Thank you, Madam Chair.
I go back to, basically, the definition of a stakeholder. A stakeholder is somebody with a material interest in a decision by an authority—in this case the government. I found it astounding that, first of all, only 28 briefs were heard in the consultation for the changes that were made, yet we have attracted 256 briefs, specifically from a group that wasn't heard from, wasn't even represented in the 28. There are first nations all over the country who were clearly concerned about what was going on and what was snuck through in a very large and cumbersome omnibus bill. I think it's the failure of process, in the first instance, that has led to this situation.
Most people who submitted to this committee did so directly. In fact, I'm told that none of these submissions came from the ministry to us. They were basically repurposed by the people who, in some cases, had prepared them for the ministry's consultation, but in fact, in that process of repurposing them, in many cases they had made some adjustments to the testimony so that it would be pertinent to the questions we were asking.
The notion that somehow we have to prove that the payment for information somehow biased the material that we got, first of all, is quite insulting to the people who made it. Secondly, I guess we would turn that on its head and ask what evidence there is that they were biased. That would be interesting to hear.
Generally speaking, the idea of taking information, asking for the capacity to provide informed information, evidence-based information that will have an impact on decisions or at least recommendations out of this committee, that's not a bad thing. In a previous session, we just had an example where one of our witnesses cited a white paper that he did, and we asked for it. He's going to repurpose that. There's ample evidence that this sort of thing is seen as quite necessary, especially when we want to hear what people have to say.
Some people viewing or witnessing this might get the impression that this isn't about process; this is about not wanting to hear what stakeholders, who had such a material interest in the original decision, have to say. I hope that's not the case, because what these people have to say is vitally important to them and to us.