Thank you, Chair.
I think members heard me very clearly when this motion was first introduced. Again, my initial objection had to do with the Office of the Auditor General, how important it is to safeguard the work that office does, and to recognize that working with the Auditor General is the work that we do in this committee.
I was persuaded by the arguments of other members. Indeed, I heard from Mr. Desjarlais here today about how important it is for this committee to assert its rights to see documents, because there could be a time in the future that the committee would want to see contracts, be they commercial...including defence contracts, any kind of contracts, and that perhaps there would be a different context at that time. It could be a future government. Who knows? Times do change.
I agree, therefore, that this committee needs to safeguard the right to view contracts, at the same time recognizing that the work that we oversee is ongoing work and we certainly don't want to impede the work of our public servants.
I don't think anyone here is saying that our public servants were in any way responsible for not negotiating contracts to the best of their ability, but I want to reiterate that it's important for us to recognize that in any commercial dealing, but especially in an emergency when we're dealing with people's lives, our public servants need to have the tools to do the best job possible.
The amendment brought forward by Mr. Housefather reassures me that we're not going to be unduly penalizing public servants who are doing their job, because they would be, if I understand correctly, personally responsible, even criminally responsible, if they were to divulge information that they had contracted not to divulge.
We heard something to that effect from the Auditor General. She was contractually, by oath, not able to provide those documents to us. I think that's something this committee needs to weigh in the balance.
Thank you.