Madam Speaker, the bill we are discussing is about Statistics Canada's independence. The main threat that we have seen to Statistics Canada's independence recently was the lack of IT support from Shared Services. That is what prompted former chief statistician Wayne Smith to resign.
It seems to me that this bill does not address that problem. As I noted in a previous question for the member for Winnipeg North, the budget implementation bill does contain some provisions for the minister responsible for Shared Services to provide exemptions so that certain government entities could get IT services from other places. However, the government operations committee has been told that this exception will not be provided to Statistics Canada. It will still have to go through Shared Services.
I am wondering if the member could let us know what the government plans to do to ensure that Statistics Canada receives the IT support that it needs in order to fulfill its independent mandate to conduct research and provide the evidence and data that we need to make good public policy.