years old. I remember, and those of us who sat on HESA throughout COVID will remember the fact that we had long discussions about the release of the contracts at that time. This is two years later. These are contracts that are already being made available to another committee, yet some Conservative, in the middle of the night, woke up with this brain wave, “Oh my God, what happened with those contracts that we haven't seen? Let's call back the HESA committee to discuss this right now.”
Is that really more important than, for example, the opioid study? I'd be far happier to be sitting here and talking about the opioid crisis, which the Conservatives were talking about over the last number of weeks. With Don's number, the number six came up. The Government of Canada website states there are 22 deaths per day. Is that worthy of calling back HESA? No, it doesn't seem to be, not for the Conservatives. They'd rather bring up this issue of the contracts and procuring contracts because that's more urgent.
How about the women's study? How about the things that we studied, like recommendations on breast cancer screening? I don't know...thousands of women die every year in Canada from breast cancer. You would think that maybe that would be something we should urgently talk about, but no, that's not urgent either. What's urgent are these contracts that are two years old.
I think it's a real abuse of process that we're called back to discuss this. Is this more important? Should we put aside all those other things to study this for six sessions? No, it is absolutely not. You guys should be embarrassed for making this motion.