Mr. Speaker, you should check Hansard because the member before the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke said it twice herself, and I did not call it out that time.
As I have already made quite clear, 5,000 pages of documents were turned over to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance and subsequently released in August of that year. In fact, for the government to provide those documents, the Clerk of the Privy Council even waived cabinet confidentiality to allow for the utmost transparency.
Regarding Mr. Theis, as the documents show, he had one interaction with WE Charity. In fact, this was disclosed by the Prime Minister's Office itself. I will read exactly what it provided in August:
According to Mr. Theis, the call lasted for approximately 25 minutes. WE Charity raised their ongoing work with Employment and Social Development Canada on the Canada student summer grant, as outlined in the attached document, and a proposal for social entrepreneurship. Mr. Theis asked WE how what they were proposing for the CSSG would ensure diversity of placements. The Kielburgers expressed concern that this type of program would need to get off the ground soon. At no point were expenses discussed, nor any commitment, assurances or advice given by Mr. Theis to WE on any subject, other than to contact ESDC.
Further, the Prime Minister's chief of staff testified about the interaction during her committee testimony on June 30. She stated:
It was in early May when one of the policy staff did what is very normal in their jobs, which is to speak to stakeholder organizations. It was a very general discussion. They actually redirected the stakeholder, the WE organization, to ESDC officials. ESDC was a more appropriate place to get answers for the questions they were asking.
She further indicated that she was appearing on behalf of the Prime Minister's Office, stating:
I'm here on behalf of my staff and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have for them.
All this to say that, not only has the committee already heard from Ms. Telford on her staff's behalf, but the committee has received thousands of documents including detailed accounting of the interactions between Mr. Theis and WE Charity. There is nothing new for the committee to learn that has not been covered in the hours and hours of committee testimony and thousands of documents already made public. Again, this is clearly just the opposition trying to drag more staff into an issue that has already been thoroughly examined on a project that was cancelled over nine months ago.
Finally, with regard to Mr. Amitpal Singh of the finance minister's office, he too would have nothing further to add. Former minister Morneau has already appeared at the finance committee and provided testimony as well as requested documentation. To that end, as requested by the committee, WE Charity has also provided a detailed accounting of its interactions with all government staff including Mr. Singh.
Further, not only has the former finance minister appeared at finance committee, but Michelle Kovacevic, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance, has spoken directly to her interactions with the minister's office during this time period. Specifically regarding Mr. Singh, she stated:
The next day, April 20, my minister's office connected with WE Charity to discuss their ability to deliver volunteer opportunities. The records of this call from my minister's office note that WE Charity will rework their 10-week summer program proposal to fully meet the policy objective of national service, and increase their current placements of 8,000 to double.
This is wholly consistent with the testimony of Ms. Sofia Marquez, the Kielburgers and the thousands of pages of documents that have been released. To put it concisely, this opposition day motion is nothing more than a partisan political attack: something that I have become used to seeing over my six years in the House from the opposition toward this government, in particular the personal attacks on members of cabinet.
More than that, the opposition members are trying to use their rights and privileges as MPs to come after staff members who they know do not benefit from the same rights and privileges. It is irresponsible for members to turn their protections into weapons against those who are not covered by the same protections.
If that were not enough, the motion goes on to order staff to appear at committee before even receiving an invitation. Like the government House leader stated, this is an abuse of their rights and privileges as MPs.
The opposition continue to try to drag hard-working political staff into committee, when, in reality, they have already heard hundreds of hours of testimony, had multiple committee studies, reviewed thousands of pages of documents and asked hundreds of questions.
In fact, what is important to remember here is that our government has undertaken a colossal effort, shown an incredible amount of collaboration and dedication to transparency in providing the opposition with documentation and testimony over the course of nine months. There is nothing more for the House to gain through these political attacks, and instead we should be able to focus on the ongoing pandemic that all of our staff are working tirelessly to help Canadians through.
I do hope we can get past this absurd motion so that we can steer Parliament back to what actually matters, protecting the health and safety of Canadians, growing our economy, creating jobs, and getting through this pandemic stronger and more resilient.