Information & Ethics Committee on June 2nd, 2023

[Dr. Ginger Gibson]

I was not.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Ms. Redfern, go ahead.

[Madeleine Redfern]

I was not.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Dr. Adam, go ahead.

[Dr. Dyane Adam]

No.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you.

All right. We've established that. We'll go a little further, if we can. Was the Right Honourable David Johnston, who is a member of the foundation, a board member at that time? Was he part of that process, to your knowledge? Yes or no is fine.

[Dr. Ginger Gibson]

I'm not aware.

I think Dyane may have information.

[Dr. Dyane Adam]

Are we referring to David Johnston or Ted Johnson?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

It's the Right Honourable David Johnston.

[Dr. Dyane Adam]

I don't know.

[Madeleine Redfern]

I don't know. It was before my time.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Okay. That's fine. Thank you.

Essentially, as this crisis that you've described came up, you were referring to documents and information from seven years prior. Is that correct?

[Dr. Ginger Gibson]

That's correct.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Okay, so it's the same documents that we've also seen at committee and that have been reported elsewhere.

The frame of reference had nothing to do with your time on the board in making those decisions. It had to do with decisions made previous to your involvement in the administrative decision-making of the foundation.

[Dr. Ginger Gibson]

That's correct, and we would not have had access to all the information that you would have needed. That's why we're seeking an independent review.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Would you call this a foreign interference issue or a governance issue?

[Dr. Dyane Adam]

It's exactly what Dr. Gibson said. The board wanted to know what the facts were so that we could decide what it was. If the foundation had made any errors, the idea was to look into the issue and correct them—if there were issues to be corrected. To pass judgment now would not be right.

That was the whole point of an independent and comprehensive audit for the current trustees—meaning us—even though we weren't there in the past. Right now, we're responsible for the foundation and what we're doing about this issue. That was really the position of the directors.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Okay, I understand.

I think we are clear here that the board wanted to go in one direction, and it couldn't go in another direction faced with that deadlock. That's why potentially you're here today.

Chair, I don't have any more questions. I'm now going to pass it to my colleague, Ms. Hepfner, to continue.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Go ahead, please, for a minute and 40 seconds, Ms. Hepfner.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I would like to use this time to move a motion. I gave notice on the 16th. The members should have it in both official languages. I move:

That, the deadline to submit witnesses for the study of the use of TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance Ltd be three days following the adoption of the motion, and that the committee hold one meeting before the end of June at the chair's discretion.

I won't belabour the committee with further arguments on this. We've discussed it already at length. I know Mr. Green would like to expand the study to include other social media companies, and I agree. However, I don't think it's too much to ask for one day to get this study started with TikTok as the focus.

I hope the committee will quickly accept this motion today. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Hepfner.

The motion is in order and has been moved. We're just going to keep the witnesses there.

Mr. Green, I see your hand. Go ahead, please.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Given that there are still two more speaking spots, I move to adjourn this debate.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you.

There is a motion to adjourn debate on the motion. It's not debatable.

Do we have consensus?

There is no consensus, so we'll move to a recorded vote.

There is a tie. I vote yea.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6, nays 5)

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We'll move on.

Mr. Villemure, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Two and a half minutes isn't very long.

I'll recap. There are very different versions provided by Mr. Rosenberg, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Trudeau. They are completely at odds with those of Dr. Fournier, Ms. Redfern, Dr. Adam and Dr. Gibson.

We heard some facts that had been disclosed rather covertly by witnesses, namely Mr. Johnson, Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Rosenberg. We saw this morning that not everything was written down as we would have liked. There was some lack of governance when it was needed. It didn't seem to be a problem before. Pascale Fournier told us that she had been intimidated during the resolution of this conflict. Some members didn't want to recuse themselves from a potential conflict of interest or at least the appearance of one. I'm being very cautious.

We heard about foundation fellows who recently received an email stating that everything was fine, that nothing had happened and that nothing had changed.

The version of Mr. Rosenberg, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Trudeau says that everything is fine, while the version of former members of the board of directors and of the former president and CEO, Dr. Fournier, says the opposite.

Would you like to comment on that, Dr. Adam, Ms. Redfern and Dr. Gibson?

We only have a minute and a half.