Declaration of Emergency Committee on Oct. 6th, 2022

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

We have them already, but in the digital binder, there are some documents with better titles than others. The last ones produced have a date, so they are a little better for finding our way around in. Otherwise, for the other documents, we have to consult the table of contents we were given. That is useful, but it is very difficult to match up with the binder. Say you are looking for a particular letter. In the binder, you see only "document", and there are 20 or 30 documents. So then you have to open each document until you find the one you are looking for. That is hard to follow. If the document in the digital binder were given a title right away to specify, for example, that it is the letter from the Minister, the report by the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, or the minutes of the Privy Council Office meeting, working would be a lot easier. I suggest that with all due respect.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Okay.

Next is Senator Carignan, to be followed by Ms. Bendayan.

[Claude Carignan]

Did you say the documents were on the website at present? Did I understand correctly?

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

They are in the digital binder.

[A voice]

Yes, they are on the website.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Oh, they are? I looked for them, before our meeting, but I didn't see them. I don't know whether I was looking in the right place.

[Claude Carignan]

What bothers me a bit more is the business of redacted documents. We can't wait until testimony is over for someone to explain what justifies the redacting or to find out whether it is possible to clean up the documents sent at the beginning a bit to reveal more of the content. For example, I am using these documents to ask the witnesses questions, but there may be redacted content that I would use to prepare my questions. I am working with the documents I have. If I have to wait to the end, after the witnesses have appeared, to get access to documents that are not as redacted, it won't be useful to me anymore for doing my work.

It is actually important to know the reasons for the redacting and see whether it is possible to reveal all or part of the content that was redacted to begin with, but it should be done before testimony is finished. Otherwise, we are deprived of information and prevented from doing our job properly: if we had had access to certain information, instead of it being redacted, there are probably a lot of other questions we could have asked witnesses. The redacting prevents us from doing a good job.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Senator Carignan, I'll turn to Madam Bendayan, but I wonder if we can deal with the motion as we have it and then deal with the redacted piece, just to keep it separate from the motion.

Ms. Bendayan.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to say a few words about the motion my colleague Mr. Fortin has just made. I agree entirely with the motion as it is worded.

In fact, I would like to address the other subject we are dealing with today: redacting.

Some of them have already been shown, but I can show some pages, too, that have not been redacted. Hundreds and hundreds of pages have been disclosed. I think we do have to address this subject, but because it is not in the motion, we could deal with it at another meeting.

To begin with, I don't see how we will make any faster progress if we have someone come who will tell us that the documents were redacted for reasons of national security or to abide by solicitor-client privilege. I don't see how we would get more information or answers that way. The person called to testify will not be able to tell us, essentially, what the redactions are blacking out.

If we keep wanting to know whether there are good reasons for these redactions, we will be here until 2026. I would like our committee's work to move forward.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Okay.

Mr. Brock.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to voice my support for Monsieur Fortin's comments, particularly his latter comments. What I take from those latter comments is about the ability to efficiently navigate this dump of documents. I think we're kidding ourselves if we think it's manageable as is. We are simply scratching the surface with witnesses so far. We have dozens and dozens of witnesses yet to go, likely requiring further documentation. We all are busy. We all need to use our time wisely and efficiently.

I briefly spoke with Madam Clerk. It's something that will require some additional resources, but the take-away from that conversation is that it's not an insurmountable task.

I don't want to overburden the staff with that issue. If it's doable, I'd like to have a report from Madam Clerk when we return after our break week, to see whether or not some efficiencies can be made.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Mr. Fortin, does that work for you in terms of the motion? I think what Madam Clerk is saying is that she'd take some time to see how she could make it work.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

That would certainly work. As I was saying when I began speaking, I don't know who does this work. Is it the analysts, the co-clerks, or someone else? I agree with what Mr. Brock just said. I don't want to impose an excessive workload on anyone. I am simply saying that if we want to work effectively, we have to get to that.

Our sitting hours have already been cut. We were all happy to be able to get four hours in September, when we started sitting again. We even said it was not sufficient. We are now limited to three hours' sitting and we are stuck with redacted documents, produced in somewhat muddled fashion.

If that is how it is, I don't think we will get there. We will never be able to follow Justice Rouleau. In fact, I would be surprised if he accepts things like this. I am virtually certain that everything will go more smoothly.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

For clarity, you asked who did it, and the clerk from the Senate advised me it was administrative staff in the Senate who did it. I think what the clerk is asking—please correct me if I'm wrong— is that they get to take a look at it, look at what the extent of the work would be, and report back to us when we return to tell us how it could be accomplished.

I think that's what you were saying, Mr. Brock.

Is that suitable?

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Yes, that's fine. But if by chance the co-clerks found the solution during that week, we should not hesitate to do it. We don't have to wait until Thursday.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Thank you.

Madam Bendayan, I understand you have a motion.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I believe the co-clerk has received the text of my motion and has provided it to committee members. The motion is quite simple. I will read it:

Given that we have returned to one, three-hour meeting per week, that the clerk be directed to schedule two panels of witnesses, each for 1.5 hours for all future meetings.

That the clerk of the committee schedule panels of one and a half hours each, Madam Chair, is essentially the crux of this motion, given that previously we were working under a timeline of two meetings per week and now we are working under a three-hour meeting schedule. To make the most efficient use of our time as members, I hope we can agree to having two panels per week, on Thursday evening, of one and a half hours each.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Go ahead, Mr. Brock.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I would be prepared to support that motion with a caveat that it depend on the nature of the witness. We want to ensure that some witnesses are the only witness per one-and-a-half-hour time slot. We don't want to burden the committee with additional witnesses who would eat up our ability to get a couple of rounds of questions in.

Thank you.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

If I can ask the question, I thought Mr. Brock was going to say that there might be witnesses who require more than an hour and a half.

The way I understand your motion, Rachel, is that there is one witness for each hour and a half—that's what we're talking about—as opposed to more than one witness in an hour and a half.

A caveat for me would be that we need to have the ability as a committee to say a witness is going to need more than an hour and a half and we might want them for the entire three-hour period or the entire two-hour period, whatever that might be. If we can arrive at some agreement to have an understanding inside the motion to do that, then I'm fine with it. I'm fine if there is flexibility with it.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Chair, another alternative would be to say that when you have a three-hour slot, you invite two witnesses to be there for the full three hours, and each one makes a five-minute presentation. You go around and you take your choice of whichever one you want to ask questions of. If you want to focus on one witness for three hours, you could do that.

That's a possible alternative. Otherwise, it's hard to say to the clerk to book this one and give them two hours, but give this one just one hour, or we'll use up that one slot for three hours. Do you know what I mean? You'll be able to establish your priorities.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Go ahead Mr. Fortin, and then Mr. Brock.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think Ms. Bendayan's motion is very laudable. We do have to speed up our work. That is what I said at the beginning.

However, and I say this with all due respect, I am not certain it would be efficient. We see that it takes an hour to do one round of questions with a witness. If we have an hour and a half, does that mean we will do one and a half rounds?

As well, I am wondering about the three minutes we are allowed in the second round. I was discussing this with some people earlier. I think we should maybe go back to periods of five minutes. Some of us were frustrated about not managing to get through their questions in three minutes.

The motion says that we would have 1.5 hours not for a single witness, but for a panel of witnesses. If we adopt the motion as it is put forward, we will be entitled to five minutes each to begin. Then, how will the remaining half-hour be divided? Will each person be allowed two minutes? If we can't get it done in three minutes, how will we do it in two minutes?

The idea is interesting, but I am not sure that it would make us more efficient. Personally, I like the formula where we had two hours on Monday and two hours on Thursday. I think in two hours we would be able to cover a subject with a panel of witnesses. I am afraid that an hour and a half would be too tight.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

We have Mr. Brock, to be followed by Senator Harder and then Ms. Bendayan.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to reiterate that we've made some progress with some committee business. We've approved some motions that empower the clerk to look for efficiencies and some solutions in dealing with the documents. There appear to be lots of interventions with respect to Ms. Bendayan's most recent motion. It looks like there's going to be no conclusive resolution to that, so my suggestion is we move to adjourn the meeting.