Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to my colleague for bringing forward this motion.
This is a topic that I think my colleagues know is of interest to us as well, perhaps for slightly different reasons. I appreciate that understanding whether Canadian citizens got value for the $900,000 that was spent doing due diligence is a worthy topic for the committee to investigate.
We also have questions, though, about the validity of the original assumptions, in particular the idea that this project was going to be an opportunity for Ontario to export clean power to the United States, resulting in a net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. I think that there have been some questions asked about whether that was going to be the case. It would be very interesting to better understand what those initial assumptions were, what those assumptions were based on and why the CIB felt that this was going to be an advantageous project from the perspective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
I will note that the CIB was considering investing $600 million in this project, a private sector project put forward by a huge corporation with very deep pockets that could very easily finance its own project. I think it was one of our Conservative colleagues, who used to sit on this committee, who said that, instead of crowding investment into public sector infrastructure projects, which was the original stated goal of the CIB, this project looked like it was crowding public sector investment into private sector projects.
Understanding the rationale behind that and what the thinking of the people behind the CIB was is very much in the public interest and will help inform this committee's understanding of how this all took place.
I am a little bit concerned about the time allocated to each of the four witnesses listed. If we have a three-meeting study and we allocate two hours to each of the four witnesses, that's a pretty substantial chunk of time. I want to ensure that there is enough testimony time remaining to hear from other witnesses who can provide insights on the aspects that I have mentioned.
I know that often witnesses appear on a panel. If we could have a panel of four witnesses and perhaps allocate one of the three meetings to hearing from the CIB officials, that would be a fair allocation—or one and a half—but I do think that there are other witnesses who would be good to hear from when it comes to understanding the project itself, not just the investment of the $900,000 to do due diligence.
I'll leave my remarks at that. This is something we support. I think folks around the table know that. I would certainly look forward to this being a study of the committee.
We have a tradition at this committee of taking turns proposing studies. This is one of the more cordial committees that I've had a chance to sit on, and I think we want to continue that tradition. Therefore, if this is the Conservatives' offering in terms of a study for this committee, I certainly support that.