Thanks.
I appreciate the committee, and the work it's doing on this. We've had a couple of our members here from the industry committee. I listened as I did another committee at the same time this morning. I appreciate the hours the committee has put in on this.
I'm going to be direct, because it's the best way to deal with this. I came here tonight trying to, hopefully, get answers for the public as best I can.
There are a number of different things I intend to do tonight. We don't support (g) and (h), because we don't support concurrence motions in the House that will cause problems. We do support, though, making sure the government is going to follow through with this commitment.
I would be a bit concerned, hearing there might be an amendment about translation later on. I know it would be pertinent for documents to be translated sooner rather than later, but maybe one week is too much. We'll see. I hope there wouldn't be any issues with that.
As well, I'll tell you this much that, tonight, I won't be supporting some of the preamble language proposed to me after seeing the amendments by both the Conservative and Liberal parties. The reason being is that it's basically an opinion as to what's out there. I want to find some more facts here to restore public confidence in the investments that are taking place, but I believe we need to try to be as transparent as possible.
I'm also concerned. I do have an amendment at some time to work through it if I can, and, hopefully, find consensus like we did at the industry committee about how we can get the actual information of the foreign workers who are coming, the foreign workers who will operate the plant, and also the specific foreign workers who will be doing the training of the Canadian workers, and for how long. Is there a way to protect proprietary information? Can it be done in a trustworthy way? I worry about handing all of that over to companies and the government, so I'm trying to find a way to do all of those things, and I know there are other amendments coming.
To be clear, we won't support (g) and (h) at this particular point, but I take the reservation the Conservatives sincerely have about it concerning whether we're going to get the information or not. I believe we can under (h), and I believe there will be the political will to do so, because the companies, which are noted in this thing right here, don't want this story to continue to go on and on in perpetuity.
I think the government will be understanding of that, because if it doesn't produce these documents as soon as possible, it's going to continue to undermine public confidence in the materials here. I will be supporting the amendment to remove (g) and (h), but I have high expectations that they will be deliverable in terms of the rest of the motion.
Much like I did at the industry committee, I will be voting to get rid of the preamble, and just get to the contracts. I'm searching for ways to bring some consensus to the fact that we do want as much information as possible, and not unilaterally turning over the entire keys of the operation for redaction to the companies and the government. I'm working on those elements to see if I can find a way as we go through this day.
Again, we won't be supporting (g) and (h) at this particular time.