Declaration of Emergency Committee on Oct. 6th, 2022

[Peter Sloly]

Thank you, Chair, and thanks to everybody.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

We'll suspend for two minutes.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

We have a couple of motions, I believe, and perhaps we can start with Senator Harder.

[Peter Harder]

Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

Colleagues, I know the clerks have distributed the motion I circulated today.

I'd like to move:

that the committee direct the joint clerks to invite all witnesses found in the suggested panels of the workplan created by committee analysts and distributed to committee members on May 13, 2022, and coordinate with the joint chairs as to the composition of those panels.

I move that, and I would be happy to speak to it briefly.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Go ahead.

[Peter Harder]

My objective is to ensure that we have some greater predictability and line of sight in our committee schedule. I recognize that will not necessarily be in the order of the draft that was circulated to us but be governed in some respects by availability and some degree of coordination even with the commission of inquiry.

I'd like to give the flexibility to the staff to develop that plan. If there are gaps, they can coordinate with the co-chairs so that we can have before us a greater sense of what the work plan is as we work towards the end of this calendar year.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Mr. Motz.

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

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Senator Harder.

I agree with the concept. I would just caution about our getting too far ahead. When you talk about creating a whole panel, I would hope that what you mean by that is we allow the clerks to allow for four, five or potentially even six weeks in advance—we do those chunks of time—as opposed to trying to map out a witness agenda with everybody until the end of our witness list.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Senator Harder.

[Peter Harder]

Of course, I anticipate some degree of flexibility, but it may be that a key witness we would wish to have says, “Look, I can appear with you only after November 28.” Rather than waiting until November 28 and then asking, “Are you ready now?”, we could predictably say, okay, let's book you for November 29, or whatever.

Let's have some give and take in this, but the greater the line of sight, the better.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

I'm seeing nodding. I think you are agreeing. Certainly, thinking that if we could even get through until say the end of November and then bring it back much earlier.... As somebody who has appeared as a witness before committees in my former life, I know the short notice makes it very difficult for people to be prepared, and I think we should have the best-prepared witnesses we can.

Mr. Motz and Senator Harder, I think I'm seeing some agreement.

Are there any other comments on it?

Ms. Bendayan.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

I would just like to clarify, Senator Harder, that we're talking about the panels that are listed in the work plan from pages 2, 3, 4 and 5.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

That's correct.

I don't think we need to take a vote. I think I'm seeing nodding around the table in agreement. I think that helps the clerks in planning going forward.

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

In the near term, yes, but I think there are some witnesses who appear beyond that who we're still going to want to have.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

I think we're in agreement with that.

We have been working with a couple of witnesses, trying to land on dates. What I've heard and what we've agreed is that they were in agreement with the motion and looking to at least late November, and then we can discuss this as we move along as well, as long as we are able to have witnesses.

We have a second motion.

Mr. Fortin.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think the co-clerk, Ms. Burke, distributed to committee members this afternoon the text of the motion I had sent. Everyone should have received it. If someone does not have it, it can be provided.

I have concerns regarding the use of the documents.

First, I think we have to take into account the fact that the well-known Rouleau commission will begin its work on October 13, if memory serves. In theory, Justice Rouleau is to submit his report in February. The order in council says February 6, while the website says February 20; in any event, Justice Rouleau will be submitting his report in February.

Our work should perhaps adopt a somewhat faster pace. We have to follow what is happening at the Rouleau commission. We will certainly be able to use the information that will be disclosed to the commission, and the commission will certainly be able to use the information disclosed here. That will allow us to progress faster and more efficiently.

Also out of a desire to expedite our work, I have a comment to make regarding the documents we have received. I don't know whether I am the only one who thinks this, but I find it somewhat difficult to find things in them. The documents in the digital binder are often entitled simply "document", and we have to open the documents to know what is in them. Obviously, we are all capable of doing that, it is not something impossible, but it seems to me to be a somewhat laborious exercise. It will slow our work down when we want to refer to these documents.

That is what prompted me to make my motion. Of course, I am open to suggestions. I do not know exactly who is responsible for putting the documents in the digital binder or who looks after assigning them titles. Is it the clerks, the analysts, or someone else? I don't know, but I think it is important that these documents be given correct titles.

What my motion suggests is that it indicate what organization or individual produced the document, the date the document was received, and the date the document was created. As well, the type of document should be specified, whether it is a letter, an analysis, minutes, a report, or whatever else. Last, it should state the number of pages. That way, a document might be entitled, for example, "letter from the Minister of Justice to the Minister of Public Safety, February 15, 2022." That would be perfect, because we would know immediately what it was. We would also know the date the document was produced. That seems to me to be very useful. That is the first component of my motion.

My motion has a second component. In fact, I think the same reasoning should be applied to the organizations that send us documents. After the motion was adopted, on May 31, our committee received certain documents over the course of the summer. In fact, it received over 1,000 pages, unnumbered. I do want to thank the co-clerks for making the effort, after our discussion in July, to paginate a large portion. I think the organizations should have that job. We should ask them to enter the same information for the documents they send us.

That said, there is also the problem of multiple documents.

At our meeting on September 22, which I chaired, right when we began our work, the co-clerk, Ms. Burke, received a flash drive. She told me not to worry about the redacted documents, because the answer might be on the flash drive. But we can't work with a flash drive. It's rather difficult.

I think a department or organization that wants to add documents could make the effort to consolidate the documents. If it sends us documents in June and sends us more in October, it should consolidate and paginate them. That way it would be clear and we would all have the same references. If we could say to a witness that such and such a statement can be found on such and such a page of such and such a document, everyone would be able to find it more easily and there would be no doubt. That would help us a lot to expedite our work and be more efficient when we come to right the report.

Last, these documents should be made public. In fact, that is what journalists are requesting. Each of us has probably had to answer journalists who wanted to get these documents and were asking where they could find them.

Again this week, I spoke with Ms. Burke and she told me that it was complicated, given the various computer issues. I have no computer skills, and I am not in a position to discuss what needs to be done for these documents to be put on the committee's website. Regardless of the reason, if that cannot be done, I think we should be gracious and put them on flash drives and give them to anyone who asks, whether they be a journalist or a member of the public. We have a duty to make our work public. We have documents that are public in nature. There is nothing in the documents that have been submitted that was stated to be confidential.

So that is the third component of my motion. We have to take the necessary steps to make these documents public, and I do not see why we would not do that.

Those are the three things my motion asks for.

Next, my motion does not talk about this, but we are also going to have to address the question of redacted documents.

Today, I was trying to read the documents we received from the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, but there are hundreds of redacted pages. What are we to make of that? I don't know what information is being hidden or why it is being hidden, but this seems unacceptable to me. We have to ask the people who produced these documents to come and explain it to us. There may be good reasons why it has been redacted. I am not saying that it is malicious, but I think we are entitled to ask the people to explain to us why it was redacted. If we consider the reason to be a good one, there will be no problem and we will continue. If we conclude that it was not justified, we will ask for an unredacted document and, if the organization in question refuses to provide it, we will continue the process, we will go to the House authorities, and we will take the steps that are necessary in the circumstances.

We have been discussing this since the spring and it is now October. As I said when I began speaking, the Rouleau commission will be starting its work next week and will release its report in February. At the rate we are going, in February not only will we still not know what was redacted, but we will also not know why. That makes no sense.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Can we deal with the motion as it's written first?

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Yes, certainly.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

I have a list of people who would like to speak to it.

Mr. Motz.

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

Thank you very much.

I understand why Mr. Fortin would want to do this.

Can the clerks weigh in on this, please? I get it. I know it would make sense to do something different to maybe what we're doing, but I would certainly respect their feedback on this. Would this actually delay the documents we get in a timely manner?

[The Joint Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Miriam Burke]

The documents we've received are now, as of today, on the website. I guess that's step one.

For the categorizing, we're still looking into whether that's possible and how to reflect them on the website or in the binder. We had that table of contents to try to normalize things a bit. We're trying. We're looking into it.

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

Would what Mr. Fortin's proposing delay the ability for documents to come to us?

[The Joint Clerk, Ms. Miriam Burke]

No. We'd send them as is, and then if we needed to rework them, we would do that after you'd received them.

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

I think what Mr. Fortin's motion is saying, though, is that he wants the changes done before we get them, if I understand the motion correctly.

[The Joint Clerk, Ms. Miriam Burke]

You have them.