Government Operations Committee on Oct. 17th, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Are we ready to vote on this, colleagues?

Go ahead, Mr. Jowhari, please.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

There's fundamentally no issue. Thank you for the proposed amendment. Thank you, Mrs. Kusie, for accepting it.

We are going to support this. The question we have is that since this is now an open investigation by the RCMP, is the timing of this...?

When we invite someone from the RCMP, we're going to hear that it's under investigation and that they can't share that information, so I would suggest that we consider the timing. I don't know whether it takes four or three or five meetings, but I think the finding of the RCMP is going to be extremely important to us. I don't want to start a process at the same time as the RCMP is coming here. I don't want to pull the RCMP in here or pull any of those staff in here for them to say that they cannot talk about this because it's an open case.

As you all know, when we bring the ministers, they say, “Well, this is an open case. This is an active case by the RCMP, and we cannot make a comment on it.” Then we're going to put in another two hours of people saying they're not able to comment on anything, and we've already had two cancellations.

We are going to support it, to be very clear. It's just that at this point I'm not sure what we will get out of it if we make this a priority for the committee if that's the line that's going to be used.

That's all. Thank you.

[An hon. member]

Give it to public accounts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Don't bounce it back to public accounts; they have enough work. We looked at that. We tried that.

Are we ready to vote on this motion, colleagues?

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Go ahead, Ms. Vignola.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Two weeks ago, I believe, we discussed a motion for the committee to do a study on Canada Life. I'll re‑read it to you:That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(c), the committee undertake a study on the changeover of the Public Service Health Care Plan (PSHCP) from Sun Life to the Canada Life insurance company and that, to do so, the committee examine matters including1) the quality of the insurance coverage, taking into account the circumstances and needs of federal public service employees,2) the efficiency and effectiveness of the new insurance plan, particularly as concerns the online claims service and the telephone service offered to participants and health professionals,3) the mechanisms that Public Services and Procurement Canada used in awarding the PSHCP contract to ensure the contractor had the capacity to serve the entire federal public service and provide the expected services, and4) the measures that will be taken to correct the situation [because we all know it's not going that well];That the committee allocate at least four meetings to conduct this study and that it invite to appear, for two hours per panel, the following witnesses: (a) the Minister of Public Services and Procurement at the time the contract was awarded to Canada Life (in March 2023), (b) the current minister and officials from Canada Life, and (c) any other witnesses it deems necessary; and That the Committee report its findings and recommendations to the House; and that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the Government table a comprehensive response.

When the conversation ended, we were at the second part regarding witnesses and the time allotted. I simply wanted to remind you of this, and I'm ready to continue the discussion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Ms. Vignola.

Before we get to our speaking list, which starts with Mr. Jowhari, we left off with Mr. Jowhari's suggested amendment. I've been chatting with and receiving feedback from various members. I have generally come to the conclusion that after number 4, where it says, “the measures that will be taken to correct the situation”, we're going to revise what it says after that to, “That the committee allocate at least one meeting to conduct this study”.

We'll leave it there for now. I get the general impression that we decided to do one meeting and then decide if more are necessary from there.

Go ahead, Mr. Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Julie, thank you for starting with grounding us.

I think we agreed on at least one meeting. We also suggested that we'll have the officials come and answer all the questions, and if we're not satisfied, we can call the ministers. That's specifically where we left it.

If that friendly amendment is acceptable, we are ready to support it so that we don't have to get into....

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

The motion as noted is points 1, 2, 3 and 4, and then everything after that is deleted, except we will change it to “That the committee allocate at least one meeting to conduct this study”, and then we can....

I'm sorry; the last line, of course, would read, “That the Committee report its findings and recommendations to the House”.

We can decide on witnesses by this Friday at noon. I think we discussed that this would be best.

Do we accept that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Wonderful. We will consider that accepted.

Before we break, this changes our calendar, because we were going to study ArriveCAN. We were going to study on Thursday the ArriveCAN draft report, which, of course, we're not going to do now.

We have two options. One is to try to find witnesses for ArriveCAN. The other option is to have the PBO come in, whom we bumped recently. We can talk about one of his recent reports on digital government or the batteries.

You had another suggestion, Mr. Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes. If you're going to get the PBO, we have a lot of good stuff to talk to him about, so yes....

If not, may I suggest that we start on ArriveCAN, because we have to look at this report?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Yes. That's if we can get witnesses for Thursday.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'd love to get the PBO if we can. If not, rather than cancelling again, can we just start looking at this report? I'm sure it would be a good refresher for us to know what was discussed before we get into it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'll leave it up to the committee, but I'm not sure there's any value to.... We were going to start the line-by-line drafting, based on the information we had so far, but now we're going to have the new information, which kind of wipes out the line-by-line drafting.

We've been open Thursday—

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Those are witness testimonies. They're not going to wipe it out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I was hoping we could start on new witnesses, but I doubt we can find them in two days. I thought we'd just plunk in the PBO there.

We'll go to Mr. Genuis and then Mr. Johns.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

We are considerably over time. I trust your judgment, but I don't think we should be doing line-by-line drafting of a report when we're going to have four more hearings on the subject. That seems to be fairly obvious, but why don't you just—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We have until six o'clock, because we started late.

I'm hoping we can agree on the PBO for Thursday.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Wonderful. That also changes a couple of other things down the road, but we'll update on Thursday.

On Thursday, we have a couple of budget things we have to go through as well, so we'll keep about 10 minutes. Our clerk has already sent some out, and she will be sending out some updated budget things.

There's nothing else, colleagues. Thank you, everyone.

We are adjourned.