Health Committee on Nov. 16th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

We have Mr. Davies on the list again. Is that a residual question, or is that a new...?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

No, briefly, Mr. Chair, I have two things.

One is in respect to Mr. Van Bynen's comment. There are no ATIP criteria engaged by this. The House passed a motion that specified the grounds of redaction.

In the Access to Information Act, there are somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15 different criteria for redaction. The House did not adopt the ATIP criteria. It specified the grounds for redaction to the clerk, so that point should be clear.

Two, with respect to Mr. Thériault's points, in my opinion the guidelines had been given to the clerk by the House. It's not within the jurisdiction of the health committee to refine, change or embellish them. The motion that was passed in the House of Commons is clear.

I will end by saying to respect the integrity of the process and the integrity of the law clerk's office. The motion has been passed. It's in the law clerk's hands, and we should leave it in his hands to comply with the motion. If the law clerk has any questions, I'm not even sure the questions would be properly directed to the health committee, since the motion was not passed by the health committee but by the House of Commons itself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Dr. Powlowski, please go ahead.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Chairman, the motion wasn't our party's motion, but now that the motion is out there, I want to put a motion to amend the motion. It is to hold it in public.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

You are moving that the motion be amended by removing the requirement for in camera sittings. Is that correct?

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We have Ms. Rempel Garner's motion amended by Dr. Powlowski. The discussion is on the amendment.

Is there any further discussion on the amendment?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Chair, could Mr. Powlowski at least provide us with some arguments?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We're going back to the speakers' list here. We have Ms. Sidhu next.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think there is consensus to have the law clerk before us in public to ensure the law clerk swears to everything discussed. This would be beneficial to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you. We will go back to Dr. Powlowski again.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I'm not used to having anyone actually wanting to hear my ideas.

I think generally the fallback position should be to have everything in public. Especially with COVID-19 and the myriad of conspiracy theories revolving around it, I think it's better, where possible, to just make everything public and to not have anything behind closed doors, where it looks like we're trying to hide something.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

I see no further hands raised.

Are we ready for a vote on the amendment? Very well.

Recognizing Monsieur Thériault's concern, let's emphasize that the vote right now is on Dr. Powlowski's amendment to remove the in camera aspects from Ms. Rempel Garner's motion.

I will ask the clerk to conduct the vote.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

The amendment passes. We will continue the discussion on Ms. Rempel Garner's motion as amended.

Is there any further discussion?

Mr. Davies, please go ahead.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

In terms of timing, I hope we get to a discussion at some point in this meeting about what we'll be doing in our remaining seven meetings before the holiday break. Since convening in September, I don't think we've had a single meeting yet on any matter of substance. We keep putting these motions forward to hear witnesses or to have issues before us. We never seem to get to the actual witnesses.

I will point out that we have seven meetings, not counting this one, before the break. We have a mandatory motion from the House on COVID. I know I speak for everybody that we all agree that COVID is the single most profoundly important issue facing the health of this country, and even more so today, when we have red zones blowing up in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and Alberta. Cases are going up everywhere.

The reason I bring that up is that we also passed a motion that we have to at least get a start on the PMPRB study that is supposed to be happening concurrently. I am wondering when we want to have the law clerk come, given that we have seven meetings and we have the minister coming this Friday. It means that not counting today and Friday, we have six meetings after that.

I did hear your reference, Mr. Chair, to Tuesday. There are no health committee meetings on Tuesdays. I can tell you—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I didn't say anything about Tuesday.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I heard you say that we have meetings Monday and Tuesday, but perhaps that was a slip of the tongue. It's good if it's just Monday and Friday. That leaves us with six meetings to get started on the COVID study, which I would point out again is a directive from the House of Commons, and to get a start on the PMPRB study, and now to hear from the law clerk. If we do hear from the law clerk, where does the law clerk fit into those remaining six meetings?

The other thing about it, of course, is that there's a timeliness aspect, because the law clerk is supposed to have the documents produced for this committee by November 30, again with a potential extension of only seven days.

I think all committee members ought to be mindful of this before we vote on having the law clerk come. It would mean we would lose a day or postpone a day that we could look at COVID, and that's my main focus right now. The PMPRB is important, but it's not as timely. It has to happen concurrently.

I'm going to encourage my colleagues to vote against this motion. I just don't see that we gain much in having the law clerk come before committee. I won't repeat the argument that I made before, which is that I actually think it's potentially harmful. Given the packed agenda of this committee and the need to get under way, particularly on the COVID study, which I think Canadians want us to be looking at as the health committee, I just think it pales in comparison and that we shouldn't be taking valuable committee time to talk to the law clerk when we should be talking about these other issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

We go now to Mr. Kelloway.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I want to thank Mr. Davies for his comments on this issue.

I'm wondering, given the tight timelines that Mr. Davies explained very well, if we might want to look at the law clerk coming on Monday. Might that be an option for us in doing what everybody on this committee wants to do—get started?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

We go now to Ms. Rempel Garner, please.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'm trying to find a way to get us to consensus.

I'm with Mr. Davies. We need to have a work plan going forward with the COVID study. It needs to start before Christmas. Something we could do, assuming that we would have officials present for the first meeting of our COVID study, is just tack it on and have the law clerk present on a panel, so that if anyone wants to ask questions, they could do so with other officials there as well, during the first time that we start the COVID study.

I can't amend my own motion, so if there's desire to do that, somebody could do it. I would support it, but I am with Mr. Davies that we need to get going.

Again, the intent of having the law clerk here was that the Liberal Party and others were fairly intent about the House motion that the law clerk was not going to be able to do the redaction. I'm with Mr. Davies. I do think that the law clerk has the full capacity to do it. This is just an opportunity for committee members to confirm that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.

I should point out that when we bring in witnesses, we need 72 hours lead time to get that squared away.

Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think Ms. Rempel Garner beat me to the punch, but I would like to make an amendment to Ms. Rempel Garner's motion. Also, after listening to Mr. Davies outline the number of meetings we have, I think he makes a good point that we have a limited amount of time, and now we're talking about the PMPRB study as well.

I'm wondering if I can make an amendment to Ms. Rempel Garner's motion. Instead of inviting the law clerk for the two hours, or for one hour just for a separate meeting, I suggest we invite the law clerk to be part of a witness panel in the first meeting we have as part of the COVID study. I think this would save us that additional health committee meeting but still give us an opportunity to ask questions of the law clerk, which is something I am quite interested in. I don't have a lot of experience dealing with the law clerk. I would certainly like the opportunity to ask a couple of questions on how the process works and what requires being redacted and what does not from someone of the law clerk's experience, who is an independent official without any political connections or political influences. I would be interested in that opportunity.

My motion would be to amend the motion of Ms. Rempel Garner so that rather than having the law clerk as a lone witness for one hour at a committee meeting, the law clerk would be invited to be a member of a panel on the first meeting that we have to study the COVID-19 motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Are you moving that amendment?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Yes, Mr. Chair, I am.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Okay. The discussion is now on Mr. Barlow's amendment to Ms. Rempel Garner's motion as amended.

Mr. Kelloway, please go ahead.