Thank you very much, Chair.
I really appreciate the care that Mr. Perkins has provided. I think he's absolutely right that this committee has a very significant role to play in how public funds are used, where they're used and the level of accountability that should surround them as they're used. Absolutely, the role of this committee is to ensure that we're holding that use of funds to account, whether it's through the reports of the Auditor General, which have raised significant concerns on this issue, or whether it's through a number of other avenues that have come to light in which we realize there are issues here. I do appreciate Mr. Perkins' motion, although I have some concerns with it. I'll raise them point by point.
Given the number of meetings we've had on this issue, and given the scope and the broadness of what the questions from members have been, I think perhaps we need to expand this to not just SDTC and the minister for ISED but also the entire Government of Canada. Let's see where else and how else.
The reason I propose this is that, based on the testimony from the witnesses that we've heard thus far on this, and becoming a little bit more familiar with the intricacies of how money is provided, I think there are multiple ministries—or departments, I should say—that would be implicated in terms of that return of money.
First off, you have to find the root. The matter is a little bit more complex than the black and white that is presented here and that is presented by a lot of the questioning by my colleagues. I think it would be more worthwhile for us to say that it should be the Government of Canada that should be responsible, rather than just the innovation minister.
I don't recall specific testimony, but as I have sat through these meetings, I think there were indications made by witnesses that this is beyond the scope of what the specific minister has in his purview. Given the contribution agreement between ISED and SDTC, I'm sure SDTC would also be implicated in recuperating the funds, but we also know that it was an arm's-length organization at the time. While the minister is evidently accountable here, ultimately, even though he took significant steps to make sure that his responsibility as an overseer was maintained—and he took those necessary steps and I think acted responsibly throughout this whole process—I do think that making this small tweak to broaden it to the Government of Canada would take into account the particularity of the situation, the complex nature of the process and what exactly this motion would ultimately be asking for.
Second, I do have some challenges with the 100-day timeline. I know that we pass a lot of motions through a lot of committees asking government officials to either produce documents or come to appear before a committee, but I think we need to take into account the complexity of how this will happen. A timeline of 100 days would not, in my opinion, help us figure out how to retrace, how to navigate and how to deal with the challenges of what this motion is asking.
Members in this committee have reminded us repeatedly that parliamentary committees are supreme and that they have the ability to do what what they're asking. However, we also want to make sure that what we're asking for is reasonable. I'm not sure where the 100 days is coming from. I don't know if Mr. Perkins has perhaps done his own evaluation to determined that this is how long it would take for them to go through this complex process or if this is just an arbitrary number. I'm not really sure where the 100 days is coming from.
We're trying to ensure that the transition to the NRC will be smooth. It's also to ensure that there's the least amount of disruption to businesses, as they've already known great disruption over the year. It's been reported in the media just how much these small businesses have been disrupted by the freezing, etc. Two-thirds of the companies went through business interruptions, as was reported, and many more have said they're unable to find any alternative funding, which goes entirely against the program's objective.