Declaration of Emergency Committee on May 31st, 2022

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

I'd like to call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number eight of the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency, created pursuant to the order of the House of Commons on March 2, 2022, and of the Senate on March 3, 2022.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, in accordance with the order of the House of Commons dated November 25, 2021.

For health and safety reasons, I'd like to thank the people who are present for complying with the recommendations from the public health authorities and the directives of the Board of Internal Economy.

In the event of technical challenges, please advise me, so that we can suspend for a few minutes, if necessary, to ensure that all members are able to participate fully in the meeting.

The committee is meeting today to discuss its future work. It is up to the committee to decide what motions it wants to discuss. A revised version of the committee's work plan has been distributed to committee members. The committee has three scheduled meetings left before the summer recess: Tuesday, June 7, Tuesday, June 14, and Tuesday, June 21. It will be necessary to decide which witnesses the clerks will invite to appear at each of those three meetings.

I think I understand that something in particular will be happening this evening: votes will be held in the Senate. Please signal me when it's time and I will adjourn the meeting so the senators among us can go and vote.

Ms. Bendayan, Mr. Motz and Mr. Naqvi wish to speak.

Ms. Bendayan, the floor is yours.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know we have a lot of work to do and a number of motions have been distributed. Obviously, we are all impatiently awaiting the discussion on the production of documents.

Personally, I will have a motion concerning the timetable for our meetings and the availability of the witnesses we have already discussed, among them the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Public Safety, Bill Blair.

Would you agree to my presenting that motion and for us to deal with it fairly quickly? These dates are approaching. We would then return to the other motions.

Mr. Chair, I propose to the committee that we discuss this motion. I'm going to ask the clerk to circulate it to all committee members. I also have copies.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Mr. Motz, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Just to Ms. Bendayan's motion, I would respectfully suggest that we deal with at least one of the motions that are before us today, and that's on documents, and then we work on a work plan after that. I don't think the documents motion is going to take long. Then we could move forward with developing a work plan and witnesses and so on, which could take the majority of our session.

I'd hate to be in the middle of the work plan discussion, which could take us the whole meeting, and then not get to the documents motion. This documents motion has been before us for some time, so I would suggest we do that first, and then look at the work plan moving forward and who is going to be here and on what dates and what that looks like.

That's my suggestion.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Thank you.

Would someone else like to indicate whether they prefer that we study the motion about production of documents or the motion relating to the witness list first?

Mr. Brock, the floor is yours.

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

I concur with my colleague, Mr. Motz.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Ms. Bendayan, do you want to add something?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

To respond to Mr. Motz, I totally agree.

Obviously we will be dealing with the production of documents motion that you have put forward, colleague. I have moved this motion, so I'm not sure if you're suggesting that we adjourn debate on this motion. I would just signal that these are witnesses we've already all agreed to. This is just a matter of slotting them in over the few weeks that are left of this session. I wouldn't anticipate that this would be subject to very much debate. These are the availabilities of ministers. We either take them or leave them. I certainly hope we will take them. It's not a full work plan; it's a matter of the next few weeks.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Mr. Green, the floor is yours.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

I wanted to indicate to the committee that the motion was duly put. It is live. For that reason, I support moving forward with getting that segment done. I would anticipate that we'll have plenty of time to get to the production of documents.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Ms. Bendayan, did I understand correctly that you agreed that we study the motion about production of documents first?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

No. I said that...

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

So you want us to debate your motion first.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

That's right. I just wanted to point out that it would take only a few minutes, since we have already decided, as a committee, that these witnesses were to appear. It's just a matter of agreeing on the dates.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

I don't have your motion. You say you have hard copies. Can you distribute them?

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

I want to put another thing on the record as well. We put our witness list together some time ago. I haven't seen the list here. We had a document come out from the analyst on a work plan moving forward. Then, prior to May 13, there were some more witnesses added. Interestingly enough, many of those witnesses, who were Liberal witnesses, ended up in the work plan without a conversation. I find that interesting, and I want that to be on the record.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

We had actually already established the witness lists for meetings number 9, 10 and 11, in the work plan. I think I understand that we had agreed on that.

Ms. Bendayan, is what you're proposing for the meetings after that? What are you wanting to do, exactly?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Chair, you have in front of you the motion that lists the witnesses for June 7, and for June 14, which is the week after, and then for June 21. Unfortunately, we had to cancel our meeting two weeks ago because of the systematic obstruction by some of our colleagues in other committees, so the dates had to be revised. Of course, what we had to do was make sure the ministers are available, and we have done that.

I would reiterate that these are witnesses we have already discussed in the committee. You have the list in front of you.

I would also note that the last time we wanted to talk about the committee's work plan, we were told it was not the right time and it had to be done at a meeting dealing with the committee's work.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Right.

Mr. Virani, the floor is yours.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I would just like to say something about the subject Mr. Motz mentioned.

He said that Liberal witnesses are appearing without a conversation. Perhaps I misheard him, but I'm going to reiterate that people like the Department of Justice officials, Department of Public Safety officials, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, the PPS, the Usher of the Black Rod, the Sergeant-at-Arms, the OPP and the Ottawa Police Service were all extensively discussed over the last four weeks. All we're dealing with now is when they should arrive, not whether they should arrive.

I wanted that clarified.

Secondly, this motion, as Mr. Green pointed out, is correctly on the floor, so we have to deal with this motion before we decide whether to deal with the production motion.

I wanted to put that out there.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Thank you, Mr. Virani.

On the list of people who wanted to speak, there was Ms. Bendayan, Mr. Motz and Mr. Naqvi, and they have already spoken. The same for Mr. Green. Now there are Mr. Brock and Mr. White.

Mr. Brock, the floor is yours.

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

I have a couple of things, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

There's another option. We can adjourn debate on Ms. Bendayan's motion so that we can get down to some of the other stuff we had proposed to deal with at this point in time.

I also want to correct the record. Ms. Bendayan indicated that we lost this session two weeks ago due to filibustering at various committees. The chair was at a committee that I was at—justice—two weeks ago, and the correct interpretation of what happened was that the Liberal committee members refused to adjourn the proceedings at 5:30. We had a two-hour block as a result of their refusal to adjourn those proceedings, which was supported by the NDP, and we continued the session, which ultimately prevented this committee from sitting.

I want that clarified on the record. Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Thank you, Mr. Brock.

Mr. White, the floor is yours.

[Vernon White, Senator, Ontario, CSG]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have a couple of things. If this list is what we've already discussed—and from looking at it, I believe it is—I am fine with it, but I will be bringing a motion that we go in camera to discuss any new witnesses. There will be a discussion that I don't think should be made public about whether we should or should not call specific individuals as witnesses here, and there's the fact that maybe we'll be challenging or discussing their credentials and things like that. I don't think there's a different list from what we have now, which we've discussed over the last six weeks. In that case, I'm fine.

There are issues with who represents the Parliamentary Protective Service. The Usher of the Black Rod is actually not responsible for security in the Senate. Julie Lacroix, who is departmental security, is, unlike the Sergeant-at-Arms in the House of Commons, so it's the wrong person.

I would make a suggestion that for group number three, we finish the session with people who work on the Hill, because we're going to have bells and such. We could have the OPP and the OPS the week before.

As long as we're not adding anyone new, I'm okay with our dealing with these ones. However, I would like to flip groups three and four, mostly because having people come from Orillia with the Ontario Provincial Police to sit outside for three hours while the Senate probably deals with bells is.... We may not get to them. It would be unfair, and it's probably important that we hear from them before we break for the summer session.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

From what I understand, there are no other speakers on the list, so we should proceed with the vote on Ms. Bendayan's motion.