Thank you very much.
This is an eminently reasonable committee. I'm sure that if we're getting close to the end of the 30-day period, if the law clerk or the translation services came to the committee and just said that there are so many documents here they can't manage the workload, I would certainly support hearing that. I would be inclined to support a reasonable request for an extension, so that the law clerk or the translation services don't find themselves past the deadline.
If we say 60 days, I'll take 60 days. If we say 30 days, more likely it will take 30 days. I'd far prefer giving a shorter time frame with the understanding that we could face requests for an extension based on real circumstances. That would obviously be entertained by reasonable people, especially if they came from someone of such stature as the law clerk.
Just to talk about the redactions, there are confidentiality agreements with lots of arrangements with government. Lots of legislation now enables governments to use that as an excuse to not provide details. It's essential that committees, when they feel that it's important enough, send for these types of papers and assert their parliamentary supremacy on that.
We're not talking about contracts between two private individuals or two private entities. We're talking about a contract with the government. We've seen with this government with other scandals where we've had to ignore some of those confidentiality agreements. We've had to use the committee power to compel that to shine a light on some of the scandals this government is embroiled in.
That's not to suggest that anybody at ITC or anybody at the Canada Infrastructure Bank has done anything like that so far, but if these types of crown corporations and government agencies know that Parliament and committees will not hold them accountable, that could be very detrimental to the sound management of these things down the line.
That is why the Conservatives proposed this motion to begin with, which is to send for them in an unredacted form. I believe that Mr. Bachrach has introduced a good faith effort to try to take into account some of the more reasonable concerns of Mr. Fillmore. I'm hopeful that we can find some wording around that that everyone can support.