Thank you, Chair.
I had hoped that the intervening moments would provide an opportunity for clarification of conscience among some of my colleagues, but sadly that has not occurred. This is a truly bizarre display.
I want to remind you that this study on car theft was proposed by the Bloc Québécois. However, today, the Bloc Québécois has decided to vote against giving the ministers the opportunity to answer questions on this subject. It's very odd.
The NDP, Liberals and Bloc are, allegedly, concerned about this issue, yet we have proposed multiple times that we adjourn debate on this other matter to allow the ministers to speak. I just proposed a motion that we proceed to hearing from the ministers, yet we have this Liberal-Bloc-NDP tactic of blocking ministers from presenting. This is consistent with the evident desire of Liberals to prevent any prospective leadership candidates from being heard at committee.
Mr. LeBlanc, as well as Mr. Rodriguez, should be held accountable on their files. That said, Ms. O'Connell was suspiciously given the floor at the beginning of the meeting, and she's reinforced the point. That was suspicious.
I do welcome the sort of [Inaudible—Editor] chorus reinforcement of my messages today.
Suspiciously, she was given the floor by the chair, and when she was given the floor, she moved a motion to shift to a different item, an item that was not on the agenda and an item involving the subcommittee's report.
Here we are, and I have tried, through a number of dilatory motions, to give the committee the opportunity to hear from the ministers, but those proposals have been blocked by the cover-up coalition. I hope other colleagues will see reason here and see the outcome. I hope they realize that it is better to give the ministers an opportunity to present and give us an opportunity to ask them questions.
On the subcommittee report, we are debating amendments that we proposed to the seventh report of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. The amendments we proposed are to a number of different sections. We have not proposed any changes to sections of the subcommittee report that deal with Bill S-210, so any suggestions to the contrary are verifiably false. These amendments are public. These amendments do not, in any way, impact the sections that deal with the study of Bill S-210. They deal with other matters.
The first change is in section three of the subcommittee report. The existing section proposed that the ministers appear together. It actually deals with the appearance of ministers. It proposes that ministers appear together for the first hour of a meeting. We proposed, instead, that it be amended to say that the ministers appear separately for one hour each on the study of auto theft.
This amendment is consistent with a proposal made publicly yesterday, as well, highlighting and reinforcing our belief. If each minister has an hour of time available, it makes more sense that they appear individually for an hour, so that they can each individually be asked questions about their own individual activities and their own work on their own portfolio.
Liberals are clearly doing everything they can to minimize ministerial accountability, first, by saying that the ministers would appear together all at once, and now, by moving this motion by Ms. O'Connell to prevent ministers from testifying. They are repeatedly lining up with their coalition partners to prevent us from hearing the ministers.
Our proposal as part of the amendment to the subcommittee report was, frankly, quite generous in terms of ministerial appearances. We did not propose that they each appear for two hours on auto theft. We proposed, rather, that they appear for one hour each. In the context in which the ministers have said they have an hour available to them, it would have been reasonable for them to appear separately for an hour each. That's what we proposed.
I also proposed that we invite the Minister of Public Safety to appear for one hour to answer questions on ArriveCAN. I can tell from his expression that Mr. LeBlanc is very interested in addressing the arrive scam scandal. We have been able to have a number of different witnesses, public servants and deputy ministers, come repeatedly to answer important questions on the arrive scam scandal, but we have had ministers relatively reluctant to appear, although I will say that one of Mr. LeBlanc's fellow contenders in the upcoming Liberal leadership race, Minister Anand, did appear and answered one hour's worth of questions at the public accounts committee. Ms. Anand has exceeded her future competitor Mr. LeBlanc in terms of her willingness to appear before committee on the arrive scam scandal.
Of course, the arrive scam scandal is something that happened. It involves procurement and various issues, but, crucially, it involves the CBSA. There seem to be some significant problems there, even in terms of officials pointing the finger at each other and accusing each other of lying. This is why, in our subcommittee report, we proposed that Minister LeBlanc be given the opportunity to answer questions from members of Parliament on the issue of the arrive scam scandal. We've been very generous in our proposal of only one hour.
The committee would, I think, be interested in hearing from Minister LeBlanc on the arrive scam scandal—what he knew when, what he did with that information, whether he thinks it's normal that a two-person company based in a basement somewhere received an overwhelming amount of money from his department, and what he did with that information once he received it. We have a system of ministerial accountability in which ministers should answer questions. Of course, the agenda for today was to have ministers answer questions on auto theft.
Look, there are many issues: the main estimates, of course, but also foreign interference and the proliferation of corruption and scandal under his watch. There are various other matters that we would be interested in hearing from the minister on. That is why, as part of the subcommittee report, we proposed amendments that would allow for the meaningful questioning of ministers, instead of this very limited and abbreviated interaction.
I know members of this committee and members of the public are very interested in our having that opportunity to question ministers, so in that vein I would propose—time having elapsed, with perhaps my having persuaded some members—that we now proceed to hear from the ministers.