Thanks so much.
I reached out to a friend of mine who's in the know, and her response was it's false that there are only five officers who are engaged in this. So we don't have the facts. There's dispute about the facts. The importance of the public safety study, which the Conservatives are filibustering, and Bill C-26 focuses on cybersecurity, which I know....
I take Ms. Gallant at her word in terms of being worried about money going to terrorist entities or state actors that Canada is not allied with. That's actually happening on the cyber front. That's being filibustered to prevent us to get to a thorough study. It's great to take a headline and put it into a motion and say, “This is fact.” We could have witnesses here, but the Conservatives don't want that.
It was interesting to hear Mr. Strahl talk about the good old days of the 41st Parliament. I'm sure he remembers fondly the Conservative cuts to CBSA. I believe it was about a thousand CBSA jobs that were cut during their time in office. That's interesting. You can send to my personal email account the motions like this that I'm sure he voted on, which were NDP motions like this that were just to set up a concurrence debate. I'm sure that was permitted quite a bit.
There is work being done by the government and in Parliament. I know the Liberal government is working with the Conservative government in Ontario on a big announcement in terms of money for a response to this. I'm looking forward to the outcome of the auto theft summit, and I really want to get to the public safety study on auto theft. Let's hear from all of these witnesses.
Mr. Strahl is right. A concurrence motion is an appropriate tool—it's in the rules—but the way the Conservatives are using it is to just shut down debate and the important work that Canadians expect us to do.
The motion at public safety was unanimous in terms of having a thorough study on the subject. Let's get to that. I'm sure Mr. Strahl, after this meeting, is going to get on the phone with his colleagues on the public safety committee, insist that they end their filibuster tactics and get us to a point at which we can actually debate something important and come up with actual recommendations from actual experts rather than gripping a headline that may or may not be true and using it as the basis for a motion for a concurrence debate in the House of Commons, which I guess Mr. Strahl is now admitting is the tactic in play.
I can't support this motion since it's based on incorrect information, despite being a serious issue. Let's do it properly. Let's get to the study at public safety.