Information & Ethics Committee on April 21st, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

To our colleagues in Quebec....

[Antoine Aylwin]

I didn't get the question, sorry.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

The question is, in 4.2 of the commissioner's recommendations, she recommends that all exclusions be repealed and that we have a system only of exemptions. Do you agree? Yes or no?

[Antoine Aylwin]

I'll choose no.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

That sounded more like a definite maybe.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

They are lawyers. It always depends.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I want to thank my colleagues for their collegiality around the table today. There were great questions.

I want to thank our witnesses, and of course the people who helped with the video conference, and everybody who supported the meeting today. It was very helpful and informative.

I am going to suspend the meeting for a couple of minutes. Then we'll come back and discuss how we are going to proceed with our agenda.

Thank you.

Colleagues, we will resume.

As we all know, we have adjusted our work schedule a little, and we have some goals and objectives as a result of that adjustment that are going to require us to give some instructions to the analysts. As this is going to be the first report of any substance that we will be issuing from this committee, and most members of the committee are relatively new, as we are going through this process, I think we need to take a look at where we want to be and start working backwards to make sure we have enough time to achieve the goals the committee has agreed to.

At this point, I would like to turn it over to our analyst, if he is okay with that, to give a proposal of how he envisions this unfolding and some of the questions he has, so that he is able to do his work, the excellent work the library does in providing us with our reports and recommendations. Then we can discuss how we, as a committee, want to proceed in our deliberations to make sure that we can achieve our objectives.

I'll turn it over to you, and we'll go from there.

[Michael Dewing, Committee Researcher]

Thank you very much, Chair.

As you said, we usually work backwards from a tabling day. The House rises in June, so assuming a tabling day in June, the committee would need time to review, and then even after a review there's a bit of production that goes on, some proofreading and so forth. Prior to your review, obviously you need a few days beforehand, and before that there's translation, and before that there's our writing it, and before that there's our hearing the last of the witnesses and getting direction.

Obviously, we're at the direction of the committee. Assuming a tabling date in June, we were looking at writing during the break week of May 24. If we were to write that week, we would then submit it to translation, say, on Thursday, May 26. We'd get it back from translation on June 2. It would then be distributed to committee members to review, in which case that review could begin on the June 7, and I don't know how much time will be needed to review recommendations and so forth.

The other question we have is, how would we go about recommendations? Often the analysts prepare them based on the testimony. The way we're thinking of it now is using the themes that have been established by the commissioner, a structured report that way, have recommendations based on those themes, and then it would be up to the committee to debate them. That's one way of proceeding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Fantastic. Is everyone clear on what's being proposed here?

I'm now going to ask our clerk to give us an update on where we are with our witness list. What we've just heard here tells us that we only have a few more meeting dates before the May long weekend break, which is, I think, what was proposed here, and we need to find out if we can get all of the witnesses in that we want in that time frame.

Michel.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Michel Marcotte]

For our next meeting, right after you're back from the week in your ridings, we'll have the main estimates, the first hour with Daniel Therrien, the second hour with Mary Dawson. We don't have to adopt the votes that day; we can do that later.

The following Thursday, it's the President of the Treasury Board, Mr. Scott Brison. I figured you might want to spend a full two hours since it's going to be the only occasion we have to see him. He might also have things to say to you, especially since his big speech was March 31, where he announced the plan for the coming year.

Then the following Tuesday we'll have the second part of the main estimates, the first hour with Suzanne Legault, the second hour with Karen Shepherd, and then at the end of that meeting, we'll adopt the votes and adopt a motion, if the committee agrees, to report to the House.

That brings us to Thursday, May 12, our next real meeting on this study with witnesses, besides the Treasury Board. So far, Mr. Gogolek has confirmed. Duff Connacher from Democracy Watch is available either on the 12th or the following Tuesday, the 17th. We are still trying with CBC. We know they have a very different position from the Canadian Association of Journalists, but they were evaluating if they would like to come and appear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

That, colleagues, leaves us with potentially one, maybe two spots on the 12th, one, maybe two spots on 17th, three spots on the 19th, and then that leaves us with the 31st, which is the last day we would be able to provide instructions to the analysts or review an interim report or the final report before it was sent to translation over the break week, if we were to adopt that plan. Then we would come back and we would either continue on with the witnesses, if it was an interim report; if it was going to be a final report, then we would start deliberations about the report. That sometimes can happen in one or two committee meetings; sometimes it takes two or three weeks of committee meetings to go through because we as parliamentarians at the committee can wordsmith it, we can decide what the actual report is.

The analysts generally prepare a very good document, but my experience has been there's always some discussion and debate about what should be added, what should be taken out, and so on. In my past experience as a parliamentarian for 10 years, I've always found working from a list of recommendations and working backwards to create the text that supports the recommendations that the committee can agree upon has usually been the most productive way, but we don't have to do it that way. The analysts can prepare the report with the recommendations as well, and we can go through it, if that's your preference.

I'm looking for instruction from the committee.

Mr. Massé.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

This is not in terms of scheduling per se, but I'd like to get additional witnesses. One would be Shared Services Canada. Mr. Rubin alluded to it a bit.

I would like to hear from them, because they are involved with another department in a process to establish an information management system. A significant amount has been invested in this in the past number of years. I would like to question them on the direction they have taken, the progress they have made, and the next steps.

There is a lot of talk about access to information officers. If we could hear from an access to information coordinator, who could tell us about their experience in concrete terms, we could gather a bit more information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

We could certainly look at that. Hopefully we'll find the right person to contact. We'll go back to the testimony to see whether the right person is mentioned, or contact Mr. Rubin.

Mr. Lightbound.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Chair, I just want to make sure that I get it right. You said that we'd have the 12th, 17th, and 19th for witnesses; however, my understanding was that our analysts would write during the break week of the 24th. It would be best if we were to have some time before May 24 to discuss what recommendations we want to see in the report, if we are to proceed your way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I'm sorry. You're right, Mr. Lightbound. I looked at the calendar incorrectly.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

That's why Mr. Lightbound's presence here is imperative.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

That's right. We cannot send you back.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I'm not going back to past years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

You're absolutely right. That was my mistake. I misread the calendar.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

We'd have only the 12th and the 17th, and then the 19th would be devoted to a discussion among us to....

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

We could do an hour of witnesses, if we wanted to, as well, and then use the last hour to give final instructions and have a discussion with.... It's up to you.

My guess is that when the committee first sees the first substantive report, we're going to have a lot of questions. I expect that, and it's a good thing.

As I said, it's up to you. We're planning for the unknown. That is what we're basically doing.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Just as a suggestion, on the public safety committee we had just one day of estimates, and we had CBSA, CSIS, CIC; we had a number of organizations present to us over those two hours. I'm not sure that we need two days to do the estimates with the four commissioners. That would give us an additional full day to deal with witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I think the issue with the commissioners was not about planning. I think it was about the availability of the commissioners.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Do you mean that the four of them cannot be available on one day all together, for any of the days we have available over the....?