Thank you for giving me the floor, Mr. Chair.
I introduced my motion last week and I was hoping we could have the discussion in public to debate it. That discussion is to suspend this manufacturing sector study and commence a study of the independence of Stats Canada.
I think this study is a fantastic study and we've had great discussion, but in light of the fact that Mr. Smith has resigned from Stats Canada for some very compelling reasons, I think it's prudent for this committee, in the spirit of transparency, to briefly discuss this motion at this time and have a vote in public on this study and this motion so we can see what's going on at Stats Canada and Shared Services and have Mr. Smith elaborate further on what he sees as the issues and on why the crash occurred almost minutes after the labour report was tabled by Stats Canada. This a huge issue.
Hopefully all members feel that in the spirit of transparency—we hear in question period all the time that all members want to be transparent—we can show Canadians that we want to hear about this in the spirit of science.