Declaration of Emergency Committee on May 3rd, 2022

[Claude Carignan]

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

Thank you very much, Senator Carignan. I'll take back the chair.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

I'm giving the chair back to you, Mr. Chair.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

Thank you very much for so graciously covering me there.

We have now concluded that round. We have five minutes left.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order before we release the witnesses.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

I would certainly be willing to—

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Mr. Chair, I know that Senator Carignan also asked a question about this, but I simply wanted to remind Ms. Jacques of what I had asked her for, which was to send me a copy of the reports in question. She told us the that she had received about six from financial institutions and that she was going to check whether she was authorized to do so.

If Ms. Jacques can't send us the reports, let''s say by next week, I would ask her to confirm in writing that she was not authorized to do so and tell us, if that turns out to be the case, who refused the authorization, so that we can decide whether or not to follow up on this matter.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

Okay. I believe Ms. Jacques heard that. I'm unclear in terms of where to put it as a point of order. It's direction that you provided in your testimony. They will do with it as they ought to do.

At this point, that concludes the round of questioning for the witnesses.

We will now, to the best of our ability, try to deal with where we left off at the last meeting, which was a motion that directed us to have this meeting with these witnesses. However, despite our debate, what was actually passed at the last meeting was not a full schedule and commitment because there was still the question around committee business.

I guess what we're contemplating now is the scheduling for our next meeting and of any other witnesses.

I will recognize Senator Boniface.

[Gwen Boniface]

I understand that we may have some potential witnesses for next week. I'm wondering if the clerk can confirm their availability.

I'm wondering if it would be best to hear those witnesses and then set aside the following week, because with those witnesses, some of the testimony attaches back to what we heard from the two ministers. It's just a suggestion.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

The suggestion is noted.

For the purpose and the clarity of the committee, I'll ask, Madam Clerk, if you could indicate if there's any potential availability.

[Gwen Boniface]

Out of courtesy, maybe we can release the witnesses who are here.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

Certainly.

Thank you very much to the witnesses.

Again, please don't mistake some of our terseness as anything personal. We appreciate your being here before us tonight and certainly look forward to working with you in the future. Thank you.

[Isabelle Jacques]

Thank you. Have a good evening.

[Donna Achimov]

Thank you. Good evening.

[Barry MacKillop]

Have a good evening.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

Madam Clerk, could you comment on the availability of potential witnesses for the next meeting?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can't comment with full certitude on availability, but I believe that within the groupings you discussed last week, we could find at least one of those groups of the two or three organizations to make themselves available for next week.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

I'm going to recognize the speakers list as Motz, Bendayan and Brock.

First of all, Senator Boniface, does that satisfy your question?

[Gwen Boniface]

I wonder if we can clarify what groups we're talking about. I believe one of them is the RCMP. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

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

That was my question.

[The Clerk]

Yes, it is.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

We will now go on to Mr. Motz.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

I have a couple of things.

First, Madam Clerk, we don't have clarity on who is going to be here. No one has committed to next week yet, have they?

[The Joint Clerk, Ms. Miriam Burke]

That's correct, but only because we haven't confirmed anybody for next week.

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

Right.

For this week, we had the finance department, and Mr. Green, I think that you alluded to it. These individuals obviously were financial sector policy branch. The finance department writes our budgets, for Pete's sake. They were not the relevant witnesses to answer the questions related to the economic impact. In fairness to Ms. Jacques, that is not their forte. That's not their area.

We obviously need additional witnesses from finance—clearly we do. We also need some clarity around....

The clerk who was trying to get witnesses for this week obviously contacted as many as he could, and when he found a stream who were able to attend, I'm sure he pursued them with a bit more vigour. We really don't know who's available next week, if anyone.

As a committee, we should keep in mind that we still have a number of issues of committee business that we need to deal with. As much as we'd like to get at the witnesses, we also need to finish some other issues. If we can't find any witnesses for next week, save maybe one organization for the hour and a half, I would suggest that we set aside the other portion of the committee for committee business.