Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good evening, Madam Minister and gentlemen.
Madam Minister, we have had a number of meetings about the National Monument to Canada's Mission in Afghanistan, specifically last fall, with you and your colleague, the Minister of Heritage, Pascale St‑Onge. We had questions about the process and, above all, about the political decision that was made. The process established to select the team to design the monument was conducted very professionally, but a political decision was made. At that meeting last fall, your colleague Ms. St‑Onge was not at all aware of it. It was her predecessor, Pablo Rodriguez, who signed the document confirming the change in the winning team at the last minute. You learned about that when you took office, and now you know what happened.
In answering questions from my colleague from the Bloc Québécois earlier, you said it could be acceptable to deviate from the process when veterans were involved. We do not agree with that, Madam Minister. As a fatter of fact, we learned from testimony from all the experts we met, and documents from Léger confirmed it, that the consultation process was bogus.
We need more information. On December 15, 2023, members of the committee wrote to the committee chair, asking for an emergency meeting to adopt a motion ordering the production of certain documents, including all “memoranda, briefing notes, e-mails, correspondence or any other records of conversations or communications (including text messages, Microsoft Teams messages, WhatsApp messages, Signal messages and other electronic messaging), with regard to the National Monument to Canada's Mission in Afghanistan, transmitted since November 8, 2021, between … (vi) the Office of the Minister of Veterans Affairs and the Office of the Prime Minister.”
You said earlier that the documents had been provided. Will you undertake to provide those required documents to the committee within 21 days?