Mr. Speaker, we are debating a motion saying that an issue at hand should go to the procedure and House affairs committee. That would provide a wonderful forum for all members of the House to address the content of the issue, in terms of why it is referred to the procedure and House affairs committee.
However, because the Conservatives ran out of speakers on the amendment, they moved an amendment to the amendment so they could start all over again and speak to the subamendment. That is actually why I get to speak on the motion again. It is interesting: We have had dozens and dozens of Conservatives stand up to speak to the motion, but I believe I am only the second Liberal that has spoken to it.
I can tell members opposite that there is a great desire to stop playing the game. That is not only coming from Liberal members but also even other members. There might even be a few closet Conservatives who would like to see us move on. Not all Conservatives are speaking on it, which no doubt defies the House leadership's decision to continue to have speaker after speaker stand up.
Why the issue needs to go to PROC is very simple. It is not that complicated. Let me get to the core. There is a letter. SDTC has been an issue the government has been on top of ever since it became public. The issue is that, because of wrongdoings that have been discovered, standing committees want information, and understandably so.
As with other governments, whether provincial or previous federal governments, we often get redacted information. This is done to protect a spectrum of interests. There is nothing different in terms of what the government has actually done.
In wanting to make a game of this and trying to point the finger, the Conservatives have said they want not only to have those unredacted documents but also for the unredacted documents collected here in the House to be handed directly over to the RCMP. That raises the concerns of a good number of people.
We say that this is in fact a Charter issue, a process issue, and it is blurring the independence of our judicial system. However, we get all the legal beagles coming from the other side saying that we do not know what we are talking about. The Conservatives do not know what they are talking about; it is not just Liberals who are saying that.
I will give a direct quote from the RCMP. This is in relation to the tactic that the Conservative Party is using in order for us to be able to talk about concerns that Canadians have. This is the tactic that the Conservatives are using in order for us to pass legislation that is going to have an impact on all Canadians in every region of our country.
The Conservatives are so focused on themselves and not the concerns of Canadians that this is the type of game they are playing. I will read from the letter to show what the RCMP has to say. Let us remember that the Conservatives are actually asking for unredacted documents to be collected and sent directly to the RCMP. The commissioner responded to that request, saying, “There is significant risk that the Motion could be interpreted as a circumvention of normal investigative processes and Charter protections.”
It is not the Liberal Party or the Government of Canada saying that. That is the independent office of our institution, the RCMP. Even though I have had many opportunities to question Conservatives on the issue of whether they are concerned about what the RCMP are saying, not one of them has had the courage to actually address that directly. I have witnessed dozens and dozens of them standing up, but not one of them has done so, because they are not concerned about such issues as the charter, our Constitution or proper process. They are concerned about trying to turn this into a game in which they can score cheap political points.
To try to give the false impression that the Government of Canada, the Prime Minister or the minister responsible does not care about the issue is just wrong. That cannot be substantiated.
Let us go through the actual process, in terms of what has taken place. A number of years ago, Navdeep Bains appointed a chair to SDTC. That chair was actually an adviser; she gave advice to Stephen Harper, a Conservative. She gave advice to Brian Mulroney, a Progressive Conservative. I often hear the Conservatives talking about how wonderful the late Jim Flaherty was; he was a former Conservative finance minister. They might be surprised, or likely not, to learn that the SDTC chair actually gave advice to him.
Navdeep Bains appointed her to an arm's-length organization of which we appointed maybe 50% of the board; the rest of the members were appointed outside that. After the appointment, a couple of years went by and we found out that there were issues that were taking place that should not have been taking place. As a direct result, the government, through the minister responsible, had an internal review done. In fact, we have had two. We have had the Auditor General look at the issue. We have had hours and hours of debate in our standing committee. The Conservatives, because they want their cheap political points in this game, are now asking what the next step is. They want to get unredacted documents—