Canadian Heritage Committee on June 8th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Absolutely. There's no motion that's come up asking for more witnesses to be seen or listened to or any such thing. There's no motion. We have completed our task, and the motion on the floor by Mr. Bittle is to move to clause-by-clause. We are discussing Mr. Julian's subamendment to your amendment to that motion.

Let us stick to the discussion, please, on Mr. Julian's subamendment. Thank you.

Continue, Ms. Thomas, please.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think you've made my point quite handily for me, and that is that there's really not a lot of good faith at this committee. You'll note that in that motion “maximum” and “minimum” were not used, which means that there is an opportunity there that a subsequent motion or amendment—

I'm sorry, Madam Chair, I'm actually going to pause here for two seconds. The members to my left, Mr. Julian and Mr. Lemire, are talking right now. It's quite loud and quite distracting, so perhaps they could take that conversation outside or perhaps you could ask them to bring their volume down.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you for bringing that to my notice.

Mr. Julian and Mr. Lemire, could you keep your volume down, please? Thank you.

Continue, Ms. Thomas, speaking to the subamendment by Mr. Julian.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

On the subamendment that was brought forward by Mr. Julian, what I am stating is that there is not a lot of good faith left around this table because, as you noted, in the original motion with regard to Bill C-11 and hearing from witnesses, there was no maximum and no minimum discussed, which then leaves an opportunity for us as members around this table to bring forward another motion or amendment to a motion that would call for more witnesses.

Madam Chair, there have been several attempts to do that. Unfortunately, those have been turned down, or there's no willingness to even consider them. What I'm saying is that this starts to chip away, then, at any sort of good faith that might exist here, when we're not able to have those conversations or pursue things that may be beneficial to the process in front of us.

When the motion is moved to ask for a study of Bill C-11 at the same time as the study concerning Hockey Canada, it doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth or give me any confidence that we are in fact going to do those two studies simultaneously and give the Hockey Canada study the attention that it requires in order to do it justice.

All that is to say that I raise that as a red flag and wish to communicate my concerns and my dissent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Have you ceded the floor?

[Rachel Thomas]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

The next person is Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I have to agree that there isn't a lot of good faith at the table. We heard a filibuster through the CRTC. We heard a filibuster through the minister. This is, I believe, our seventh or eighth filibuster. We could have been through clause-by-clause at this point.

Mr. Julian proposes a reasonable motion to bring in Hockey Canada, and we just hear more of the same, more filibuster. We agree with Mr. Julian in terms of moving this forward, but we can do it at the same time. This committee has done it before, going between studies, hearing different witnesses, pausing one study and picking up another. It's something that we can do. It's something that we've done. Let's get going on this. There is a unanimous consent motion, but there is also a motion from the House that we continue and proceed with Bill C-11.

I don't need to remind the members that legislation typically takes priority in parliamentary committees. The opposition is right that this is an important issue. Let's do this simultaneously. The Liberals are ready to get to work. The Liberals are ready to do this. I know the NDP are, and the Bloc are ready to get to work. It's just the Conservatives who want to filibuster, and that's really disappointing. It really just shows that sexual assault is just being used as a filibuster tactic, which is truly shocking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Bittle.

We now go to Mr. Waugh.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Lots has been said here today dealing with Bill C-11 and with Hockey Canada. I spoke quite a bit on Monday on Hockey Canada and have received a lot of feedback since the Monday motion that was put forward.

I've looked into the organization and who is still there and who has left.

What's up for Hockey Canada? We have the Memorial Cup coming around the corner. For those watching, the Memorial Cup pits the best hockey teams in Canada. You would have the Quebec junior hockey league champions and the Ontario Hockey League champions. You would have the host team, and you would have the Western Hockey League champions. The four best teams in the country meet, and it's interesting, because the Memorial Cup is emblematic of the best hockey players meeting for the tier one hockey championship, if you wish, in the country.

That's how Team Canada usually gets formed. In the case of the Edmonton Oil Kings, a number of their players were, in fact, selected for the Canadian junior hockey championship. That was to be held in Red Deer and Edmonton, but because of COVID and the financial restraints of the organization, they lost a lot of money in the year before when they started the tournament. Then COVID came. The Russian hockey club and other European hockey clubs in Red Deer contracted COVID through a wedding, and the tournament had to be cancelled.

It wasn't an ideal situation in Edmonton and Red Deer, because they limited the number of seats that could be sold, and they lost a lot of money. This year, if you recall, in Edmonton and Red Deer they just at the last moment decided to cancel it and reschedule it, I might add, for August, which is not ideal because the property—

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Go ahead, Mr. Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I think we are outside the scope of the discussion. The interventions should be about having a side meeting, outside of the normal hours of the committee, where Hockey Canada representatives could be called in. The committee would continue its work on Bill C‑11 at the same time next week. It is possible to do both. Right now, however, there is a lot of nonsense going on, which may well prevent things from happening. Yet Canadians are watching and waiting for us to act.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

It's debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Continue, Mr. Waugh, please.

Mr. Waugh has the floor, and Mr. Waugh can speak to the issue. I think he's talking about the amendment.

I hope, Mr. Waugh, that you would not stray too far from that.

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

So far, I didn't think I did.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Go ahead.

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

I'd like to thank the Bloc member for bringing the unanimous motion forward to the House on June 2. Since then, Madam Chair, those around this table have probably seen comments by thesports minister, me and others in the country who are really horrified with the situation with Hockey Canada. It's not only the alleged rape, but I think Canadians also want to know if any taxpayer money was involved in the paying-off situation that happened in 2018.

Here's the other thing, Madam Chair. When we do bring Hockey Canada officials in, hopefully they do come. We've already lost a number from Hockey Canada over this. It was interesting because, when this was filed on April 20, one senior member of Hockey Canada stepped down. Since then, another has stepped down. When we get around to witnesses, hopefully these two people will come.

I am a little concerned about how we get them here if they don't want to come. Is there any way around this? Procedurally, two senior people obviously knew a lot. I have a list, Madam Chair, that I have given to our team that I can lay down at any time, with permission, when we need to bring these officials here. However, both are no longer with Hockey Canada and that concerns me a little bit. They don't want to be tarnished, I would imagine, yet both were long-term members of Hockey Canada and both had, obviously, considerable knowledge of what happened in 2018.

If you don't mind, I'm going to move on a little bit, Madam Chair. I just want everyone to know that this incident happened at the Hockey Canada gala in June of 2018. This had nothing to do with the World Junior Championship that was played in January. This actually deals a little bit with the Hockey Canada Foundation, unfortunately, which is a fundraising organization of Hockey Canada.

When we do submit a list of guests that we would like Hockey Canada and others to bring, just remember that this incident took place at the gala portion of it.

Now, let me continue with Bill C-11. It's interesting, Madam Chair, because yesterday I received 20 submissions on Bill C-11. That's a lot of submissions. That tells me that on Bill C-11 we haven't done our due diligence. That we all got emailed about these organization yesterday—thank you, Clerk, for doing that—tells me that, as an organization around this table, we haven't done our due diligence.

I have Friends here, who used to be “Friends of Media”. They sent in a submission.

Music Canada has been very critical of Bill C-11 and we haven't heard from them.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

On a point of order, have we lost the chair?

I think she's back now.

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

Can I go on now, Madam Chair?

Anyway, the clerk sent all of us 20 submissions yesterday alone. We cut down a forest here just to see who is interested in coming to committee.

Are you okay, Madam Chair? You're not hearing me, obviously.

[The Clerk]

Dr. Fry, can you suspend, please?

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

I guess it's a moment of silence.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

Let me continue.

I'm not going to go back three or four minutes, Madam Chair, when you obviously couldn't hear what was going on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Waugh.