Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I've been listening with great interest to all the comments from the different political parties. My spouse, who's a theologian, repeatedly told me during her studies that a text without context is a pretext. I thought of that while I was listening to the comments being made by my colleagues, particularly Mr. Julian and Ms. Gaudreau.
I think it's very important to establish a broader context to assess all the documents and all the newspaper allegations about foreign interference. This would ensure that Canadians will be well served by our study. I hope that it'll be a serious and non-partisan study, for all the reasons my colleagues mentioned. I think that all members are concerned about the integrity of our elections, with the exception, perhaps, of some members of the official opposition, based on what we heard.
Madam Chair, if it were truly up to me, I think the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians would be the best place to get full access to unredacted documents, but I sense that there is perhaps a consensus developing around this table, so I'm going to try to be helpful.
I've sent to the clerk for distribution an amendment to Mr. Cooper's motion, as follows:
That the motion be amended by deleting subparagraphs (c), (h) and (i), amending subparagraph (l) to add after the word “public” the words “and any other witnesses the committee members wish to hear from”, and by replacing the words—