Thank you, Madam Chair.
Folks, we're here on a parliamentary break week. Let's work on moving the discussion forward. I'm going to propose a concrete amendment that I think reflects some good suggestions made by a number of colleagues. It might not be the be-all and end-all, but I'm working on the fly on how we can move forward effectively and in a timely way on this matter.
I do want to say, just responding to some of the comments, that the distribution of materials in both official languages is already covered by routine motions. That would be a given. There could be no distribution of the documents requested in this motion if they were not received in both official languages or translated once received.
There's been some discussion of the substantive matter underlining this, and suggestions about what may or may not have caused the problem here. I do think it's really important, though, that Government of Canada lawyers said in court on November 20 that the act was in force. Likely, the decision to say that was made even before the initial meeting took place, so we have not one but actually multiple different cases of wrongdoing or multiple overlapping errors here. It's more than just the coming-into-force-date issue. It's the coming-into-force-date issue compounding the fact that representations were made in cabinet prior to that initial determination.
Look, I'm not here to say definitively what did or didn't happen. I think that's why we put forward a study motion. Reading into the record emails and discussing what the view of the deputy minister is are germane as evidence, but we know there were multiple different problems here. You have a court meeting on the same day as cabinet considers the OIC, so cabinet is considering the OIC on the same day that the discussion is happening in court. However, it's being said in court that the OIC has already gone through. Even independent of the subsequent events, that raises some significant questions.
I think we need to have a short study on this. I think we need to have a look at it. It may be that committee members come to one conclusion or another after that study takes place, but I think we need to have the information.
The amendment I'm going to propose would make two changes. Number one, in the first paragraph, after “departmental”, I would add “and PCO”. I guess PCO is notionally a department, but it would specify, in response to Ms. Kwan's interventions, that we specifically want to hear from PCO officials involved—