Government Operations Committee on Feb. 13th, 2023

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I really appreciate the work that you do and I hope that you get all the resources to continue the important work and get to the bottom of this.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

Mr. Jeglic, thank you again for being with us.

You mentioned a couple of times that you haven't received the full scope yet of your study for McKinsey.

[Alexander Jeglic]

We have received the request from the minister, but it's still incumbent on us to make a reasonable-grounds analysis and determine what the scope actually is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Would you let us know when you've finished that and provide it to us?

[Alexander Jeglic]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Great.

We'll let you go, but thank you again for all of your work. I do consider you a friend of OGGO and I appreciate your time today.

Colleagues, really quickly, we have a couple of things.

On the travel expenditure report for the Governor General, I have a motion here. It is, “That members submit their draft recommendations for the report on travel expenditures related to the Office of the Governor General's Secretary since 2014, to the clerk of the committee by 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 28, 2023.”

If we can have agreement on that, we can get our recommendations in and actually write a report.

On the other issue, you would have seen that several letters have come from McKinsey pushing back on our motion. Recently, they were asking to submit redacted items at the request of the government.

I am going to suggest, but I will seek the committee's will, that we write back. I think this is the fourth time they've written to try to push back on the motion that was passed. I would request the committee's permission that we write back in accordance with the motion that the chair of the committee, in conjunction with the clerk and the analysts, send a letter to McKinsey & Company insisting on the production of the unredacted documents sent for in the motion adopted by the committee on January 18, 2023.

They've written to try to push back on this. We've written saying that the committee would like this. This is their fourth time, so I'm just suggesting we write one final time to say that we'd like to have the motion followed.

Go ahead, Mr. Housefather.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I just wanted to ask a question. They presented the production log along with the letter, and we haven't received the documents yet. We haven't seen the documents to review along with the production log thing that they sent.

The production log list of the redactions by McKinsey is very short. If the document is really 45,000 pages and it's only that production log that says there are redactions, maybe we want to look at what they've done, because it doesn't look like very much for 45,000 pages.

I want to understand if that list of their redactions in that production log is all-encompassing, because it is very limited, or is it just one part of one piece of their production that they're not doing?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

This specific request is, I think, the fourth request we've had to redact or not submit documents. They've added this, but I believe this is the fourth time they've asked.

What I'm saying is that they've asked the committee and we've said no. They've asked and we said no. Now there's another request.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I understand and support that, but I want to always look at what's reasonable. That's what I want to understand, Mr. Chair. Maybe you or the clerk would know.

That list they sent today doesn't have that many redactions for that many pages, and they provided their reasons, which don't seem to be things that would fall into what we absolutely needed to know. That's what I wanted to understand: Is that the universe of documents and is this all they're redacting, or is this one tiny piece of what they plan to redact from a small number of documents?

That's what I want to understand, because we don't have any context. We don't have the documents.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Is there anyone else for debate?

Go ahead, Mrs. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I just want to confirm what I thought I heard you say, which is that these redactions have been made at the encouragement of the government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That is correct.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Is that not somewhat concerning?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

The letter was sent—

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Where does it say it was at the request of the government?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It says, “we included a small number of redactions in the documents made at the request of our government clients”.

This letter was shared earlier today.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Is this a list of the ones that have been made at the request of the government? I'm trying to understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

This letter was shared with committee earlier today. It said, “We proactively raised in our letter accompanying the February 8, 2023 production that we included a small number of redactions in the documents made at the request of our government clients, in light of the fact they were confidential work product”, etc.

It's up to the committee, obviously. My commentary is that this is another request from them to not follow what the motion has stated.

Mr. Barrett is next.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

The documents were ordered to be produced unredacted. The committee agreed to review them in camera and then follow the practice that we have used in the past to ensure that redactions that the committee agrees on are made before they are published.

It's possible that some things they're redacting are things on which we'll agree, such as personal information or people's phone numbers or names. Things that aren't germane to the public interest may end up being redacted, but that's not what the committee ordered. It was not for McKinsey to redact them or for their clients to say what's going to be redacted. They need to produce the documents.

I would just say the least aggressive response is for the committee—the chair or the clerk—to send the instruction that you've indicated you would be prepared to send. It doesn't require a further motion. It's not an admonishment. It's not a question of privilege. It is just saying that this is what's expected of you because this is what's required of you. I think that's a pretty low bar.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We will send the letter as I mentioned, which is rather tame, for lack of better words. We expect the documents that the motion called for and we will treat them like we treated them in the case of GC Strategies. In my understanding, nothing is released until we look at it first.

Are we comfortable with that, colleagues?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you. I'll ask you to just bear with me for one last issue, and we'll try to get out really fast.

I am asking our committee's permission or approval to send a letter to the Information Commissioner to ask her to investigate the actions of the comptroller general, as we saw from our last meeting, where he admitted what I believe is advice to the CFOs to circumvent the Access to Information Act. I'm simply asking her to follow up.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Could you please just clarify, Mr. Chair, what you're suggesting?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It's a letter from the committee asking the Information Commissioner to investigate the actions of the comptroller general in reference to what came up in the last committee meeting. He had advice to the chief financial officers of the departments on circumventing the Access to Information Act in relation to the McKinsey study, purposely saying not to write issues down or not to write notes down in case they found their way into an ATIP.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I didn't hear it said that way. I thought he said that his staff needed to be mindful of what they wrote, but didn't script them as to what to write.