I have to thank Mr. Desjarlais for this amendment. I don't think it's lost on us. We're here, we're the public accounts committee, and we rail against government departments week in and week out for accountability on how they spend their money and making better choices, etc., yet here we are in this situation, and it's not the first time or the second time. There have been multiple times now.
Up until a certain point, we've been working together, either through the subcommittee or the committee, to come to ground on our calendar, on how work would be allocated. On ArriveCAN, I think there have been something like 15 meetings and counting, and over 65 witnesses. I have the calendar that I asked for this Monday, and I was very happy to see it. I was thinking that we were going to have new reports from the Auditor General. We were going to be able to deal with those reports, hopefully. Certainly I'm looking forward to getting some reports out the door, but that's not happening.
I am definitely supportive of this amendment. I think that the public needs to know. I think the public accounts committee needs to be transparent and say exactly how much it costs, and I think it's going to shed some light on some of the other work or some of the mismanagement, let's say, of committee work that we can see across Parliament. I think Canadians would be very surprised at the duplication of work, because when I see the list of witnesses—and thank you for giving us a summary—I was wondering why we were calling these witnesses when the ethics committee is running its own studies with the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner and the Ethics Commissioner.
I don't see the letter from Paul Girard. You said that it had to do with medical information. Maybe it's in translation, but then, how is Mr. Nater able to make a motion? How is it that some members here have privileged information before other members? It's very concerning, and again, I for one certainly support the amendment that has been brought to this motion.