Mr. Chair, I would like to build on the comments of my colleagues Mr. DeCourcey and Ms. Kwan.
First, with regard to the standing order that Mr. DeCourcey mentioned, we have only an hour to examine this and this is a fairly weighty policy matter. I've conducted hundreds of job interviews in my life, and one of the exercises I often use to determine the competency of someone who, frankly, has been on the job for two months already is to ask, “Do you have a plan? What would you do in this situation? What are you going to do with it?”
Given that there are close to $1 billion of expenses now associated with the crisis at Roxham Road and the IRB backlog, I don't agree with the assertion that this is confidential information, and if it is, which is ridiculous, it should be tabled with this committee. I want that information.
Mr. DeCourcey, I don't agree with you. Frankly, I think it's spin to try to not have information in front of this committee in terms of real change.
To my colleague Ms. Kwan, I agree that we should move on with these things, but sometimes there is something that is worth fighting for. Why can't we have a document from the IRB that says what the plan is?
I'm sure Mr. Wex is quite competent. I'm sure he'd love the opportunity to table with the committee some assumptions around what the intake is going to be and the resource assumptions that are going to be required to reduce the inventory over a certain period of time. I don't understand why we as parliamentarians, especially going into a budgetary cycle, wouldn't want to look at that information.
Frankly, in terms of my Liberal colleagues voting this down, why would Parliament not want to examine this information? I'm sure Mr. Wex will provide something that is suitably sanitized, to allay the concerns of my colleagues opposite, a routine document that would be provided to this committee.
I would like to do that. I'm sure you guys will be able to crow about whatever you're trying to do in it. I don't think this is a frightening exercise by any means. The only reason to vote this down is that you have something to hide. Don't hide this; move on.