Canada-China Relations Committee on March 31st, 2021

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon, colleagues.

I'm tempted to apologize because I missed the first hour. I wasn't able to attend and Mr. Sorbara was sitting in my place. I have been following along, though, and certainly remember the previous meeting we had that led to this one.

From following along to the best of my ability, I still have a concern that we are going down a path that could compromise an ongoing investigation. I think that's a real live issue.

If colleagues want to put forward arguments that can alleviate that concern, I would welcome that, but, at this point, I have not heard anything that would sway my view on this. I've had the concern all along. I think I raised it at the previous meeting.

Opposition colleagues seem to be of a different view. I'm all ears: I would love to hear more. However, I think that before the committee moves in a particular direction here, we have to think very carefully about the need to preserve the integrity, as I said, of an ongoing investigation.

I'll leave that to the committee to consider. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Mr. Oliphant.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm predisposed toward the amendment, but I have another concern. I think I want to move a subamendment to that amendment. I think we have a real problem—I don't mean “we” as in the government, but “we” as Canadians—in giving to an agency that is seized with the largest public health pandemic in Canadian history 10 days to find and translate an unknown number of pages of documents.

We have a long weekend upcoming. Friday and Monday are statutory holidays, and I am hoping that our officials will be able to get some time off with their families as well, given the year they've had. To have them comply with this within 10 days, I think is unreasonable, and I think Canadians would see it as unreasonable.

I move a subamendment to change the “10 days” to “30 days”. Perhaps that would then take precedence over the amendment that Mr. Harris has suggested.

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

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Mr. Genuis, I think you're going to point out that the 10 days is in the main motion, not in the amendment.

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

Also, it's not in the section that was amended by Mr. Harris. Mr. Oliphant is welcome to raise that as a point of discussion, but it is not germane to the amendment we're currently discussing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I will give that as a notice of motion, then. If the amendment is done, I would like to come back to it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you. We'll do that, of course.

First, does anyone else wish to speak to Mr. Harris' proposed amendment?

Seeing no one wishing to speak to Mr. Harris' proposed amendment, I would ask the clerk to conduct a vote on it.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Marie-France Lafleur]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If I may, I just have one point of clarification, and perhaps a question for Mr. Harris.

If we change paragraph (b) to what he has proposed, are we still going with paragraph (c) as written in the original motion, which provides for “an in-camera meeting with the Law Clerk, within seven days of the conclusion of his redaction of the documents, in order to determine which documents could be made public”?

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Madam Clerk, for pointing that out. I guess that would be a consequential amendment. The documents may well be redacted after the meeting that we hold in camera, so I think paragraph (c) would have to be changed as well. Therefore, perhaps we could deal with my amendment first and then make an amendment to paragraph (c) that follows.

If I had been comprehensive, I would have done both at once, but I think the principle that we were pointing out was the important thing to get before and accepted by the House. I can deal with that after this motion is dealt with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, I don't see any problem with going on that basis, do you?

[The Clerk]

No. It's all good.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you. Please conduct the vote on Mr. Harris' amendment.

[The Clerk]

Absolutely.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you. It does carry.

Perhaps I should have asked if anyone was opposed to it. It occurred to me that it was going to be unanimous, but I don't think I was sure of that.

Now I have Mr. Harris again.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

It seems to me that paragraph (c) is now redundant, unless there's some need to determine when we would then meet to discuss the matter, but that's a different point from what's contained in (c).

Paragraph (c) reads:the committee hold an in-camera meeting with the Law Clerk, within seven days of the conclusion of his redaction of the documents, in order to determine which documents could be made public;

I think that all of that is subsumed by the amendment to paragraph (b). I would simply move that paragraph (c) be deleted, and paragraph (d) be renamed paragraph (c).

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Harris.

Mr. Oliphant.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I'm sorry. I put my hand up to add my earlier amendment. I don't need to speak to this. I'll be supportive of it.

I'm going to keep on the speakers list. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much.

I don't see anyone else wishing to speak to this motion to amend.

Does anyone oppose this motion to amend?

(Amendment agreed to)

Now, Mr. Oliphant, it's over to you for your amendment.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I said earlier, I think this places an unreasonable demand on our officials. We don't even know how much work is at stake in this thing, as well as the importance of making sure that the documents are available in both official languages, which is critical. Therefore, I would move that we amend it to within 30 days. If the documents are available before then, that's good, but I would say “within 30 days”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you, Mr. Oliphant.

I think that is fairly clear.

I think the wording of that motion is clear to you, Madam Clerk. Yes? Good.

I'll have Mr. Harris—that may be a raised hand from before—and then I have Mr. Genuis.

Okay, Mr. Genuis.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm open to discussion, but the reality is that these documents already exist. We requested information and documents last week at Monday's meeting. The motion calls for the documents 10 days of the adoption of this motion, but we are already about 10 days from the original request for information.

We have cases—for instance, an access to information request from CBC—where documents were provided on this issue in a heavily redacted form. These documents have been requested and compiled before. They were provided in a redacted form. We're asking for them in an unredacted form. The Public Health Agency has already had substantial notice of the committee's interest in this issue.

I don't think it's a correct characterization of the facts to suggest that, all of a sudden now, it's surprising to the Public Health Agency that we want this information and that they have to scramble to get it—far from it. This is an important issue. There are many political factors going on that might interrupt the work of this committee. I think it is important for us to ask for a clear timeline that reflects the fact that these documents already exist and that the Public Health Agency has known for a long time that we have an interest in them. That would be my general inclination on this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you, Mr. Genuis.

I don't see anyone else wishing to speak at this time.

I guess there is opposition, so we'll have to take a vote—