Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
The fact that Mr. Bittle is here tonight shows that this is a very important and sensitive topic for the government. We're honoured to welcome this parliamentary veteran, a man well versed in parliamentary strategies of all sorts, particularly in committee, where people can talk for hours without saying a thing. That's actually what we've seen in recent weeks during meetings of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, where the Minister of Finance was asked to testify about Alto, which was perfectly legitimate. However, there was systematic obstruction for nearly 20 hours. People kept talking about anything but the topic. What was the end result? Common sense won out, and the Minister of Finance will testify before the committee.
I think Mr. Lemire summed the situation up very well. No 18‑wheeler is going to show up in front of the constituency office of every member of this committee. Mr. Bittle knows full well that he was being dramatic. That's not realistic.
What is realistic is the constitutional duty our constituents entrusted to us almost a year ago. We have a duty to hold the government to account. That's why we have parliamentary committees and adopt motions to get to the bottom of things. Even if getting to the bottom of things leads to the production of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, it is still our duty. It's not about the burden; it's about responsibility.
The issue of seniors is indeed essential. The management of public funds is even more so. We have a government that recently passed a budget with a deficit of almost $80 billion. That's money we do not have. We're passing that bill on to our children. We also know full well that the aging population means that the burden, the reality and the needs of seniors will impact all levels of government.
Mr. Lemire's motion will enable us to address this issue, so we support it because we want to get to the bottom of this.
So let's set aside the theatrics. I would like this motion to be adopted.