Thank you, Madam Chair.
I've just joined the committee, but I have been following its work with interest. With all due respect to my colleague Mr. Gerretsen, I'm a little bit surprised by his reaction to what my colleague Mr. Calkins said. I heard his whole statement. Basically, what he said was that, no matter our party, we were trying to politicize things. That is, however, pretty much what he himself did from the beginning of his statement. That is the subtext I heard. I understand that he is expressing concern. However, as noble and laudable as his words may seem when he utters them, these concerns seem rather personal, if not partisan, to me. At the same time, it is pure conjecture. It's science fiction. We cannot know what Mr. Poilievre or whoever else will do. I think it's quite a stretch to come here and talk about attacks.
We are talking here about protecting democracy. That is at the very core of all this, we all agree. I think that what we are asking for is also what our fellow citizens would want. I do not believe it would be a problem for a committee, a number of committees or a number of people to be given information, and I say this without specifying the nature of the information. It's also our duty. While there are experts who can look at this, at the end of the day, we are the elected members. Part of our role is to be accountable to the electorate, whether we like it or not, whether we are concerned about politicization or not.
Mr. Gerretsen said a number of times that much of the information is of a very sensitive nature. We are obviously talking about protecting the government and protecting Canadians and Quebeckers. At the same time, we were told earlier that there was practically nothing to worry about, that there wasn't really any need to worry, and that it therefore wasn't necessary to tell Canadians and Quebeckers about all this information. On the one hand, we are told it would be extremely dangerous and perilous to do so, and on the other, we're told there is absolutely nothing to worry about.
In short, I hope we will reach a consensus, or even unanimous agreement, on a motion so that the work can be done. All I see right now are attacks going from one to the other. We're told we have ulterior motives, myself included, when I don't see why I would comment on Mr. Calkins's statement. This is off topic, irrelevant, and we are being led down what could be a slippery slope.
We are not doing the work we are supposed to be doing, in my humble opinion. If the three or four meetings we want to add per week are actually going to be used to do exactly what is happening right now, that is, not say anything and not work for Canadians and Quebeckers, that's completely unappealing.
I hope this is a good response to Mr. Gerretsen. I hope we'll be able to move on to other things quickly, discuss the proposals in front of us and do something constructive. I think it's what people expect of us, instead of seeing members make a big fuss about partisan hypotheses that may not even happen.