Mr. Speaker, I did retract it, and I certainly apologize if I offended the sensitivities of any members in this House who are quick to defend the Prime Minister and the allegations regarding his possible criminality.
Here we are today, and as I mentioned before, many Canadians are very concerned about the actions of the government, so we have made a very simple offer. It is to let us allow debate on this concurrence motion. We would then be happy to allow debate on the Budget Implementation Act, which I believe is scheduled for tonight. That is reasonable.
The government talked often about how it was not engaged in a power grab. This is its chance to prove it. When it comes to the report we are discussing here today, we have incredibly important items and a host of recommendations, which were agreed to by a committee in the last Parliament and by the committee in this Parliament.
There are 23 recommendations that have to do with accountability. We have recommendations related to cabinet decisions, decisions made in the minister's office, ministerial accountability, record-keeping when it comes to lobbyists, the outsourcing of projects, due diligence reports, contracting with shell companies, answers on the specifics related to what happened with the WE charity and some of the questions that are still outstanding on that, the fact that those who speak French in this country were unfairly not being given the same access to federal programs, more on lobbying, giving powers to the Commissioner of Lobbying to ensure that they have the teeth to get the job done in accountability and integrity within lobbying in Canada, volunteer programs, compliance with orders of the House of Commons, the powers of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, and the use of new technology and some of the challenges associated with that. I could go on, but I would note I am running out of time.
I am certainly curious as to why the Liberals seem to be so bent on not talking about what I would suggest are important issues. Certainly, we have the committee, which the Liberals say often are the masters of their own destiny. When it comes to what we have before us today, it is vitally important that we are allowed to have the debates in this place that matter to Canadians and integrity, ethics and accountability are at the core of that.
As I mentioned, this is the chance for the Liberals to demonstrate this or be shown to have been entirely misleading over the course of the Motion No. 11 debate. We can move forward with a discussion about how Her Majesty's loyal opposition, and I would note to the Prime Minister, because I think he gets confused about this, we are loyal to the Crown and the country, not loyal to the Prime Minister. Conservatives are working hard on behalf of Canadians and the place that we have within this institution. Therefore, this debate matters.
I move, seconded by the member for Calgary Shepard:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “that” and substituting the following:
“the third report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, presented on Thursday, March 31, 2022, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the committee for further consideration, provided that:
(a) the committee be instructed to
(i) make every effort possible to receive evidence from Ben Chin, Rick Theis and Amitpal Singh, the witnesses who did not comply with the House's order of Thursday, March 25, 2021, to appear before the committee;
(ii) consider further the concerns expressed in the report about the member for Waterloo's failure ‘in her obligation to be accurate with a committee’;
(iii) report back within 60 sitting days; and
(b) the committee be empowered to order the attendance of the member for Waterloo, from time to time, as it sees fit.