Mr. Speaker, following that speech, it is important that we really get focused on the actual motion and the actual report that has been tabled in Parliament. The previous speech seemed to assume that we were debating a larger issue around privacy and something that can continue to be studied. However, this is a very specific motion, and it is, in fact, a very short report.
First, Mr. Speaker, I will inform you that it is my intention to share my time with the member for Battle River—Crowfoot.
I am the chair of this committee, and it was a real pleasure to table this report last week. This report was the result of a motion that was moved by my Bloc colleague, the member for Trois-Rivières, and passed unanimously by the committee last Monday. It is a simple report. It is one of the shortest reports that I recall ever being associated with. It simply informs the House of the following:
That the [Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics] call upon the government to suspend the Public Health Agency of Canada's cellular data tender upon adoption of this motion, and that the tender shall not be re-offered until it the committee reports to the House that it is satisfied that the privacy of Canadians will not be affected....
That is it. I just read the entire report that was tabled. The committee is asking the government to suspend an RFP that has a deadline this month, which has just been moved again. This is timely. This is not something we should go back and restudy. We are calling upon the government to take concrete action about business that is under way right now.
As chair of the committee, it is my responsibility to ensure that members of the committee have an opportunity to be heard and that the rules of the committee are followed. It is not ordinarily my job to take a position on the motions moved at committee, other than to break ties, but it is my job to ensure that motions are dealt with properly and the privileges of committee members are respected.
In this case, the motion was debated at last Monday's meeting. Amendments were moved by both the governing party members and opposition members, and through a fairly lengthy debate on the amendments, the committee passed the amendments and the motion unanimously. In debating concurrence on this motion, it is therefore important that the House be made aware of the process that produced this short report. It was proposed by an opposition member, but in the end, and after improvement through debate, it was unanimously adopted.
The reason I have joined this debate, and taken time to walk members through the process of how this motion came to be adopted, is it is my sincere hope that the House will unanimously adopt this concurrence motion. I hope the House will concur in this report, perhaps with the full weight of a recorded vote, and that the government will take a unanimous committee report seriously and will actually suspend the request for proposal that is part of this motion.
Right after the House rose for the Christmas break, reports in the media broke stating that, unbeknownst to anybody, the Government of Canada had been secretly using mobility data from 33 million mobility devices. This is what was said in the reports that came out just after we broke. This news was shocking to many Canadians, but what was even more shocking was that the only reason this came to the public's attention, seemingly, was a public tender for a new contract to extend the program for another five years. The deadline to respond to that request for proposal was the third week of January, meaning that this RFP would have opened and closed while Parliament was not sitting, and members of Parliament would not have had an opportunity to question the government about it.
The committee held an emergency meeting on the subject in mid-January and unanimously voted to study the entire subject. That study is under way at committee, which met this morning in furtherance of it. Curiously, the government extended the deadline for the RFP on the eve of the emergency meeting, and it further extended the deadline until later this month. In response to the committee, which is now earnestly studying the broader issue, we have called upon the government to further suspend the deadline until we prepare a report stating we are satisfied that privacy is not unduly at risk.
Some might ask why there is a need. In fact, the member for Winnipeg North hinted about whether or not we really needed to debate concurrence in this report. Surely the government knows that this recommendation came with unanimous support from parliamentarians representing all recognized parties, and we will follow this recommendation, right? The governing party members supported this recommendation, including the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, who in fact worked with and moved one of the amendments that was passed unanimously.
However, this does not seem to be the case. The Minister of Health appeared at our committee last Thursday, and when asked about this very motion and suspending the RFP, the minister refused to commit. He talked about how he RFP had been extended, but when he was questioned about why it was extended, he spoke about the need to give prospective bidders more time. In fact, it sounded like there were no bids and that perhaps there was a single contractor asking for more time.
Regardless, the minister did not acknowledge the real concerns about ensuring that the privacy of Canadians was protected. He made no indication that he was going to actually suspend the RFP pending the committee's report, which is what this motion and this report calls for.
Choosing not to respond to the substance of the report reminds one of an early promise the government made when it was first elected. It promised that it would listen to parliamentary committees, and yet the Liberal government has quite spectacularly failed to do so. The incredible lengths the government has gone to to ignore committees and even defy the will of the entire chamber is a matter of historic record. One recalls how less than eight months ago, the government dug in so deeply on its refusal to comply with the health committee's request for documents related to the Winnipeg virology lab that it prompted the incredible spectacle of a public servant being admonished by the Speaker of the House in the furtherance of the Liberal government's cover-up, a matter still unresolved.
The Liberal government also prorogued the House to prevent committees from getting to the bottom of conflicts of interest that were at the heart of the student job program contract with the WE organization. The government also said it would respect the independence of committees, yet at committee after committee in the last Parliament, we saw the repeated use of filibuster tactics to prevent motions from coming to a vote.
Fortunately, this has not been the case at the ethics committee. As I have said repeatedly, this report was supported unanimously. It should be supported by this House unanimously, yet the government has given no indication, including in the response to the direct question asked twice to the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, that it would in fact agree and concur with this report.
Therefore, I am not surprised that my Bloc colleague has moved this concurrence motion. I am sure he is very concerned that the government will ignore the will of this committee, but regardless of the outcome of this concurrence debate, I wonder if the government will note that this motion came not as an attempt by Conservatives to disrupt its parliamentary agenda. There were media reports last week saying that Liberals were looking for partners to ensure they could pass time allocation motions and things like that to avoid what they call Conservative obstruction. I hope the Liberals do not think my Bloc colleague is guilty of obstruction, because the government has given every indication that it plans to ignore a committee recommendation that was passed unanimously.
Perhaps the government would take note that when members of Parliament debate bills and motions in this House, they are actually doing their jobs. Our seats in this House are not here for us to be spectators; we are here to debate. We are here to use procedural tools that exist to ensure that the rights of members to represent their constituents can be used. Perhaps they would also note that all parties use these tools when it is necessary to do so.
In closing, I remain hopeful that all members of this House will join me in voting in concurrence with this report and add the weight of a vote in this House to the report to urge the government to do the right thing and suspend the RFP until the ethics committee has finished its report.