Madam Chair, there has been discussion among some of us about this issue. There are two considerations here. One, how do we assure the research community that they can focus on what they're doing, which is research, and not have to advocate for what seems obvious?
The bigger conversation, the other conversation we've been having, is the cost implication, really, of disaggregated data in this way.
In my inquiry to you, Madam Chair, you have informed me that the bill in order to do this would be $4 million.
I don't want to waste a lot of time with our witnesses here, but I do want to make sure that we deal with this issue in as expeditious a form as possible, recognizing that there may be other solutions to getting to the right answer.
I note that the $4 million is just to disaggregate the aggregated data. On top of that, there would be translation costs. It's essential for all of us that everything is available in the two official languages.
Even if we set the translation costs aside for just a moment, we would be spending $4 million to get our hands on millions and millions of pages of data which, frankly, I don't know that anybody in this room will be able to go through themselves, not even knowing when that might arrive. Will it arrive in this Parliament or the next? It's hard to know.
I think we have an obligation to be pragmatic in what we do. Later on, I intend to put forward a motion that contemplates the notion that we should move to aggregated and anonymized data so that we can get to the same outcome that we need. I hope it addresses what Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas was trying to achieve. I think we would probably be able to agree on this so that we can get to the right outcome.
I want to leave it at that for now. If we have agreement to deal with this in a meaningful way, then we won't take time away from the witnesses.