Madam Speaker, the situation is simple. I am a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. That committee has met a number of times, at first to discuss the Auditor General's reports, which the previous committee had begun to consider.
It is important that we reopen those studies. Fourteen of the Auditor General's chapters remain on hold. Seven of those chapters simply needed to be tabled by the committee in order to get a government response. Three other chapters simply needed to be adopted by the committee. The reports had been adopted by the committee and referred by the committee for a government response, but, for three of them, the committee still had work to do.
We moved a motion. We made it public even before the committee meeting began. The government decided the meeting would be held in camera. That is why we moved our motion in public. We also managed to talk about it a bit at the beginning.
I would like to specify, and this has been reported in the media, that the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie, a member of the committee, said outside the closed doors that, with this election, much has changed.
He said that with this election, much has changed.
He also mentioned that he wanted to start again with a fresh slate.
He also mentioned that he wanted to “start with a fresh slate”.
I want to point out that, in these reports, the Auditor General raised some very important points, notably the massive cost overruns in the purchase of military helicopters, the poor management of parliamentary building repairs and, a hot topic at the time, the charges against the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner.
Therefore, we introduced this motion. Then we went to an in camera session. I obviously cannot repeat what was said, but I can say that the motion was not passed. It is not in the minutes. If it had passed, it would be there.
I would like to point out that this is a question of transparency and accountability, and we are sorry that the committee decided to meet in camera. We voted against that. As I said, this question is fundamental to transparency and accountability.
We received a comment from a voter in Ottawa, Andrew MacLeod, who spoke out against these actions. I would like to read what he wrote:
I would like to register my disappointment and anger at your recent [decision] to go in camera and shelve a number of reports from the Auditor General's office. This is particularly disappointing given that the Conservative government came into power in 2006 upon a platform of transparency and accountability. I believed it then, which is why I was ready to vote Conservative at that time. However, here we are five years later, and it's apparent that you learned nothing from the experiences of the previous Liberal government.
It may be within your rights--
--he is still addressing Conservative members--
--as a committee to decide not to study these reports and to decide that the public should not know about their contents. But it is not right. We, as Canadian citizens, send you to Ottawa to make decisions for us and to spend our money wisely. We do not send you there to recklessly fritter away our hard-earned tax dollars--