Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 8th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Sorbara is next.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to my colleague MP Shanahan for her comments. I'm largely in line with those comments regarding Mr. Barrett's amendment and motion.

I'm trying to understand what has changed between the motion that was brought forward in the summer and the motion now. In the summer motion, staff were, to my understanding, specifically excluded. I'm concerned. I'm very much concerned in terms of the sensitivity of the documents, the sensitive nature of the first motion, which was drafted in the summertime. Now we're going to be enlarging that, or at least the proposition is to enlarge that circle. I'm very much concerned.

Obviously I take, with a lot of credence and a lot of value, MP Angus's comments in terms of his rights as an MP being violated or his privilege being violated—excuse me, Charlie, if I use the wrong terms. We obviously know as members of Parliament that we all need to be able to fulfill our jobs, and obviously, just delegating those responsibilities to our staff members is, I believe, not correct. I believe we need to be within the spirit of the motion in the summertime.

To my understanding, the motion is, “That, in relation to the motion passed on Wednesday, July 22, to ensure that the privacy and security of this personal information of Canadians,”—and I re-emphasize it's to ensure the privacy and security of this personal information of Canadians—“the Committee adopt the following procedures for the handling of these documents:

“That the documents not be emailed to Members, staff or anyone else;

“That for the consideration of the documents during in-camera meetings, numbered, paper copies be provided to committee members by the Clerk at the start of any meeting at which they will be considered, and that they be returned to the Clerk at the end of the meeting;

“That no staff and no mobile or electronic devices be allowed for the duration of the in camera meeting”.

I'll repeat that again: “That no staff and no mobile or electronic devices be allowed for the duration of the in camera meeting”.

Then the motion goes on: “That the documents be held in the Clerk's office, and that outside of in-camera committee meetings, Members may only view the documents in the Clerk's office and that no mobile or electronic devices may be in the room when the documents are being reviewed.”

At the time, there was such sensitivity and such importance given to this. I don't know what the vote was for that motion, but I'm anticipating that since this motion passed, it was made with the utmost diligence and judiciousness by the committee members at the time.

I have significant, grave concerns in reference to expanding this list. If there were a leak by a staff member from any party, it would impose significant consequences on the individuals mentioned within these documents, on their privacy or their potential future career opportunities or their financial.... It is almost every realm. Not being a lawyer, I cannot even list the grave concerns that can be numbered.

It has come up in prior committee hearings that a leak did occur. We can go back to 2010, December 14, and a former staffer of a Conservative MP. A document was leaked on December 14, 2010—I can read it into the record—by a staffer of former Conservative MP Kelly Block. We know the great work that staffers do day in, day out for us. We know the heavy lifting they do, not only to make us look good but also to inform us, to keep us on schedule. We all understand that, but there has been a situation in the past, unfortunately, where this has occurred. I cannot, in good conscience, have this situation arise again.

I'm really not sure why MP Barrett put forward this suggestion or amendment or motion.

In terms of that, in terms of privilege, obviously, as I say, we are in a unique and extraordinary period of time. We need to ensure that all members' privileges at all times are respected, but this was set up during the summertime, during COVID. It was agreed to by the members of the committee. I don't know why we're veering in any other manner.

Chair, I'll stop in a minute. I have very grave concerns on why the motion was put forward in this manner. Obviously, I cannot support that in any way, if the consequences were that when a staff member were to leak this information....

It gives me very, very, very grave concerns. That responsibility should not be delegated down in terms of the sensitivity of these documents. That's why, going back to the routine motions, we had that section there for going in camera. This obviously pertains to that, and it should be the sole responsibility of the members of Parliament.

I'll now yield the floor to the next speaker, Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Go ahead, Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's becoming clear that the Liberals don't want these documents released. Of course, we knew that they didn't want them released. The Prime Minister prorogued Parliament, shutting down committees and the investigation just hours before these documents were set to be released to the committee.

It's no surprise that the Liberals don't want them released. The opposition members do want them released to the committee. This is a minority Parliament. Canadians have elected the opposition parties in larger numbers than the government. It is time for the government to end their filibuster and allow for this committee to do its important work of undertaking its review of these documents.

It shouldn't be a surprise to any member of this committee. I am new to this committee, but I read in national newspapers that this committee was considering these documents, that these documents were being prepared, and that they were hours away from being released before the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament. It isn't a surprise to any of us. It's no surprise to any Canadian that we as a committee would be requesting the release of these documents.

I believe it's now time for us to figure out a way to get these documents to committee. I believe the proposal from my colleague Mr. Barrett—and it's been supported by Mr. Angus in these discussions—is that we find a resolution to ensure that we protect the privacy of those individuals by maintaining the documents in the clerk's office, allowing members of this committee, as well as a designated staff member, access to review those documents. As Mr. Sorbara and others have said, we do trust our staff to do good work, and I would expect that we can move forward. We are all responsible adults. We've all served in many capacities, many of us as members of Parliament for a significant period of time. Canadians will find it ridiculous if we can't find some way to get these documents to committee within the next number of hours.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Warkentin.

Mr. Dong is next.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I remember that there was a great division in opinion the last time this came forward to the committee.

With this, we're setting a precedent. How far are we going to go in terms of relatives and friends? As far as that's concerned, I asked the Clerk of the Privy Council that question, and other experts who came in as witnesses later on. How far we can go is in the legislative guidelines, and this goes for all members thereafter. As a member, it personally feels to me as if there is no line, no boundary in terms of how far this committee will go in calling a member, elected officials, friends and family members.

Anyway, there was a great division on this topic. I remember that the chair had to step in to make a decision.

I agree that Canadians are entitled to information. However, I think that in protecting their fundamental rights and privacy, the committee now is on the hook for accountability in making sure that happens.

We were in a COVID situation then. We're still in a COVID situation. I don't understand why all of a sudden we are going to include designated staff having access to these documents. I don't think there were precedents in the past over how these were leaked. Unfortunately, I don't know if there was any solution or any change of legislation to speak to that. We are entering into another situation, where if this gets leaked, all members of this committee, especially those who agree with this amendment, will be on the hook.

I don't understand the mechanism whereby designated staff will see the document and then transmit the information of this document back to their member without using electronics. If MP Barrett could explain this to me, that would be great. In my view, there's no way in today's world to pass on this information without using electronics. You can use a phone, but is it completely safe?

I don't understand why this amendment has been brought forward. There was great discussion in the past to exclude staff, and now we're including staff. Perhaps someone can explain that to me.

Michael is laughing. Maybe he has a good explanation. I'm looking forward to hearing from him.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Fergus is next.

Before you begin, to clarify—because I know some people are concerned about whether I have their name on the list—we have Mr. Fergus, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Angus, Madam Lattanzio and Madam Shanahan. That's the order I have right now.

Sorry, Mr. Fergus. Go right ahead.

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

There's no problem at all, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to be very clear. I think some very good points were raised, but I'd like to respond, particularly to what Mr. Warkentin said. I'm glad Mr. Warkentin followed the news over the summer and read the national news on this. I would also hope and assume that he followed the debate that we had at the ethics committee. We had a long discussion about this. It wasn't the will of just one party. It was the will of the majority of the members of the committee to put a framework around the in camera aspect of this.

This was done for extraordinary reasons. Why? The debate really centred around the notion of who investigates the investigators. In other words, who gets to do it? Should MPs be investigating other MPs and their families, and by extension their friends and all that kind of stuff? The answer was no, we have an Ethics Commissioner who does that. If members feel that the Ethics Commissioner doesn't have full access, then that's the reason we approved this motion. We said, “All right, the original idea was that all this information was going to go to the Ethics Commissioner, just as a clearing house through the clerk; therefore, we're not really investigating each other.” There was some concern that members wanted to see this information, so then we put some limits around that.

This was the will of the committee, not the will of one party. The idea was, with this information.... We developed this on July 22, not very long ago, under the same conditions in which we find ourselves now in terms of having a hybrid Parliament. It's in the sense that, with COVID, which was happening, we said, “All right. We're going to leave this to make sure that members can take a look at this, but it will be kept at the clerk's office. We're going to try to limit the number of people on this so that we don't put anyone, our staffers or anyone whom we designate, in a compromised position in case the information ends up being released.” That is the reason that we put those conditions in place. It was the will of the committee to do that.

It was, I think, the best thing to do under the circumstances. Nothing else has changed. There's no other material factor that has changed in terms of the ability of members to get to Ottawa.

I know we all have different weeks of House duties. We were talking about this off camera before this meeting started, about all of us being required to come to Ottawa from time to time to do our duty in the House; otherwise, we would be participating online. Well, I think that, as part of that duty, that's exactly what will happen.

You're not getting any opposition from me or from my colleagues in the Liberal Party to bringing forward this information. We're saying, “Fine, but bring it forward under the same conditions that we established back in July.” Given that nothing has changed in our circumstances, that should still apply.

I've known Chris for a long time. I'd like to consider him a friend, but I didn't appreciate the tone in which he suggested that this was a partisan issue. It wasn't. I think this committee has done very well in making sure that we want to support the work that's being done.

We all know that there are discussions going on about how we can take this off the ethics committee's plate and put it onto a special committee's plate so that we can go on and do the important work we set out to do back in February, which we know is time-limited.

Mr. Barrett, I think we would come to a quick agreement if you were to bring forward the same conditions that we adopted so that members of the committee can examine those documents. Bring forward those same conditions that we had back on July 22, and we're done; we can move on to other issues. We know that the same material will be brought forward and the same conditions in which they would be applied would be brought forward, and we would be able to discharge our duties as members of this committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you.

Now we go to Mr. Barrett.

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

Thanks, Chair. There was a lot said there.

We've gone back in our time machine to 2010 to find an incident of a staff member leaking a document. I don't know; maybe they got fired, maybe they didn't.

Mrs. Shanahan asked about secret clearance. None of my staff have security clearance. I don't think there's a provision for MPs' staff to have security clearance, nor are MPs cleared, unless it's a requirement. I had a top-secret clearance when I served in the military, but it's not current and it's not required. The clearance that we require is the one that we take on the day we officially become members, and that's the oath of office. It's that we “solemnly and sincerely promise and swear that [we] will truly and faithfully, to the best of [our] knowledge, execute the powers and trusts reposed in [us]. So help [us] God.” That's the clearance we use. With respect to our staff, they handle all kinds of information from our offices.

In this case, we have members who are not able to come to Ottawa. We have a situation here where people need to put a little water in their wine. This is not the original motion that I put forward in the summer. But some things have changed, folks. Prorogation has happened. When we put this forward at the time, in the summer, there was a second motion. There were restrictions put on it. I'm not creating some kind of structure to allow a leak.

If you like the motion, vote for it. If you don't like the motion, vote against it and propose a different one. Everyone was in a big hurry 50 minutes ago to leave this meeting. Everyone has seen this motion before. Everyone can see it now. The change that I've suggested is eminently reasonable. With respect, how would your staff talk to you? There's never any limiting factor on what we can talk about, for me to be able to call another member of this committee on the phone, having viewed these documents in the clerk's office with them.

Mr. Dong, you and I can attend the clerk's office together, look at them. You go back to your constituency; I go back to my Hill office. We pick up the phone and we talk about it. We're allowed to do that. There's no requirement for use of encrypted devices. This isn't national security. We're talking about an issue of someone's first name and last name, and on what date they attended an event and how much they were paid for it. It's not in my interest to leak any of this. I'm not sure in whose interest it would be.

For members who were in a mad rush to get out of here 50 minutes ago, let's just put our hands down and call the question. You can vote against it.

Mr. Fergus, you talked about the will of the committee. Well, guess what? It's a new session of Parliament. The Liberal Prime Minister prorogued to avoid accountability in dealing with corruption in his government, so now the committee has to take new decisions. Well, based on that, some of those decisions that the committee made before, in a previous session, might be different.

I will slow my pace down because I know in the past I've been asked to be respectful of the good work our interpreters do. My apologies to the interpreters and to my colleagues who are listening through translation services. They offer me the same courtesy when they're speaking.

I'll leave it there. To my colleagues, we can drag this out over a couple of meetings, or we can vote on it today. If the will of the committee is similar to that of the committee from the previous session, then the motion will be defeated. A new motion can be put forward. If it's in the interest of members of this committee to get the information, my goodness, wouldn't it be a pleasant surprise to see a Liberal member of the committee put forward a motion to order the documents from Speakers' Spotlight and have them produced under conditions that they believe are favourable, and then see if members of the opposition vote with them?

I encourage all members that we move swiftly to calling the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Angus.

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

The reason these documents were requested was that under the Conflict of Interest Act and the definitions of “family” and “relatives”, there's also section 5, whereby the Prime Minister needs to have his affairs in order not to be put in a conflict of interest.

These issues matter, because after Mr. Trudeau became Prime Minister, the WE group began to pay his family members an extraordinary amount of money to do work for them, and they initially denied that. They said money wasn't paid. When we asked the charity board head, the former chair of WE Charity, if she had known that the Trudeau family were being paid, she said they were specifically told that the Trudeau family was not being paid. There's a question of the credibility of the information we've had.

When we asked the Kielburgers to clarify why Trudeau family members were being paid when very famous people like Jully Black and Theo Fleury were not being paid, they told us that they were not being paid to do public speaking but to work the corporate events afterwards.

This situation has put the Prime Minister in a conflict of interest. That's why these documents matter. The question is.... If the documents concur with everything we've been told, then that's fine. If the documents contradict what's been said publicly and under oath at committee, then we have a very serious issue.

I would suggest that the simple solution is that we can vote on it right now. I will come to Ottawa to look at the documents, and then I'll talk to my staff about those documents. I would have preferred to avoid having to come in, because of COVID, and to have my staff go, but I will accept the original terms we had for the limiting of the documents if the Liberals will agree to vote now, before two o'clock, so that we can get these documents put into the clerk's hands and we can begin to work.

If Mr. Barrett will withdraw his amendment, Mrs. Shanahan has said she's—

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

It's withdrawn.

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

Mr. Fergus has said he's ready to go. I don't know about my other Liberal colleagues. They still seem to want to get caught up to speed. If the Liberals are ready to vote, let's do this. Let's go with the original terms and conditions and let's get this done by 2 p.m. I'm ready to vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I still have five people on the list, but as one who would always like to pursue consensus, I'll ask if there is any consensus around the proposition from Mr. Angus.

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

I withdraw my amendment to the motion and consent to the proposal.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay.

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

I still want to say something to be on the record, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay.

I see a lot of shaking heads, so I'll continue.

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

Okay. As a point of order, then, I would ask Mr. Barrett to put his original motion back on. If the Liberals are not going to show us good faith, why would we withdraw that? If they don't want to agree with this, then I'd say that Mr. Barrett's amendment to allow staff.... The Liberals don't seem to want to work with us.

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

Charlie, that's new information for me. I just need to digest it—

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

How is it new information for you, Mr. Dong? You—

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

No, no. You changed your position, saying that you would agree with the amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Listen, colleagues. Crosstalk is really tough when you're live, but it's even tougher when you're on a screen. Could we have just one at a time?

There's no withdrawal anyway. You need unanimous consent to withdraw anything.

Right now—

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

Chair, can we have a two-minute suspension and then come back to this?