Canadian Heritage Committee on May 23rd, 2024

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I realize Ms. Thomas's earlier subamendments have failed, but a lot of the witnesses commented specifically on the need for independence and transparency. Of course, Ms. Thomas talked a bit about that, and that was the aim of those amendments.

If the witnesses feel uncomfortable commenting, I understand that, but I'm wondering if they share any concern or see any additional opportunity for transparency and the separation and independence of this program.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Are you willing to undertake that? No one is putting their hand up.

Ms. Thomas's hand is up.

Oh, did you want the officials to answer that?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Okay. I thought you wanted someone in the committee or Ms. Thomas to answer.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

No, no.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Okay.

Go ahead.

[Blair McMurren]

I would be happy to offer a perspective from the department as stewards of the modernized program.

I would simply state that, from our perspective, independence and transparency are important touchstones of the modernized program. The way the program has been implemented, there's been very much an attempt to make public the criteria, for example, around the selection of the independent organization. This was done in 2017 through an open and transparent process. The criteria were published around that process. The results were published subsequently. They're similar in process to the way that members of the two independent expert panels are appointed to those panels. It's also done through an open and transparent process.

I would also observe that the criteria around the selection of cases for funding by the University of Ottawa is very public in the sense that it's all published on the website of the program hosted by the university. In fairly extensive detail around the three kinds of projects that can be funded—development of test cases, litigation of test cases and legal interventions—there are criteria around each one of those categories for both streams of the program, which we consider to be highly appropriate given the mandate we had to implement a modernized program in the most open and transparent way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you. Have you finished?

Ms. Thomas's hand is up.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Chair. I would just ask the officials this.

The comment was with regard to the overall process in terms of the body that oversees the program, which is through the University of Ottawa. I would agree with him that there is some level of transparency; however, I would ask him to send to the committee those selection criteria. I don't know that they're as transparent as he's making them out to be.

Certainly, when I've looked in the past—and I've looked several times over the last couple of months—they are not always available in both French and English, and there are still some significant grey areas. I would ask those to be tabled with the committee just so that we can peruse them, and I certainly would ask that he make sure those are in fact up on the website consistently and not taken down for any period of time.

However, the comment does skip over what this subamendment does, which is to make sure that the cases that are selected...that rights are not in conflict with one another. That's a bit of a different issue from what was commented on with regard to the selection of the panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Is there further debate on the subamendment?

Kevin.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to get a verification through the department. You mentioned that it was published later by the University of Ottawa. When I go on there, cases that happened in February may not be reported until late in the year, November or December. Is there a guideline for when a case does go through and ends, one way or another? Is there a dead stop date? I went on the website and saw stuff where we had a conflict in January or February with one case and it was not being reported until maybe November, if at all.

I think that's what Ms. Thomas was saying. When you go on the website, it's very slow. It's not very transparent. That was my issue with accountability on money. The court challenges program right now has a cumulative surplus of over $3.5 million. According to the recent main estimates, the CCP's annual funding is going to double, as they said, to over $10 million. That's the transparency, I think, at least on this side, that we're having really difficult times with. When a challenge has been accepted and has gone through the proper negotiations, we're not seeing it up on the website.

Is there a protocol in place with the university to get to this? As I said, I've seen some that maybe are February and that all of a sudden pop up in November, which is like seven or eight months later. That seems a little long to me. Is there a process in place to get these verdicts up sooner?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. McMurren.

[Blair McMurren]

Per the contribution agreement between the department and the university, there's an annual report. It appears most years in November. In that report, there's a lot of information around statistics around the applications received and cases funded. Some cases are highlighted in detail in a descriptive kind of way.

As I think Ms. Samson, the executive director of the program, explained in her testimony, they're still working toward integrating that case information into the annual report, per the contribution agreement. She explained, I recall, that they're trying to strike a balance between transparency and what she described as “litigation privilege”, working toward the inclusion of cases that have exhausted all avenues of appeal.

That's the body of cases that is very near, I gather, to being included in those annual reports. Over the life of the modernized program, they've been working to assemble this database, to work with the beneficiaries of their grants to get their consent and to understand the status of the different cases and appeals. We understand them to be very close to the point of being able to integrate a lot more information in that regard, possibly before the next annual report. That's something we're working through with them in real time. This is stipulated under the contribution agreement. It was always the intent for this final case information to be made public.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you very much for the clarification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Kevin.

I'm going to go back to....

Mr. Lawrence, is this on the subamendment?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Yes. I have two points. One is just a follow-up.

I would just say that in addition to what Mr. Waugh was saying, I think it's good to have the court case with the consent. We can all sort of imagine scenarios, whether it be sexual assault or otherwise, where you may not want to publish that, and that's clear. However, for cases in which we don't have victims or a sense of victims or things like that, it would be nice to not even wait for the annual report. Obviously, 12 months is a long time. Some of these court cases could already have dragged on for years before then. If we could get it perhaps not in real time but sooner than once a year, that would be terrific. I'll just pass that on as a comment.

The other thing is that Ms. Thomas asked for certain documents. Maybe I missed it, but I didn't hear an acknowledgement that you would provide those documents. If you could clearly provide an acknowledgement that you'll do your best to provide those documents, that would be great.

[Blair McMurren]

I can absolutely confirm that we'll provide all the information requested. In the information we provided further to our first appearance, there are links to the various pages I described with those criteria, but we can find a format in which to provide them so they're fully laid out and printable, essentially.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Now I'm going to call the question on the subamendment tabled by Ms. Thomas.

(Subamendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Are there any other subamendments coming up from the floor?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We shall then go to the original amendment, G-1, as amended.

Is there any discussion on G-1 as amended?

Ms. Thomas.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I would like a recorded vote.

(Amendment as amended agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You know NDP-1, CPC-1, CPC-2, CPC-3, CPC-4 and CPC-5 are not going to be discussed.

Shall clause 2 as amended carry?

(Clause 2 as amended agreed to on division)

Now we'll go to BQ-1. You have BQ-1 before you. Before I rule....

Martin, you want to speak to BQ-1, but I'm going to rule it inadmissible.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Chair, if you intend to rule amendment BQ-1 out of order, I would like to hear the grounds for doing so. Indeed, I don't see why this amendment would be out of order.

Before you rule, allow me, since you've given me the floor, to ask Mr. Méla to explain why amendment BQ-1 would be out of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I can, but he wanted you to explain it.

[Philippe Méla]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Champoux, ultimately, the amendment in question would exempt the province of Quebec from the application of…