Evidence of meeting #46 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
My comments are simple: I am simply asking that the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Minister Rodriguez, come for 60 minutes of time in order to answer some very important questions that are being asked by the members of this committee and, more importantly, by Canadians.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you.
You are now ceding the floor, Mrs. Thomas. Thank you.
We shall go with the list that I have.
Mr. Nater.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair. Allow me to be brief.
The Minister of Canadian Heritage is responsible for his department and is accountable to Parliament. I think that to fulfill our duty as parliamentarians, it is necessary to hear from Minister Rodriguez on the accountability that he has specifically with regard to this funding that has now gone, we know, through two separate avenues: first, through the department and then, second, through the CRTC. I think it is necessary that we hear from Minister Rodriguez, and as my colleague mentioned, one hour is a reasonable length of time to hear from him, particularly as, I might also add and as I mentioned last week, we have yet to hear from the minister on his mandate letter, which was requested by this committee back in the winter.
I will leave my comments there, Madam Chair. I think it is very clear where we stand on this. It is important to hear from the minister so that we may perform our duty as parliamentarians and hold the government to account.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Mr. Nater.
I understand that the next person on the list is Ms. Lantsman.
Clerk, is that still so?
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Excuse me, Kevin.
John, is your hand still up, or are you going to take it down?
Conservative
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Madam Chair, I had a motion that was defeated maybe a week ago on this same issue. I was concerned by the comments made by Minister Hussen today about demanding money be paid back. I assume that was the $133,822 that he was talking about. That tells me that the money has not been paid back, and that is a concern to me.
Again, they granted this without proper vetting. The minister, as we all know, said today that the vetting process has failed, that it fell through the cracks and that he wants new enhanced vetting. However, one of the big questions I have from listening to the minister here this afternoon is about demanding that the money be repaid. It should have been repaid almost instantly, at the end of July when this came to the forefront, so I am very upset about that.
I do feel that we do need to hear from the Minister of Canadian Heritage. He has been soft-spoken since day one on this issue. As Minister Hussen said, it came forward July 19 and July 20 and then, five weeks later, we heard very little in August from the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Therefore, I would like to have him come to the committee to talk about that.
I would also offer this thought, Madam Chair. Because the CRTC provided funding to the CMAC, I think we should also hear from the chair of the CRTC, Ian Scott. I know that Mr. Scott's term is up; it's been extended until they find a new chair of the CRTC. I also wish that we include Mr. Ian Scott, the CRTC chair, because we still have a substantial amount of money up for grabs that we have—
Liberal
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
I move that we see not only the Minister of Canadian Heritage come to committee, but also the current chair of the CRTC, Mr. Ian Scott, come before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.
Now, the caveat is that Mr. Scott could leave anytime because his term is actually up. However, I would like to see Mr. Scott, along with the Canadian Heritage minister, Mr. Rodriguez, both come, even if Mr. Scott leaves the position of chair of the CRTC. We have a constituency week next week, so we do not know what's going to happen to that position at the CRTC. My worry is that if it gets filled in the next week or so, then Mr. Scott doesn't need to come. I would like to see him come with the minister because I believe there is a substantial amount of money on the table here since 2016, and we need to hear from Mr. Scott, who was, and currently is, the chair of the CRTC.
Therefore, I'd like to make that amendment if I could, Madam Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Now we have an amendment on the floor.
Does anyone in the room wish to speak to the amendment?
Mr. Champoux, your hand is up. I see it first, unless there's somebody on the floor.
Bloc
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
This summer, we were all shocked by Mr. Marouf's comments. The Jewish community, francophones, and all those who care about respect for humans, the basic respect in our society, were all offended and shocked to hear the comments made by Mr. Marouf. Moreover, his organization was funded by the government.
We were looking forward to today's meeting, which was intended to get to the bottom of things. We had asked to meet with Minister Hussen and officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage and we had them for one meeting. What did the Conservatives decide to do? They decided to use the second hour of that meeting to table a motion demanding the appearance of Minister Rodriguez, as well as an amendment to that motion to demand the appearance of the CRTC chair.
This could have been done at another time. We could have had some basic respect for the people who tuned in to the meeting today and for the witnesses who came to testify. We could have asked questions of the department officials, who can give us the answers we were looking for about how the program works and what measures are going to be put in place. Instead, we spent an hour making the people listening to our meeting wait for answers and explanations.
There are three minutes left before the mandatory end of today's meeting. I appeal to colleagues to hurry up and vote on this motion and amendment to get it over with as quickly as possible, because I think it is a disgrace to the Jewish and francophone communities, who have been insulted and who were waiting for explanations today. It is embarrassing.
That's all I had to say.
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Madam Chair, like Mr. Champoux, I am sorry that this meeting, which was so important to the Jewish and francophone communities, was sabotaged by the Conservatives. I don't understand at all why they did it. There is no logic to it, it makes no sense at all. I have a lot of questions that I couldn't ask, because the Conservatives completely sabotaged the meeting.
It's quite striking to me, Madam Chair, that at a time when anti-Semitism is growing, and this was a crucial hearing to get answers as to why this contract was accorded, the Conservatives sabotaged the hearing, shut it down, basically filibustered it out. So I, for one—and I know other members had many questions that they were hoping to ask—can't ask those questions. Now we have to convene at taxpayers' expense another meeting with the ministerial officials so we can actually get the answers that we couldn't get today because of the Conservatives sabotaging it. It's also disrespect—
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
I'm going to be voting against the amendment, and I'm going to be voting against the motion, because it's profoundly disrespectful to members of this committee. The Conservatives have done this twice. Twice I've said to them, let's have this first hearing, let's get the answers, and then we can come back. I've been open to the consideration.
For the Conservatives to be so disrespectful, so childish, in how they are approaching an issue that is so fundamental.... When we see a growth in hate, when we see a growth in anti-Semitism, instead of dealing with that issue seriously we have this childish temper tantrum and filibuster that does not allow the community to be reassured that we're getting the answers that are required. I'm quite frustrated, Madam Chair.
I don't know if it's because of the embarrassment that the leader of the official opposition experienced with this vile connection to this misogynistic group, and this is some kind of smoke screen. I don't know. But I find it distasteful and showing appallingly bad judgment that this hearing was sabotaged and now we will have to reconvene in two weeks to finally get the ministerial officials to answer the important questions we have. I have a ton of them, and I wasn't able to ask them today because of this childish filibuster.
I just find it extremely regrettable, and for those Canadians who are listening and those Canadians from the Jewish community and francophone Canadians who are listening in, I don't know what to say. I cannot understand the bad, poor, childish judgment of this Conservative Party under the new Conservative leader.