I notice that Mr. Savage is very selective in what he wants to choose to say that he said and very selective in what he chose to hear today. Obviously there were some transition issues that were addressed and clearly the witnesses referred to those transition issues. We hardly went back to the old Liberal plan.
I want to talk about the motion here right now. I want to be very clear, because with the comments that Ms. Dhalla was making--and I'm not sure if she was listening when the witnesses were addressing her questions--it's very clear they were differentiating between what gets released publicly for everyone's consumption and the information that you get in your office regarding your own specific riding, and who was and wasn't selected at that time. That information was never released publicly unless you decided to send out a press release and do that. What I heard the witnesses say today, and I thought it was very clear, is this is not information that has been released in the past publicly. Who got funding and who didn't riding by riding across the entire country is not information that has been released publicly, and it is not information that they feel is appropriate to be released publicly.
What would happen if it's brought to this committee is it becomes public as soon as it's tabled in the committee if we're not in camera. I just think before we vote on this we just need to know what it is we're voting on. Let's make sure we're very clear. We're voting on the release of information that hasn't in the past under the old Liberal program or ours been released before. It's plain and simple. Let's at least just know what we're voting on before we vote. Let's be clear on that.
Just in reviewing the motion here I'm going to propose an amendment to it in bullets one and two. In bullet one, what I would like it to say is “under the summer career placement program in 2004, 2005, and 2006”. Then in bullet two I would like it to say the same thing, “summer career placement program for 2004, 2005, and 2006”.
I think we need to get some perspective if we're going to be discussing this fairly. We need to have some context and we need to know what's happened in the past as well. I think it's a common-sense amendment. If we're going to vote for the motion anyway, I don't think there would be any concerns with adding those other years.