Mr. Chair, thank you for having us here today.
I'd just like to look back a bit. Tomorrow, I will have sat as a federal member of Parliament for 12 of the past 16 years, and I'd like to come back to what my colleague was saying, which is that it sets a precedent to have a motion with amendments that fill one and a quarter pages.
I'm sorry to remind him that when the Conservatives were in power from 2009 to 2011, as well as from 2011 to 2015—though I unfortunately wasn't a member of Parliament—there were motions like this one. This is far from being a precedent. This is the reality of being in the opposition and, as a government, dealing with serious analyses that have to be done in response to problems that arise from the implementation of software and new legislation, among other things.
In this case, I think the government is quite able to see that the $1.7‑billion estimate that was done for the system's implementation in 2017 was vastly underestimated. That means we're now at $6.6 billion, and the system hasn't even been completely implemented from A to Z. There are still other steps to carry out, which will possibly cost even more billions of dollars.
Asking for answers through a motion like this one, amended by the Conservatives, is perfectly normal. It's perfectly normal to do so when there are cost overruns like these. I don't know if ArriveCAN rings a bell or if the sponsorship scandal rings a bell. Those are things that have happened in the past and that have called for reflection, studies and analyses on how the money was spent.
As the responsible government that you are—or say you are—and as a transparent government, as you say you are, I don't see why you would have a problem with this motion. Obviously, it will definitely cost money to be able to assess what happened. However, we would not have needed to propose this motion if the costs had been met.