Declaration of Emergency Committee on Feb. 13th, 2024

[The Joint Co-Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Thank you, Senator Harder.

Go ahead, Mr. Green.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

I would just suggest, to my original point, to separate this point out, allow us to vote. We can then move on to adopt the motion as amended.

[The Joint Co-Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

We will now vote on Mr. Maloney's amendment, which proposes to replace the words “the Committee issue an order” with “the Committee require all legal opinions”.

Is that agreed?

Go ahead, Mr. Motz.

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

Just to be clear, a “yes” vote means that you support the change from “order” to “request”. Is that right?

“No” means that it stays the same, as “order”. Okay.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

To be clear, Mr. Clerk, at the end of that section, where it says, “adoption of this order”, it should say, “within ten days of the request being made”. You change both or neither.

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

We'll address that if it passes.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Yes, obviously. We can change it if it doesn't pass.

[The Joint Co-Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

We will now proceed to the vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

[The Joint Co-Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

So we will make a request, not issue an order.

I don't want to make this an amendment, but, as I said earlier, we should perhaps identify to whom we want to address this request. Is it the Clerk of the Privy Council, the council being the Prime Minister's department? Do we need to ask the Minister of Justice, who should have, in his records, the legal opinions he relied on at the time?

In my opinion, if we want our motion to make sense, we need to indicate to whom it is addressed.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I think we're all in agreement. We just voted on it. I think we already have confirmation from the ministers' offices. The ministers are prepared to appear at the next meeting.

[The Joint Co-Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

The question, really, was who we should ask for the documents.

[Peter Harder]

May I make a suggestion?

The Privy Council Office is the keeper of those documents, so I would say, “request of the Government of Canada” so that we are free to ask the ministers, as representatives of the Government of Canada, as opposed to asking the Clerk of the Privy Council, because then we're getting a third party involved.

I would say, “the Government of Canada”. Understand, however, that it's the Privy Council Office that is the keeper of cabinet confidences and documents.

[The Joint Co-Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

What you're saying, Senator Harder, is that the Privy Council Office holds these documents. I therefore suggest that this request be addressed to the Clerk of the Privy Council.

If we don't have the documents, whose fault is it?

[Peter Harder]

It's a small point. I don't really want to keep going. The Clerk of the Privy Council acts on behalf of the government, so it is the Government of Canada that will decide. He's just the clerk.

[The Joint Co-Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

Glen, the clerk is not a political target anyway.

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

Oh, okay.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I'm okay with that.

[The Joint Co-Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Shall we leave the wording as it is?

Is that everything for today?

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

The word “separately” in the first paragraph is being removed. We discussed it and agreed upon it, but I don't know that we formalized that discussion.

[The Joint Co-Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Which word are you referring to?

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

“Committee invite the following witnesses to appear, separately, for at least one hour”.

The word, “separately” is to be removed. Mr. Motz agreed to that.

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

In my version it is.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay.

[The Joint Co-Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Are we talking about Arif Virani and Dominic LeBlanc?

[The Joint Clerk, Ms. Miriam Burke]

Yes. It's in the text I received, but I wasn't able to distribute it.