Thank you, Mr. Chair.
An interesting case came up in a country that only recently became a member of the OECD, Colombia. The OECD administrative tribunal determined that the right to have access to information took precedence over the commercial interest of pharmaceutical companies. The documents I have here indicate that the information came directly from the State Council. It was not sent by the pharmaceutical companies. So if we were to ask them whether they disclosed contracts, the answer would be no, because it was the State Council that disclosed the contracts on August 10, 2021.
So we already have some unredacted contracts and others that are redacted. I think that the extent of the redaction remains to be determined for those contracts that were disclosed. We have an enormous amount of information about prices in other countries. As these were mentioned by my Conservative colleague, I don't think it's important here to mention the amount of information that's already available.
I think that the core issue here is the failure to understand our role as parliamentarians, and that, unfortunately, colours the work we are doing today. It's very important to clarify the role of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, which is specifically to report on the Auditor General's reports. That was the context, at the time we were studying the Auditor General's report, when we introduced this motion. It was to obtain information that she could not give us under the Auditor General Act. She sent us a brief letter to tell us that unfortunately, if we wanted access to this information, we would need to have access to the contracts, because she could not answer these questions. She was very clear about that. She virtually invited us to look at the contracts. At any rate, that's what I understood.
Once again, to show our good faith, I reiterate that we have no intention of making any information public. It's simply to do our work as parliamentarians in the manner it is supposed to be done in Canada's Parliament. It's important, after all. I'd like to hear from Mr. Baylet again.
Now that I have clarified this matter, have you changed your mind? Does this information clearly explain our role as parliamentarians?