Thank you, Madam Chair.
It's unfortunate, Madam Chair, that the Conservatives want to shut down my voice when I speak on this committee. It was Mr. Duncan himself who, in the debate on this amendment, brought up the issue of the documents in reference to The Globe and Mail. I'm simply responding. He opened that door and he's going to have to accept the counter-argument now, at this point.
It's fine if they.... Again, they wanted to move to debate this issue in public. Now the member opposite is upset that I am correcting the record on his testimony here and on what he spoke about. Unfortunately, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. He opened the door by discussing the specific documents, and that's precisely what I am now debating.
Madam Chair, in regard to that specific relevant information, which is the subject of this amendment, the Conservatives once again have demonstrated they don't take care with the national security classification and the risk it poses. We're debating amending this motion because of what the testimony was at this very committee. We've had members of the national security community express concern when they released documents into the open source that, once again, our adversaries also access.
Let's talk about some of those adversaries and the warnings we heard about releasing some of the information the amendment on the floor is debating to remove.
What I find interesting in the last few days in this place, and even yesterday, is that the Conservatives have talked about national security. They used a potentially serious incident at our border with the U.S. The Leader of the Opposition took his national security direction from Fox News and other alt-right media calling an incident at the border a terrorist attack without any basis for that claim. He then wove into that his party's slogan to “bring it home”.
I find it very difficult to sit here debating this motion today. The reason it's crucial we make these amendments is that the Conservatives can't be trusted with national security. They don't have the relevant security clearance to receive information, and they are reckless with information being distributed to Canadians...to protect them. They would rather listen to alt-right media and fearmonger, instead of waiting for the national security community to come forward with the accurate information.
This amendment is needed because Conservatives can't be trusted with this level of information. They don't understand why some information must be kept classified for the safety of Canadians and for the safety of our armed forces serving around the world. Instead, they want to create a scenario where the adversaries of Canada who seek to influence our elections and harm Canadians.... The Conservatives want to hand those adversaries the combination to the safe. They want those adversaries to know the intelligence Canada has. They want to give them a blueprint of how to better influence our elections by giving them the information we have.
That's what the Conservative motion here today does, and that's why we've moved an amendment to exclude some of this information.
You don't have to take my word for it. You can take the word of the non-partisan national security community, which has testified here, time and again during this study, about the risk of putting classified information into the public domain without any care for or concern about what that information contains, or for the people serving around the world.
It is very damaging and, frankly, should have all Canadians concerned about the people who seek to lead this country, the people who seek to serve in the highest office of this land, who choose not to receive a security clearance, who choose not to have the information and instead would like to create a motion and a committee of searching for nothing. They'd rather allude to a scandal than get down to the work of making our elections, of making our democracy, stronger against attempts of influence. They'd like to create falsehoods that there is somehow information not being relayed to this committee. They have acknowledged that the information relayed was of national security significance.
It also reminds me of what we also saw the Conservatives do this week, which was pretty shocking and concerning, in regard to the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement.
It's precisely why this amendment—