Maria Minna

[Business of Supply, September 28th, 2006]

Yes, it is a meanspirited government when it goes after children, youth and women. It has a surplus of $13 billion which means, of course, that it has to cut services because, my goodness, it does not have the money to pay for them. This is a very sad day indeed.

[Business of Supply, September 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me today to rise to support this motion.

The motion deals with an issue that is extremely important to all Canadians: equality for women.

Budget cuts affect us all, but mostly the very vulnerable in our country.

The Treasury Board president defends his government's cuts by referring to the cuts to social programs made by the Liberal government 10 years ago. However, we cut spending in a successful effort to deal with a $42 billion deficit resulting from the fiscal mismanagement of the previous Conservative government. The Conservatives had reduced Canada to what the brokers on Wall Street described as a third world economy.

Today's cuts are being made despite the fact that we have a $13.2 billion surplus, thanks to the prudent fiscal management of the recent Liberal government.

We are heading down the meanspirited path of Mike Harris in Ontario. Two former Mike Harris hatchet men are leading the charge in their new federal roles as finance minister and Treasury Board president.

Soon there will be no funding and no services, and it will take a generation to fix. The most vulnerable groups are affected first, including women.

It is all in the cuts. The list includes: $5 million from status of women; $45 million from housing, we were fighting for housing just two minutes ago and here we are now cutting; volunteerism, now the government is punishing volunteers; youth international internship programs; youth employment; literacy; court challenges program; and important support programs for the most vulnerable in our society. The government is hammering women, aboriginals and youth. This is totally unacceptable.

It is targeting equality seeking groups because this government believes that they are a threat to its voter base.

A government with only 125 seats out of 308 in this House has absolutely no mandate to make such major changes to the social fabric of Canada.

Let us not forget that this Prime Minister, during the recent election campaign, signed a commitment to “ensure that Canada fully upholds its equality commitments to women”.

How do we square that with the Draconian cuts to women's programs that this government has just made?

I have news for the folks across the aisle. The government must address the needs of all Canadians not just its favourite ones.

Our democratic system has to support the fight for equality rights for all citizens, including: minority language groups, immigrant groups, religious groups, disability groups, same-sex rights groups, and women's groups. They all need the resources to ensure their arguments are heard when their rights are trampled on.

We are approaching the 25th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It should be a cause for celebration. Instead, this government dishonours that by shutting out equality seeking groups. Women were only included in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, and that was only after they marched on Ottawa to demand recognition.

The court challenges program established under the Liberal government was meant to implement this kind of thing. That program was dismantled by the Brian Mulroney Conservatives. It was then reinstated by the former Liberal government. Now, this Conservative government has chopped this program yet again.

What does the court challenges program really do? It seems to me that people think it is a waste of time fighting for people's rights. Let me give some examples.

One example is ESL for immigrant women. In the late eighties the policy of the government was that immigrant women should not receive subsidized English language training because they were not deemed to be going to work, whether they did or not, it did not matter. They did not need English language training. Only men could get training.

It was as a result of a court challenge, which I personally, by the way, was involved with, that women were able to get that turned around.

I have here another charter challenge. The Canada pension plan was extended to include on reserve workers after a status Indian, employed on reserve for many years, was excluded from CPP simply for working on reserve, funded by a court challenges program. This was another aboriginal woman again.

The other example is the rape shield. We all know the famous decision on that one, the protection of therapeutic and confidential files of sexual assault survivors in the context of criminal proceedings. These are only but a very few examples. I have many others if the members opposite are interested. The elimination of the court challenges program is just the beginning of the Conservative plan to cut the legs out from under all equality seeking groups.

The cuts that have just been announced are yet another example of the government's lack of compassion for ordinary Canadians. Women have many roles in today's Canada and face many problems of discrimination and violence. The government has to be there to protect. It has to be there for the people of Canada. Instead, the government guts the funding to equality seeking groups that help raise awareness and fight discrimination.

We are saddled with a minister who will not rule out the possibility that Status of Women Canada might wind up on the Conservative chopping block. Does the minister not see the important role this agency serves in promoting gender equality and the full participation of women in the economic, social, cultural and political life of Canada? If, as she has shown so far, she is not prepared to fight for Canadian women, she should resign today.

My colleagues were taken aback, as I was, to hear the minister say:

Our government is not a government that just keeps institutions alive in any of its areas...just for the sake of keeping an institution alive.

What planet is she living on? Maybe it is Pluto. Her attitude is offensive to all Canadian women struggling for decent affordable housing, a decent income and retirement years free from poverty. The minister has no heart in this case and no clout.

The minister says that money spent on women's programs can be farmed out to other departments. The other solution is to hide the problem. By mainstreaming responsibilities, she will be ensuring that no one is responsible for guaranteeing women's equality rights, rights guaranteed to them under the Constitution. When nobody is responsible, there is no accountability.

Without a full department under a real minister, the rights of women under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms will be non-existent. That is what the Status of Women Canada is, which is why it is so important that it be preserved and supported as a lead agency for all government departments in the ongoing quest for equality for the women of Canada.

The knowledge and experience that it has gained in such areas as pay equity, gender based analysis, just name it, must not be sacrificed on the altar of the REAL Women ideology. Canadian women are still marginalized within key political, social and legal institutions. These are still the realities of today. They must have a strong and independent women's movement to promote recommendations in support of women's rights. We must have that to support equality before the law, an adequate standard of living, to fight for meaningful employment and access to justice.

The government must demonstrate leadership and vision on women's equality on all those issues and many more and it must increase the women's budget and make it sustainable, not cut it.

The government must ensure that core funding is available to sustain day to day operations of women's groups. This is what is demanded and this is what is necessary. Instead of this, the President of the Treasury Board says that the government is cutting fat. For the Conservatives, parental leave is fat, affordable housing is fat and women's health is fat.

As we all know, we established the National Centers of Excellence in Women's Health all cross Canada, which was never done before and did not exist. I guess the present government considers the research centres of excellence to be fat. I guess the ESL for immigrant women that I mentioned earlier, which, under a charter challenge, were given the right to access programs, is fat.

The Prime Minister says that Canadian men and women of the armed services coming home in coffins is the price we must pay for bringing freedom and equality to Afghani women. Meanwhile, his government is slashing spending on hundreds of programs upon which Canadian women depend for an improved quality of life. He is prepared to leave them voiceless.

Does anyone follow the logic of committing military force to protect the rights of Afghani women while, at the same time, slashing spending on programs designed to promote and protect the rights of Canadian women? I certainly cannot.

We need to further strengthen women's rights to equality and security of the person, not weaken them as the minority Conservative government is doing. The Conservatives are simply caving in to the pressure of right wing radical groups, such as REAL Women, that believe a woman's place is in the home, barefoot in the kitchen.

Women's groups still have a long battle ahead to achieve equality in this country. We are not there. The fight is a huge one. Women in this country were well on their way until the present minority government came along and removed equality from the national agenda altogether.

Liberal governments, on the other hand, are known for their commitment to women's equality. Building on the Liberal achievements from 1993 to 1994, the former Liberal government continued to take action. The following are only some of the things it achieved: first, Parliament established the Standing Committee on the Status of Women in September 2004, which the Conservative government tried to eliminate at the beginning of this Parliament.

In October 2005, an expert panel was created to provide advice and options to strengthen accountability mechanisms to advance gender based analysis and gender equality issues.

In 2000, parental benefits were extended to one year. National Centers of Excellence in Women's Health and the Institute for Gender and Health were created to work on health policy issues unique to women.

Thirty-two million dollars were committed on an annual basis to the national crime prevention initiative and $7 million were committed to the family violence initiative. Of that money, $1 million over four years is being provided to address violence against aboriginal women.

In the fall of 2005, trafficking in persons was added as an offence to the Immigration and Refugee Act, Bill C-49.

In response to the sisters in spirit proposal, the Liberal government provided $5 million over five years to the Native Women's Association of Canada. These funds support NWAC's work with other aboriginal women's organizations and the federal government on activities aimed at ending violence against aboriginal women.

To help make post-secondary education more affordable for lower and middle income Canadians, $2.1 billion over five years were committed to improving student financial assistance. There were $1.3 billion over five years committed to improving settlement and integration services for new immigrants to Canada.

Budget 2005 ensured that senior women would benefit from a $2.7 billion increase over two years to the guaranteed income supplement and a $15 million increase to the new horizons for seniors program.

Despite the progress that we have made, women still only make 71¢ for every dollar a male earns in Canada. The government, in conjunction with women's organizations, must deal with the growing problem of women's economic security.

The National Council on Welfare research shows that women, especially lone parents, stay in poverty longer than others. Poverty costs all Canadians in many ways: increased health care costs, social disintegration and associated crime, untapped potential and labour market activities.

Women are still disadvantaged by the employment insurance program. The program was supposed to be reviewed to assess the inequities for women. Still today, women are less likely to qualify and less likely to get full benefits. Part time workers, mostly women, are excluded. Maternity and parental benefits are least accessible to those mothers who need it the most.

Senior women and caregivers are among those most severely at risk of poverty. The old age security and the GIS benefits are below the poverty line and do not factor in actual costs of living, such as rent in Toronto.

EI must be reformed. Hours needed to qualify must be reduced. Self-employed women must be able to contribute and qualify for maternity and parental benefits.

CPP is very important for senior women as well. This is another part that is based on employment but could be interrupted because of violence, child rearing and caregiving. This affects women in a totally different way than it affects men. Taking time out is something that affects women.

The poverty level of seniors is increasing. Unpaid work for women is a major cause of poverty, as I mentioned earlier, because of having to take time out. Caregivers of today are the poor seniors of tomorrow. Women making 71¢ for every dollar made by men is not acceptable. That has to change.

The way we structure the CPP has to change to allow women to deal with taking time out for caregiving, as we do when we have children, because, quite frankly, they are the backbone of our nation. They are holding up the nation right now and are saving us billions of dollars in caregiving. However, because they are pitching in they will pay the price when they are seniors and that is not acceptable.

Increased education levels for women have not changed and this is appalling.

The report from the Standing Committee on the Status of Women clearly shows that the current system does not work.

We need new pay equity legislation. The Liberal Party committed to introducing this legislation in the House but the Conservative government's response to the standing committee, which basically says that it will not introduce pay equity legislation, is further proof that the present government is dead set against equality for women. It has chosen to keep in place an archaic system that has not worked for the last 30 years and has refused to introduce pay equity legislation that would give women some semblance of income security. It is quite obvious that the government does not intend to respect and promote women's human rights. That is yet another clear reason why it is so important to ensure the ongoing federal funding for advocacy groups that defend women's rights.

The government's response to gender based analysis is that it will make sure it is adhered to but it is not prepared to put in place a process or legislation to ensure its use by every department, especially the Department of Finance and other departments that have traditionally resisted integrating gender based analysis of all programs into their systems, which would address the issues of inequalities. This could be identified up front before policies are made and before they impact on women in a negative manner. This is another area that the government completely refuses to act on. We are supposed to trust it on everything but it will eventually get rid of the Status of Women. It seems that it is on the chopping block and that will completely obliterate women's rights.

With respect to pay equity, it is absolutely unacceptable that pay equity is not part of the government's program. When we were in government, we committed to bringing in legislation because the departments were not prepared to function. The only place where we were successful was at CIDA and maybe one other ministry. We actually led the way in training the World Bank with respect to gender based analysis because we had the expertise in the Status of Women Canada department. However, we are not able to use that expertise in our own departments because there is no will to force it. We were prepared to push that with legislation but the present government has refused to do that.

I am proud to inform the House that the Conservatives received only 18% of the vote in my riding of Beaches--East York. My voters understood what the Conservatives would do if they ever came into power. These latest budget cuts demonstrate that my constituents were right when they concluded that the Conservatives were most definitely not fit to govern.

[Business of Supply, September 28th, 2006]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government fails to recognize the many roles of women in Canadian society and the importance of providing all Canadian women with equal opportunity; and the House objects to the government’s partisan and discriminatory cuts in federal support for women’s programs and services.

[Status of Women, September 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, women's organizations are alarmed, and they have good reason to be. The government is altering the funding requirements of the women's program. These organizations will be unable to continue their fight for social justice for women in this country.

On behalf of all women in Canada, I ask the minister responsible to do her job and intervene, before cuts are announced on Monday, to save the women's program. This valuable work must continue.

Will the minister support the program without repeating the silly excuses about eliminating waste in women's programs? Will the minister stand up for Canadian women or will she not?

[Government Policies, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, to continue with the list of changes for the worse, the Kyoto protocol has been rejected. Project green has been dropped. A made in Canada solution that would have resolved 80% of the problem two years ahead of schedule has been eliminated.

A promise to provide the Canada Council with $300 million has been broken.

A promise to speed up the foreign credential recognition process has been broken.

The right of same sex partners to marry is being threatened.

The part time ACOA minister uses blatant political pork-barrelling for his provincial PC friends. This is unaccountable.

Child care spaces destined for Toronto families where mothers are crying out for affordable day care have been cut.

The justice minister will not take unscreened questions at a town hall meeting because he does not like the answers he would have to give. This is unaccountable.

We know that Canadians are not naive as the Prime Minister seems to think. They have noticed all these changes for the worse.

[Points of Order, June 16th, 2006]

I retract that. I regret that.

But they do not care about children and are impoverishing women in this country. That is true.

[Points of Order, June 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I regret having used the word “God” and I take that back, but--

[Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act, June 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I find it strange how this could possibly hamper the process.

First, with respect to the previous government, the regulatory process is very complex and it takes a long time. I have outlined in fact why it takes a long time.

Second, there is new evidence which demonstrates that PFOS is a real problem in the Canadian context. We need to act now, rather than later.

When we put together the new evidence, as I said earlier, a great deal of time is taken to actually address the situation. I do not believe that we can wait that long.

Third, my understanding is that CEPA is not looking to ban the product. As I understand it, it is looking to list it, which is not the exact same thing. It can be listed as a toxic substance, but that in itself does not deal with the issue nor does it take it out of the environment entirely.

When I was the minister responsible for international cooperation, I was responsible at the time to deal with the issue of POPs, persistent organic pollutants. As part of Canada's response to the environment on the international scene, I was responsible to work with POPs in developing countries.

The reason that Canada was involved in investing money with developing countries to eliminate the use of persistent organic pollutants is because they are landing in northern Canada. We have a very direct interest in this issue. The reason why POPs are banned is because they are persistent and they stay in the environment. They are bioaccumulative.

Canada was very aggressively involved with developing countries with regard to the elimination of POPs, first because they were bad for everyone in the world, but also because they were landing in our north.

Exactly the same thing is happening with PFOS. In fact, as I said earlier, this substance is even more persistent than some of the other ones. PFOS is harder to get rid of in the environment and in the system. It takes decades and maybe never. PFOS affects children more than it affects adults. Quite frankly, I do not see how a bill that is addressing a very serious issue could hamper the work that CEPA is doing.

I presume and I know that the review certainly can integrate whatever decision the House makes. Quite frankly, Parliament can make decisions that are over and above whatever CEPA is doing. I do not see how that would hamper it.

As I said, this substance is serious. It is bad. In Stockholm, the United States, even the company 3M has stopped using it. In fact, Environment Canada in 2004 stated that it should be quasi-listed and virtually eliminated. Now we are talking about listing it as a toxin. That is not sufficient.

I think that this substance is bad for children, bad for our environment, and bad for the country. We should do as other countries have already done and continue to do. It should be listed.

[Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act, June 15th, 2006]

moved that Bill C-298, An Act to add perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) to the Virtual Elimination List under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to be here today to talk about this bill which represents an important step in protecting the health of Canadians and our environment. Bill C-298 seeks the elimination from our environment of a chemical that poses a threat to the health of Canadians. This chemical, PFOS, is currently not regulated in Canada in any way.

First, allow me to explain briefly what PFOS is and what it is used for, then I will say why we need to eliminate it from our lives and from our environment.

PFOS is one of a larger class of chemicals known as PFCs. These chemicals are mainly used in consumer products for their non-stick, stain repellant and water repellant properties. PFOS itself is used mostly as a stain repellant in various consumer products, as well as in certain industrial applications.

Consumer products that may contain PFOS include rugs, carpets, fabric, upholstery, clothing, food packaging and certain industrial and household cleaners. Other applications include firefighting foams, hydraulic fluids, carpet spot removers, mining and oil well applications and metal plating processes, such as chrome plating.

The most famous application of PFOS was in the Scotchguard products manufactured by 3M. 3M voluntarily stopped using PFOS in 2000 at the urging of the U.S. EPA, citing the health and environmental dangers posed by the chemical.

I will turn now to the question of why we need to eliminate PFOS from our environment and from our lives. The risks posed by PFOS has been examined by a number of countries and by international bodies as well. They have all come to essentially the same conclusions: PFOS is a threat to human health and the environment.

Most of the health studies we have on the effects of PFOS deal with animals. In animals PFOS has been found to cause breast cancer, liver cancer and thyroid cancer and is known to harm the pancreas, the brain and the immune system.

PFOS is more persistent in the environment than DDT and PCBs. It is quite an awful piece of work. It is also persistent in the human body. Even if we could eliminate PFOS from our environment immediately, it would take eight years on average for our bodies to get rid of half of the PFOS in our systems.

In 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said:

that continued manufacture and use of PFOS represents an unacceptable technology that should be eliminated to protect human health and the environment from potentially severe long term consequences.

Those are strong words.

In April 2004, Environment Canada and Health Canada completed their own assessments of PFOS. They came to essentially the same conclusion. There are four basic questions that we need to ask when deciding whether a chemical poses a sufficient risk to human health and the environment that it should be regulated.

First, is the substance inherently toxic, that is, does it pose a health risk to humans or wildlife? Second, does it persist for long periods of time in the environment without breaking down into harmless compounds? Three, does it bioaccumulate, in other words, does it become more concentrated as it moves up the food chain? Four, is it used widely enough or in such a manner that there is a serious risk of human exposure?

PFOS meets all of these criteria. In its April 2004 assessment, Environment Canada concluded that PFOS is persistent, bioaccumulative and inherently toxic. Similarly the U.S. EPA stated that, “PFOS appears to combine persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity properties to an extraordinary degree”.

As to the fourth factor, the risk of exposure, we know that virtually all Canadians and Canadian wildlife are being exposed to PFOS. I will read briefly from the summary published by Environment Canada and Health Canada in the Canada Gazette. It states:

PFOS has been detected throughout the world, including in areas distant from sources, and in virtually all fish and wildlife sampled in the northern hemisphere, including Canadian wildlife in remote sites, far from sources or manufacturing facilities of PFOS and its precursors.

This suggests, not only that PFOS is pervasive in our environment, but that it travels very long distances once it enters the environment. As such, it is not only a risk for those using products that contain PFOS, the risk of exposure affects everyone.

What about human exposure? We have data on that as well. New and emerging evidence suggests that human exposure to PFOS is pervasive in Canada. Environmental Defence Canada has conducted two studies in which it tested Canadians from across the country to see if they had PFOS and a number of other chemicals in their bodies. This type of study is called body load testing.

The first report published in November 2005 tested 11 adults from across Canada. It found that all of them had PFOS in their bodies. The second, published just a couple of weeks ago, looked at members of five families in various regions of the country, parents, children and grandparents. Once again, all study participants had PFOS in their bodies.

The second report also revealed something new and very troubling. The concentration levels in children were higher than those in their parents. This means that dealing with PFOS is a serious and urgent question of children's health. Children may in fact be more vulnerable to the effects of toxic chemicals like PFOS because their bodies are growing and developing rapidly. The fact that they have higher levels of PFOS in their systems means that we need to act now, not later.

This all adds up to the fact that PFOS poses a danger to Canadians' health and the environment. I doubt that we will hear anyone dispute this fact in the House today. Among those I have talked to so far, everyone seems to agree that PFOS poses an unacceptable risk. The question is what we should do about it. What action should we take?

I mentioned earlier that Environment Canada and Health Canada completed a draft assessment of PFOS in April 2004. On the basis of that assessment, the ministers of these departments made two proposals for action. These were published in the Canada Gazette on October 2, 2004.

The first recommendation was that PFOS be added to the list of toxic substances under CEPA which is found in schedule 1. The second recommendation was the implementation of virtual elimination of PFOS. This is precisely what Bill C-298 proposes to do. It requires the virtual elimination of PFOS.

Virtual elimination has a specific meaning under CEPA, which is laid out in clause 65 of the bill. It means that the substance cannot be released into the environment at any level or concentration that cannot be accurately measured using sensitive but routine sampling and analytical methods. Essentially, the chemicals should not be entering the environment at any level that is detectable using the best commonly available measurement techniques. As I understand it, virtual elimination, as its name suggests, is a mechanism that is intended to eliminate harmful substances like PFOS from our environment.

If Environment Canada and Health Canada have already recommended the virtual elimination of PFOS, why do we need a bill? There are two reasons.

Given the mounting evidence about the risk posed to Canada by PFOS, we must ensure that our response is speedy and we must ensure that it is adequate. Neither of these things is assured if we simply continue down the normal regulatory path.

In terms of the response being speedy, allow me to outline what moving forward with the normal regulatory process might look like.

As I understand it, the next step would normally be another publication in the Canada Gazette, accompanied by a recommendation to the governor in council. In the Canada Gazette posting, the ministers would outline the process they intended to follow to develop a regulation or instrument to address the risk posed by PFOS. After that, they would have two years to actually propose a regulation or an instrument. Once they have made this proposal, they would another 18 months to review feedback on what they have proposed.

After 18 months, if no material or substantive changes are required, the regulation or instrument would be published. By my account, this means that if we were to take the next step tomorrow, we might be a little over three years away from an actual regulation to address the threat of PFOS.

More than two years after the initial assessment was completed, the prospect of waiting another three or four years before anything gets done to address the threat posed by PFOS is simply unconscionable. There are ways that the ministers could choose to act more expeditiously.

These are outlined in the bill as well. I do not want to speculate on what path the ministers might choose to take, but the bottom line is that for the sake of our children and for the sake of our environment, we need to act now, not later.

In my opinion, this bill is the right way to do that because it ensures that not only is the response timely, it is also adequate.

It is the nature of the regulatory process that until we have a final regulation, we do not actually know what the response will be. Without knowing specifically what the minister intends to recommend, I cannot comment on whether or not it would be an adequate response. I can say that experience has taught us that merely adding a chemical to the list of toxic substances does not guarantee significant action. In fact, it does not guarantee any action at all.

This bill avoids that problem. If Parliament were to pass this bill, they would know what kind of response they would get to the threat posed by PFOS. They would know it would be adequate and they would know it would be carried out in a timely fashion.

Other countries have already taken action to protect their citizens and their environment from exposure to PFOS. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned the use of PFOS in 2000, with the exception of a few very specific applications. Other countries have since moved to ban or severely restrict the use of PFOS. Sweden has proposed a global ban on the substance under the Stockholm convention on persistent organic pollutants, sometimes called the POPs treaty.

The POPs committee is now moving forward with its consideration of PFOS to decide if it should be included under the Stockholm treaty. A draft report prepared for the committee in May of this year found that PFOS meets all of the criteria for inclusion. The report concludes with the following statement:

Due to the harmful POP properties and risks related to its possible continuing production and use, global action is warranted to eliminate the pollution caused by PFOS.

Incidentally, we also learned from this report that Environment Canada and Health Canada have revised their ecological and human health assessments on PFOS and that the revised versions should be publicly available soon. I look forward to seeing these.

Sweden is right. PFOS belongs on this list of persistent organic pollutants banned under the Stockholm treaty, but in the meantime we need to deal with it here at home. We simply cannot allow Canada to lag behind when it comes to protecting human health and the environment. We must act now, not later, to protect Canadians from exposure to PFOS. That is the objective of this bill, and I hope that all parties and all members will support it.

[Points of Order, June 1st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Yorkton—Melville during question period misled the House intentionally as far as I am concerned. He declared that the Liberals purposely hid money. This is totally unacceptable and not true.

There have been two standing committees. This is totally unacceptable. None of this was proven it was exactly the opposite. The questions were put to the bureaucrats over and over. The information is absolutely not accurate and the member for Yorkton—Melville purposely misled the House. I demand an apology because there are facts on paper. I dare him to read the transcripts of the committee reports, the two of them, and read what the witnesses said.