Information & Ethics Committee on March 10th, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I'm sorry, Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

That's okay. In the case that it wasn't, it would take longer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Colleagues, I'm offering this given my experience as a veteran parliamentarian at the table. Normally when motions like this go forward and requests are made of departments, it takes several weeks for these documents to be received. The committee does have the power to compel the documents if the documents aren't received in the order, or manner, or to the completion level that we want. That is a different matter. This is a request. We're not compelling; we're requesting information from Treasury Board. We are just asking. The motion seeks to ask the President of the Treasury Board to come. We cannot compel the President of the Treasury Board to come. He is also a parliamentarian, and we cannot compel a parliamentarian to come. We can compel other witnesses to come through things like subpoenas and so on if we choose to go down that path. I've been a parliamentarian for 10 years and I have never seen a committee subpoena anybody, because normally we get co-operation.

That being said, Mr. Blaikie has the motion on the floor. There doesn't appear to be a desire to withdraw the motion at this time. I just want to clarify a couple of different things here and the I'll move to Mr. Lightbound. I will not do anything until everybody has had a chance to speak to this.

There are friendly amendments, and then there are actual amendments. Sometimes committees adopt a policy of having friendly amendments. With a friendly amendment, we just kind of ask the mover of the motion if they would consider a friendly amendment and then we kind of massage, in an amoeba-like fashion, the wording of the motion and get to something that looks different from the motion that's currently before us. Or you can actually move an amendment, which is the proper way to do things.

I'm of the opinion that as parliamentarians we're all adults around this table. If we want to do it either way I'm good with that unless we get into an unwieldy situation, in which case, I would prefer to follow the rules of how we actually make amendments, and amendments to those amendments, and then vote on those amendments. If we're going to get unwieldy, then we'll go down that road.

Mr. Massé.

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

It's just to react to what I said. Maybe I wasn't clear enough and maybe I'm not knowledgeable enough regarding the process, but I've asked for a motion to go to a vote.

I'm not sure why we're still—

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

We can't do that. My understanding of the way it works is that the vote will happen when the debate collapses, as soon as people are done speaking to the motion that's before us. The only thing that can interrupt the debate on this motion is the actual time for this committee running out, in which case we would need to agree to extend that time for the committee and we would resume discussing this when the committee next met, or we would have to adjudicate this motion, or we'd have to have unanimous consent to defer or table the motion.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

On a point of order, can we not call the question? If we vote in favour of calling the question, can we call the question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

No. We can't vote to decide if we're going to vote. I know that seems frustrating at times, and, believe me, I sat on that side of the table for a long time, but this is the process. I would like to adjudicate this motion today in some form or other.

Mr. Lightbound.

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

Mr. Chair, I'd like to move again to adjourn the debate. I'm pretty sure it's something that's possible to do. It's called a dilatory motion. I would challenge you to explain further why you think that's not possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

After discussion with the clerk, I understand the notion of a dilatory motion. If you wanted to end the debate on this, you would have to move the adjournment of the committee. Committees are not bound by the same prescriptive timelines that the House of Commons is.

My advice from the clerk is that we continue on with this debate until the time for the committee has passed, and then we'll simply resume this at the next committee meeting. Otherwise, we have to find a way to.... My understanding is that motion would not be in order. I might be wrong, but this is the advice I'm getting from the clerk.

Mr. Saini.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I don't really see what the issue is here. For me, ultimately, we want to reach some sort of conclusion. To get to that conclusion, I think it would be premature to not actually have the President of the Treasury Board here first, listen to his viewpoints and get his guidance, and then, from that point, build some sort of consensus among the members of this committee on how we should go forward.

To put the cart before the horse doesn't make any sense. If we're going to work in this committee.... You mentioned the two ways you can do that. You can massage things in amoeba-like fashion, and I don't prescribe doing that. If this is going to be a friendly committee and we're all trying to reach the same objective, then we should have the same path to reach that objective. Debating on this and that doesn't make sense to me. I think that it would be possible for us, as adults, as you mentioned—and this is not a very contentious committee—to all work together. I think we should all work together to reach some objective or some conclusion, where all of us work together and bring our experiences into it collectively, rather than have these motions come back and forth.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I couldn't agree with you more, Mr. Saini. Are you proposing an amendment, then?

I have a list. I have Mr. Jeneroux, Mr. Lightbound, Mr. Bratina, and Mr. Erskine-Smith. If you don't have an amendment, Mr. Saini, I'll move to Mr. Jeneroux.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Yes, I'm watching to heighten things on the other side. I'm encouraging them to come up with that friendly amendment. I don't think you'll be offside in proposing that. A lot of what you're talking about is actually in the form of an amendment. I will stop talking and hope that there's a friendly amendment on the other side.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Lightbound.

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

I'll start with a proposal for an amendment and see how that goes. I'd like to have your suggestions as well.

I would suggest that we move with this: That the Committee invites the President of the Treasury Board to elaborate on possible changes to the Access to Information Act.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Just for clarification, Mr. Lightbound, what you're suggesting is striking the words “request all briefing materials and memos”, replacing that with the words “invites the President of the Treasury Board”, ending it at where the semi-colon currently is after “Access to Information Act”, and striking the rest. Is that correct?

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

That would be: That the Committee invites the President of the Treasury Board to elaborate on possible changes to the Access to Information Act.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Right. We've heard the terms. We now have an amendment on the floor. That amendment would strike most of the first sentence and replace it with the word “invites”, so it reads: That the Committee invites the President of the Treasury Board to elaborate on possible changes to the Access to Information Act.

You're then striking all the words after the semi-colon.

We have an amendment. The amendment is in order.

Who would like to speak to the amendment?

Mr. Bratina.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

We had the Privacy Commissioner here with us. It seems to me that in the original motion, we are acting as the Privacy Commissioner. We could have held this document up to him, asked what he thought, and said, “Are we usurping your job in demanding these memos and so on?”

I don't think the committee's role is to act as Privacy Commissioner and find out whatever these memos are. There's a process in place that speaks to that. We're reviewing the process, but we're not necessarily reviewing all of the requests that have come in from the media and whoever else to find out what this information is. I think the amendment is quite in order. Let's bring in the President of the Treasury Board and see what he has to say in terms of our mandate and references as a committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

The amendment is absolutely in order.

Mr. Jeneroux.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

In order to continue the good nature of this committee, it's not entirely what Mr. Blaikie asked for, but it's a good start and probably a good step toward goodwill. It's something that we would support on our side.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Without wanting to undermine any sense of goodwill, I probably won't be supporting this amendment.

I won't do it because there are two components to this motion. One is to have the President of the Treasury Board here in order to have the committee get a better sense of what he may reasonably consider coming from us, not that that would be any restriction on what we could recommend, but to give us a better sense of where he would like to go and how he understands his mandate from the Prime Minister on access to information reform.

I appreciate that that is maintained in the spirit of this amendment, but what's lost is...There are documents and this request, its denial, and subsequent story show that there are documents that may help this committee in its study to get a better sense of what the advice to government should be.

We do have the power to request documents and my understanding...It's written in the House procedures manual that the Standing Orders do not delimit the power to order the production of papers and records. The result is a broad absolute power and then on the surface it appears to be without restriction.

That same guide acknowledges that in practice there may be reasons why people, who are the subject of requests, may not want to provide those documents, but those reservations, on the part of the people who are having that request made, don't in any way limit those powers. We would be well within our right to request those documents. They could serve a useful purpose in our study and it would make sense for us to do so.

I would agree with Sean Holman, who is an assistant professor of journalism at Mount Royal University, who essentially said, with respect to the access request, “What would be so wrong in letting the public know about what options are under consideration by the government?”

I think that rhetorical question has a point to it and I wanted it to be part of the motion. It's the will of the committee, of course, to decide what to do, but for my part I will be voting against the amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you very much, Mr. Blaikie.

We're running out of time to actually even get to the other business at hand.

We have the amended version before us. All in favour of the amendment? Opposed?

(Amendment agreed to)

We're now back to the original motion. Because the amendment carried, the motion before us in amoeba-like fashion reads that the committee invite the President of the Treasury Board to appear before it to elaborate on the possible changes to the Access to Information Act.

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The motion is carried unanimously.

We now have about five minutes left to suspend and go into committee business, unless we want to do committee business in public to save a few minutes.

Are there any questions or concerns about that, or shall I suspend?

[Proceedings continue in camera]