Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I know you'll all be shocked to learn that I support MP Rempel Garner's motion.
I'm a little concerned about some of the positions put forward by the Liberal members. Because it's a taxpayer-funded, arm's-length body does not mean it's exempt from scrutiny from Parliament. In fact, we've spent a bit of time on the Liberal green slush fund, which is an arm's-length foundation where we've seen almost $400 million of taxpayers' money taken for the personal interest of Liberal appointees to the board. Therefore, it is possible for us to look at that.
It's $390 million, MP Badawey, if you want to relook at the Auditor General's report. I would invite you to do so.
I mean Mr. Turnbull. I'm sorry; it's easy to mix up the direction in terms of the voice.
Let's talk about the issue. I'm also concerned that somebody thinks that $35 million to $45 million is an insignificant amount. That might come from, obviously, a party that thinks spending $15 million on potted plants at parties is a valuable taxpayer expenditure. I won't make any further comments about potted plants.
The loan loss of this organization is huge. I, too, worked for a financial institution for many years. I also have served on boards of financial institutions. Banks do less than 1% loan loss. The BDC, which takes much higher risk for small businesses and which is accountable to this, has about a 2% loan loss. This loan loss is much higher and needs an examination of what's going on.
MP Masse, we've said there's merit in the credit card study, and we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We've done it before. We can do concurrent studies on things. It's not difficult. This is not asking for a massive amount of committee time, contrary to what some have asserted. The proposal is for two meetings.
There is no time set here, MP Masse, about which study comes first in this motion. That's easy enough to work out once we pass the study motions.
I'm assuming that MP Masse would actually move his motion. Right now it's just on notice. We can't actually deal with MP Masse's credit card study unless he puts it forward as a motion, rather than just on notice.
From the comments of my Bloc colleague, the Bloc has always been concerned about this bill, as we are. I'll point out that the government put 55 amendments forward on this. If the government's concerned about the amount of time it has taken for amendments, maybe they shouldn't have put in such a crappy bill, which they've had to amend 55 times already and are table-dropping. Maybe they should have done their homework first.
I think you'll find, as we go through this bill, that every single amendment that we've put forward is a real, substantive issue that witnesses have asked for. To say that somehow we've been delaying it.... It is the government—the Liberal members—that so far spent five of our 10 clause-by-clause meetings filibustering this amendment and wasting committee time on a filibuster, which I know MP Turnbull continues to want to do going forward. Instead of listening to a Liberal filibuster and wasting another five meetings to put 10 meetings on a Liberal filibuster on CPC-9, I think it's time we get on to some other business that is more pressing. It doesn't seem pressing to the Liberals to pass this bill when they filibuster every amendment that goes out.
I would ask that my fellow committee members refocus this committee on some work that Canadians want us to do. ISED needs to be held accountable for its lack of spending controls on many programs, from the green slush fund to this. Yes, the government needs to be held accountable for why, after nine years, they've done absolutely nothing to deal with the outrageous interest rates and credit card fees that Canadians pay.
There's a lot here for us to go on. Until the government can sort itself out on the inadequacy of the proposed privacy tribunal and not waste our time for another five meetings filibustering this motion, we should do other work.