Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 30th, 2024

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

I will call this meeting to order and welcome everyone to meeting 135 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I think we all know the protocol around here. All the questions come through the chair if you don't mind.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, September 18, 2024, the committee shall commence its study on the protection of freedom of expression.

We're going to welcome our witnesses in a moment. We have one hour with the witnesses today until 5:30, but if you don't mind I would like to talk about yesterday because there was breaking news yesterday.

Committee members, I will update further as we will have the second hour of this meeting with committee business dealing with what happened in the House of Commons yesterday. It's in regard to the House order that was passed yesterday instructing this committee to return to the eighth report that the chair of the committee tabled in the House. The committee was instructed to return to study the bonuses and staff cuts that were made to the CBC and that the current CEO, Catherine Tait, and incoming CEO, who is Marie-Philippe Bouchard, as well as the minister and experts, shall appear before the heritage committee.

As you all know, we have the minister coming next Wednesday, so we'll talk about it in the second hour.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. There's only one hour scheduled for the meeting.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

No, we actually have two hours scheduled for next Wednesday.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

No, this one is an hour, and then there's still a Monday.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

This one, yes. That's right, Mr. Noormohamed. I would like to set aside 10 or 15 minutes because of what happened in the House yesterday. We need to talk about what happened in the House as now we have been summoned by the House to have Catherine Tait come and the new CEO of CBC, along with expert witnesses.

I know we're only scheduled here for an hour, but as the chair, I think we do need to get our names into....

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I have a point of order. Don't we have to get consent from the committee to do this? It can't just be the prerogative of the chair. We need to have a discussion and vote on it to change the agenda. Isn't that correct?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you, Mr. Coteau. It was, as you know, kind of historic yesterday, what happened in the House of Commons, but it's an administrative issue that I would like to bring up after our one-hour meeting here today on freedom of expression. According to the—

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

There's a difference....

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I apologize.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

No, go ahead.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

There's a difference between what you want to bring up and what the agenda of the committee is. Unless we move a motion to adjust the agenda, I don't see this as a valid discussion point. We can always have this discussion at our next meeting.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

I'm bringing it up because we have until December 17. We have a rigorous agenda. We have one week off as a constituency week coming up, and this has to be tabled with the current CBC president and the incoming one plus the minister. All this has to be done by December 17, so I think the clerk would like to have some direction on when we start this, plus there are the expert witnesses. We have three hours of expert witnesses and every party would like to submit on who is an expert witness.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

If I have the floor, can I move that we deal with this on the 17th then?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

The 17th of what?

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

You said—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Are you referring to this? This has to be done by December 17.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I apologize. Can we move to deal with this next week at our next meeting?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

It's up to you. It's up to the committee.

I'll go to Mr. Noormohamed first, if you don't mind, Mr. Coteau, and then Mr. Kurek. Then we can begin our testimony here.

Go ahead, Mr. Noormohamed.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Perhaps I can propose the following. We have witnesses, and we have a study that needs to start today that Mr. Champoux put forward. We have these individuals who have given their time, and I think that we should get on with that.

My suggestion is this: Given that the notice of meeting was for an hour and, as a result, people may have made other arrangements for other things.... Look, we have the minister coming next week on the sixth, I believe.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Yes.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

We have our meeting on Monday. My suggestion would be that, before we get into witnesses next week, we get this dealt with at the top of the meeting next week. It gives everybody time to think through how we actually deal with this. There are multiple schedules to be dealt with. There is an individual who is not yet in the employ of the CBC who has been called. There is someone who is, like, clearly on her way out whom we have called. We have a minister who is going on mat leave starting Monday, but she is coming for her appearance. If we can work together to figure out what this looks like before the next meeting, maybe we can just get to a good place on how this is all going to work. Then we can try not to litigate it all while we have witnesses here.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Next we have Mr. Kurek and then Ms. Gainey.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

If I am correct, Mr. Chair, what was just suggested is exactly what you planned to deal with in the second hour—to have a brief discussion about the future. I would suggest that we get on with the witnesses.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Ms. Gainey, go ahead. The floor is yours.

[Anna Gainey, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

I agree with my colleagues that we pump this to next week and move ahead with the witnesses.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Ms. Ashton.