Thank you very much, Chair.
I just wanted to very quickly respond to issues raised by Mr. Saxton. First of all, he raised the issue of the amount of effort and time required. I would beg to differ. I think the information is readily available in the department. It's a matter of consolidating it. The fact that he's aware of the number of pages--I suspect he may have some additional information he may want to share with the committee as to why it's taking so long. Maybe he can be a bit more detailed in his response.
Last week in the House of Commons, I brought up an example of how this government spent $3,400 for a 1,300-word press release. I'm not sure I would appreciate any type of accusations of the cost implications of this request. This is a committee that's doing work on behalf of parliamentarians for a pertinent report on an issue of transparency, and this issue speaks to the core of what we're trying to get at, which is value for taxpayers' dollars. I think this information is very important, and I don't see why the government is trying to stop this information from being received by the committee.
If government operations is looking into it, that's great. We're a committee, we control our own destiny, we work in our own mandate within our own rules, and we have a responsibility to do so. So if other committees are working on it and they can produce some of that information, great, maybe we can find a way. But when we discussed this motion, clearly it was a reflection and needed in the report we're working on with respect to rehabilitating the Parliament buildings as mentioned in the Auditor General's report.
So that's why this particular motion was brought forward. We debated all these points then, so I don't see why the government is now supporting the department in delaying the release of this information.