Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 8th, 2020

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

I won't get in the way of that, Mr. Chair. I concur with Mr. Angus's and Ms. Gaudreau's comments. She was first on the list to move a motion, so it's over to you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Ms. Gaudreau.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I want to thank the interpreters.

I want to make sure that I'm on the right track. Mr. Chair, have we reached the point where I can move the motion, or should I continue to explain why we want to restart the work that had previously been done?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

You are free to move your motion now.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Okay.

I'm happy to do so now, since we were already wondering about the resumption of work. I want to move a motion that focuses on effectiveness, but that also takes into account the urgent needs arising from the current pandemic and the proposals made over the past few months for how to carry out the work that we were finishing up before the prorogation. My fellow members, you should know that three more motions may be moved in the future. You won't be surprised. I just wanted to give you a heads-up. However, I'll speak to you specifically about the main motion.

First, there will certainly be a provision to prevent conflicts of interest. I intend to move a motion calling for a study during this Parliament to ensure that all federal government policy documents, whether they relate to procurement, contracting, grants or contributions, include a link to prevent conflict of interest.

There will also be a motion regarding the powers of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner. This issue was discussed extensively over the summer.

Of course, this will be followed by the motion that I already moved regarding our concern for privacy. The motion has been slightly amended to make it more effective in terms of privacy.

Today's topic is effectiveness. I asked whether usefulness has ever been linked to effectiveness, and I was told that it has. I'm a new member, so I have many questions. However, I also have some recommendations. I'm proposing today that we create a special committee to examine the design and creation of a Canada student service grant.

Madam Clerk, you received a copy of my motion. I want to read it slowly. Normally, I would have liked to move it afterwards, since it's now formal. We wouldn't have been able to do so before, obviously, not even 48 hours in advance. I'll now read it to you. If there's anything, you can—

[The Clerk]

Do you want me to distribute the motion to the committee members before you read it?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

No, you can distribute it while I read it, as this will take a few minutes. Thank you very much.

I will begin.

That the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics report to the House of Commons the following recommendation:

That the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics recommend to the House the creation of a special committee to hold hearings to examine all aspects of the design and creation of the Canada Student Service Grant, including those relating to the study to review the safeguards to prevent conflicts of interest in federal government expenditure policies; government spending, WE Charity and the Canada Student Service Grant; the government's decision to select WE Charity, an anglophone organization, to implement the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG); and the administration of the Canada Student Service Grant and WE Charity;

There are a few clarifications. This is very clear and precise.

1. That the committee be composed of 11 members, of which five shall be government members, four shall be from the official opposition, one shall be from the Bloc Québécois and one from the New Democratic Party;

2. That changes in the membership of the committee shall be effective immediately after notification by the whip has been filed with the Clerk of the House;

3. That membership substitutions be permitted, if required, in the manner provided for in Standing Order 114(2);

4. That the members shall be named by their respective whip by depositing with the Clerk of the House the list of their members to serve on the committee no later than three days following the adoption of this motion by the House;

5. That the Clerk of the House shall convene an organization meeting of the said committee no later than 5 days following the adoption of this motion by the House;

6. That the committee be chaired by a member of the official opposition;

7. That notwithstanding Standing Order 106(2) in addition to the Chair, there be one vice-chair from the official opposition, one vice-chair from the Bloc Québécois and one vice-chair from the New Democratic Party;

8. That quorum of the committee be as provided for in Standing Order 118 and that the Chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and to have that evidence printed when a quorum is not present, provided that at least four members are present, including one member of the opposition and one member of the government;

9. That the committee be granted all of the powers of a standing committee, as provided in the Standing Orders, as well as the power to travel, accompanied by the necessary staff, inside and outside of Canada;

10. That the committee have the power to authorize video and audio broadcasting of any or all of its proceedings;

11. That the committee continue all of the business of the following committees: the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics; the Standing Committee on Finance; the Standing Committee on Official Languages; and the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates; and that the documents and evidence received by each of these committees be deemed to have been received by the said committee, including the documents provided on August 18 to the members of the Standing Committee on Finance;

12. That the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the leader of the government in the House be among the witnesses ordered to appear from time to time as the committee sees fit.

In a few words, can we pursue the main objective of the ethics committee with what we previously submitted and strike a special committee to continue to shed light on this issue? Can we do that, but while not committing all of our time to it, given the situation we are going through? Our constituents are asking us to move forward, as there are urgent issues other than the pandemic. It would be to our credit to manage to do that and to deal with all the motions that will be moved, which are extremely important for our constituents. That would cap off what we started here this summer, before August 13.

Thank you.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Chair, on a point of order, Madame Gaudreau did request that the document be distributed to members of the committee. I'm not in receipt of it, so I'm wondering if it's been sent.

I'm just looking at the clerk there. I'll leave that with you.

I'd like to be able to see the document—a very interesting idea—on a special committee to address this issue. I look forward to receiving that.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

From what I know of body language and facial expressions, I suspect that the clerk has sent it, or at least feels that she has.

She's dealing with it right now.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Colleagues, I'll make a practical suggestion here. It's 12:39 p.m. Our conclusion is at 1 p.m.

We've only covered one motion now, from Ms. Gaudreau. I have five people on the speakers list, and I also have four more people who want to present motions.

May I make a suggestion—and, of course, if you're not in agreement then we'll continue on as we are—that we hear all the motions briefly, and then at the next meeting we'll go one at a time in their order and debate each motion.

Let me know if that's something that resonates with you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Barrett.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

To your point, I don't want to step on the list of people speaking to that motion, but with respect to your question specifically, if it's possible to address the motion on the floor.... I think if we have the capacity with the clerk and analysts to continue with the meeting until bells, I expect we should be able to get through one or more pieces of business. That would be preferable to me.

Thank you, Chair.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

On a point of order, Chair, my understanding is that for a committee to go past the time it is supposed to sit, you require unanimous consent.

Is it the same rule here? Is that the rule for this committee as well?

Clerk, can we get a ruling on that, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

That is correct, Mr. Sorbara.

Okay, I'm going to go through the list of people who have their hands up right now. Let's exhaust that first, and then we'll deal with the 19 minutes we have left.

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you for your motion, it's very interesting.

I think we first need to know whether our committee has the power to strike a new committee. [Technical difficulty—Editor] each party's leaders for that plan. So I think the motion is interesting, but I think such a motion can also be moved in the Standing Committee on Finance.

I am interested in this motion. I'm concerned about a couple of things. Again, I don't know that the ethics committee has the authority to create a special committee, but I think a special committee is where we want to go. I think a special committee will clear up our committees so that we can get to work. Right now we have four committees looking at the WE scandal. My understanding is that at the finance committee there is language that is more inclusive regarding other financial issues, language that would make the committee broader and give it a stronger mandate, so I'm interested in the language of that committee.

I'm concerned that even if we pass the motion today calling on the House to create a special committee, that might take some time. It might take a lot of negotiating. I don't want that to interrupt the work that has been done. I think it's important that we maintain our ability to look at the documents that we received and that if we have to continue with our witness list, we continue with the witness list as it was.

If the member is willing to augment that to say that in the meantime we will continue with our work with the documents, that would then allow the House leaders to look at this. I think it's a very interesting proposal to clear the decks for the four committees that are very occupied with the WE issue, and it allows us to get onto the other issues. As Madame Gaudreau said, there are many issues that are really important, but I would like to know if she is willing to add to it that the committee call for the reintroduction of the documents that we had obtained. Then we can have a separate discussion about how those documents are accessed and we can reintroduce the witness list and carry on until the House leaders come to a decision. For me, that would be the best.

In terms of the difference in language between what the finance committee is discussing and what the Bloc member has brought forward, I think if we bring forward a motion and the finance committee brings forward a motion, the House leaders can negotiate something that maybe all parties can find acceptable.

I'm very interested in this, but I want to make sure that if we have a long time delay while they negotiate, we're still able to finish off or bring forward the work. If the larger committee is created, then with regard to the transfer of documents and the transfer of information from our committee, I'm perfectly content to let this new special committee, for however long it's scheduled, address those outstanding issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

Go ahead, Ms. Shanahan.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank my colleague Ms. Gaudreau, especially for what she said concerning the important work we have to do here, in the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. We already adopted a few very interesting motions at the beginning of the last session. I am looking forward to seeing whether we could recover them.

I am not aware of all the discussions surrounding the idea of creating a special committee, but to build on what my colleague Mr. Angus said, according to my understanding of committee mandates, it is rather the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that takes care of this. Committees struck in the past were always created by that committee. So I must vote against this motion, as I don't think it comes under our mandate.

However, I agree with the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics looking into issues of confidentiality and identity fraud, as well as issues surrounding digital technology. I think that is this committee's goal.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Ms. Shanahan.

Mr. Fergus is next.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank Ms. Gaudreau for her motion.

I would like to go over three elements.

First, Mr. Angus asked whether the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics had the right to strike a new committee. I don't think so. That power rather belongs to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, even though I think my colleague made a mistake when he said it was the Standing Committee on Finance—and he is confirming this—that has the power to create a new committee to consider those matters.

Second, if we decide to go back in the past and take up the work that was done during the previous session, I assume all the provisions that were adopted and the context established to examine those documents will also be completely re-established as they were before the prorogation. So I would like to get clarifications from the clerk regarding those two elements.

In addition, the idea of having a completely new committee to consider this is not bad. However, I think it is up to parliamentary leaders in the House to negotiate this, as they do for the striking of any other new committee. So, if possible, we will have to put this on hold for the time being and let the discussions continue.

Finally, I must say that I was eager to consider an issue that we raised right after the election. It is an extremely important issue, especially for Black Canadians, aboriginals and racialized people. I'm talking about facial recognition. Ms. Gaudreau, Mr. Angus and I have talked about this at length. We are lucky in our bad luck, as companies have not been working on that lately because everyone needed masks. However, this truce will eventually end, and they will start working on it again.

Studies have shown that people with brown skin and Black people are greatly disadvantaged by that kind of technology. Our room to manoeuver with regard to this issue is shrinking. As members of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, we have to look at this as soon as possible. If we miss our shot now, industry practices will advance too much and we will never manage to regulate them.

For all those reasons, I like the idea of having negotiations on the striking of any new committee by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Let's allow the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics to do its work. It will have a profound impact on racialized people across Canada, as industry is soon to start developing that new technology again.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Fergus. I'm going to go on to the next speaker, but I just wanted to mention a couple of things.

One is that after prorogation, everything that was done in a previous session is nullified. It would require a motion from this committee to bring it forward, whether it was the request for documents or any of the witnesses' testimony.

You are correct in your observation that we can't order a new committee to be initiated. It would have to be the House, but certainly, through a motion, we can make a recommendation to the House in that regard.

Now I'll go to Mr. Dong.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

It's really difficult to read through this motion, which I received just a few minutes ago, and try to understand the essence of it and do a fair examination of the wording while listening to my colleagues offering their input and their perspectives on this motion, but I tried to make the best of it.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that I agree with my colleagues, MP Fergus and MP Shanahan, about whether or not our committee has the power to create a special committee. I think MP Angus spoke about it too. I've just heard from the chair that we can offer a recommendation.

Just to be clear, I'm a newish member to all of this. If the clerk can clarify or read out the mandate of this committee again so that we can make an apple-to-apple comparison, if that's not too much trouble, I would like the clerk to remind us—or me, at least—of it and read out the mandate of this committee.

Again, this is a very substantial motion. I would need some time to digest it.

After prorogation, we're still right in the middle of COVID. The motion I'm about to bring forward will suggest that the committee study the implications of the new frontier of digital currency. We've seen that during COVID there has been a lot of increased use of online services in the financial area and in other areas as well. Coming out of COVID, I think that some of those sectors will be ready to thrive, and Canada usually benefits from the advancement of technology. It shows in our GDP that the technology sector has been at the forefront of it.

I think it's quite urgent to study something that connects not only to Canadians' daily lives and their consumption behaviours, but to international trade as well. We can't lose out. It's highly competitive, and we need to get in front of it in making sure that the privacy of Canadians and Canadian businesses is protected, meanwhile maintaining transparency in these transactions. Because COVID has exposed the priority of those areas, I think our committee owes it to Canadians to start doing some investigations on them, or to at least hear about from witnesses coming from these industries, to provide strong recommendations to the House.

I just need a bit more time to go through this motion to examine it again. At the same time, I hope the clerk can clarify the mandate of the committee with us so that we can compare apples to apples.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Dong.

I want to remind colleagues that we're speaking to Ms. Gaudreau's motion right now. After I exhaust the speakers list, I will certainly have the clerk refer to the mandate of the committee. However, I don't want to rob any of our committee members who have had their hands up for some time.

Let me read that list to you. It is Mr. Barrett, Mr. Sorbara, Mr. Warkentin, Ms. Gaudreau, Ms. Lattanzio and Madam Shanahan.

I'll go to Mr. Barrett now.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Chair, thanks very much.

Again, I appreciate the motion moved by Madame Gaudreau, and we'll take the time to review it.

I've heard from our colleagues that it doesn't seem that there's going to be consensus or success if this motion comes to a vote today. The intent of the motion is laudable. With that said, Chair, I would like to move to adjourn the debate on Madame Gaudreau's motion to a future meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

There's been a motion to adjourn the debate on this motion.

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adjourn debate?

(Motion agreed to)

That being said, then, I have—