Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Jowhari, I think you have a mistaken conception of the contradiction between accountability and the political program. There's a first principle in democracy, which is deliberation in the public eye. When I do my job as a parliamentarian to the best of my knowledge, I try to inform the people who elected me. We can have a debate in the House without ignoring the excellent work of the analysts who will produce a report. However, we have a deadline here and, in my opinion, it will be a long time before we finish studying the report. And yet, in recent weeks, we have seen some highly questionable elements in connection with the pipeline purchase. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report mentions them.
As far as my political intentions are concerned, I could give you a fairly simple example. My friend Ms. Dabrusin asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer if some of his analyses were not politically motivated, to which he replied that they were not, as that was not part of his mandate. The Parliamentary Budget Officer's mandate is highly regulated, and it's up to us to broaden our interpretation of his work. That said, many questions remain unanswered.
Will we be prisoners of the oil industry for the next 40 years, since we have to use the pipeline to the maximum to make it profitable? How are we to interpret the $4 billion sunk cost figure put forward by the Parliamentary Budget Officer? I'd like to comment on that in the House. The government will also have an opportunity to comment on this in the House.
Then I'd like to understand your interpretation of politics a little better. Politics is not a negative thing. We have no ill intentions in doing politics. What we're trying to do, to the best of our knowledge, is to bring to light elements that we see as problematic, as shortcomings on the part of the government. Playing politics means highlighting the fact that it's a bit incongruous to buy a pipeline at a time when we say we're trying to reduce our GHGs. To me, it seems highly incongruous. Politics is about demonstrating to the public that it's incoherent to say we're going to use the profits from a pipeline to invest in clean energy, when those profits don't exist.
We have a duty to present these facts to the public, not to mention the pipeline's cost overruns, which we will never have studied. I'm confident that my Conservative colleagues and Mr. Angus will come prepared to a debate in the House, armed with the information they've gleaned from this committee's work, to let Quebeckers and Canadians know the ins and outs of this thorny issue.
Finally, I don't think there's any contradiction between accountability and, as you call it, the political agenda. Personally, I wouldn't call it a program, but political debate, which is healthy in a democracy. Political debate implies the presentation of different positions. My position on the pipeline is certainly different from that of the government. My role as an elected official is to bring out these different positions so that the average voter is able to know what represents them and what doesn't, and then be able to make an informed decision about what they feel is right for the future of the state.
So I don't see any contradiction in what you're saying. Rather, I see—and I'm not accusing you of anything—a headlong rush when you say that it would be preferable to wait 120 days for the government to respond and for the committee to complete its report. I would simply point out that we are not the most efficient when it comes to completing studies and studying reports. We haven't done very much if I compare us to other committees.
Let's give this thorny issue a chance to be aired in the House. Everyone will be able to debate it in full view of the public. The public needs to be better informed about a potential loss of $4 billion for the government, and about a project that is never-ending, for which there is an explosion of costs, and which doesn't fit in with the government's rhetoric when it comes to reducing GHGs. Personally, I think that if we put all this together, our responsibility as elected representatives is to hold a debate in the House.