Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 9th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Good afternoon, colleagues. I want to say a couple of things to open up. In particular, I'll just deal with what Mr. Angus was just talking about.

Yesterday things worked pretty well both with the electronic and with many of you manually putting up your hand. When I see that, I'll put you in line just as I would if you were doing it electronically. I suspect that every time I read the speakers list.... No one objected yesterday, so I think we captured everybody. I know sometimes you have a spontaneous thought and you want to get it out right away. Don't feel that your physical hand won't be noticed; I'm staying glued to the screen.

Second, I want to mention our translators. I will just say that I've heard some colleagues say there's a lot of trouble with regard to the audio, but there have been a number of audiological injuries because of the way the audio can work in the earpiece of the translation staff. I would encourage you to continue to be as patient as possible so that not only do we get a good feed so that they can actually translate but also there are no injuries, which is important.

I'll just go over a couple of things very briefly. We are in a virtual sitting now, and as I already mentioned, you can put your hand up either electronically or manually.

Please speak slowly so that the translation staff can make sure interpretation is done.

Also, make sure that your button is on the language you want to hear, so either the floor or English or French. Also remember when you're speaking that if you have your button on English and you're speaking en français, then there's going to be an issue. You have to change that button if you're going to change the language you're speaking.

Of course, make sure you're automatically muted all the time. You will need to use the space bar to unmute.

Thanks for your patience, colleagues, and for coming together today. We didn't finish with any result yesterday, so I am hoping that we might be able to get a result in terms of finishing at least one motion from the whole list of motions we had.

I'm going to begin today by going to Mr. Barrett and having him repeat his motion so that we know what we're dealing with. Hopefully some folks were able to review, as they mentioned yesterday that they wanted to take a look at a previous motion as well as at our motion now, to make sure that they're well informed, particularly the new members of the committee.

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

On a point of order, Chair, I appreciate the explanation that you just gave, but can you just clarify for us where we are in the business of today? Also, with regard to the hand raising, what is the order of speakers? Is there carry-over from yesterday, or is it a brand new list today? Could you clarify that for us?

It was my understanding that the meeting was adjourned, so it would be a fresh start.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

That's correct; it will be a fresh start today.

I'll just have Mr. Barrett read his motion into the record, which we had ended with yesterday, and then we'll begin. I'll give you the list of speakers right now that I have in front of me: Mr. Angus, Madam Shanahan, Mr. Dong, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Fergus, Mr. Warkentin and Mr. Kurek.

Mr. Barrett, please go ahead now, and then we will go to the speakers list.

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

I have a point of order, Chair.

I'm just wondering, since we have a fresh start, if we can check with the clerk whether we are able to move motions.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I believe there were five motions moved yesterday, so we are going to return to the motion that we were debating yesterday. Then, of course, if we can finish that quickly, we can add some more motions to the list or we can go to the second one that was raised yesterday.

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

I have a motion to amend the routine motion that we passed yesterday and specifically to add a clause that, in future, if we are going to call meetings, we'll have 24 hours' notice at least, just because I had to cancel a lot of appointments to be here today.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay.

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

Receiving a notice in the morning and expecting all members to be available at one o'clock, I think, is a little bit of a tall order.

Would you indulge me to allow me to move a motion to change the routine order?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We'll do that when we come back to the motions on the business of the day, absolutely.

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

I have a point of order.

Chair, to what my colleague said, I had to change a lot of stuff in my personal life and family life to be at this meeting to deal with a motion that has not been dealt with. It's my understanding that we're not here to carry on ordinary business and go through all the other motions that really belong in a normal day. This is an extraordinary meeting. We're here to deal with something that had to be dealt with because it has to do with the documents, so I'm certainly very uncomfortable with the idea that we'll turn this into a regular meeting and go as long as we want.

As far as changing the standing orders goes, the routine proceedings, that was agreed on yesterday. We don't get to go back and rewrite them every time we don't like something at a committee. That would, I think, turn us into a bit of a monkey show.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Angus, first off, I completely respect and appreciate your point. I know that everybody had to reschedule things, so for that you have my sincere regrets.

I wanted to try to finish this motion. I only mentioned the other motions in the sense that I'm the servant of the committee. If a majority of members want to move past that, I'm here to serve. However, the primary pursuit today is what you said: to deal with that motion and hopefully get the request in, because we don't have those documents right now. If we get the request in, some action can be taken while we're gone for Thanksgiving, because right now we have no action going on for the committee.

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

Chair, I have a comment on this point of order.

I too appreciate the point brought forward by my colleagues Mr. Dong and Mr. Angus. I hear where you're coming from, and I think the idea is that we're all dealing with new circumstances. There's a lot going on. I too had to cancel a number of meetings this afternoon—virtual, in the House and in my constituency—and I'm sure I'm not alone in that regard.

Maybe we could get some clarification from you, Mr. Chair, including the fact that we have restricted resources. I think we started off on a good note, and I was very pleased to hear that you have a sense of humour. You brought us along and I greatly appreciate that, but this seems to be upsetting the apple cart. Mr. Angus has a good point in saying that if this is an extraordinary meeting, the business at hand should be dealt with in a way that respects all members here. I think that's the point we're trying to get across.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Fergus, is your comment on the same point of order?

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

No, it's actually on a different one, Mr. Chair.

I hope, if they had noticed, either the clerk or Mr. Angus, or even our analyst—

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I'm sorry, but I have point of order.

Mr. Fergus, I'm having a little trouble hearing you. I'm not sure if it's—

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

I'm sorry. They asked me to move my mike away from my mouth because it was a little too poppy. Is this okay for our interpreters, because I don't want our interpreters to—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I can hear you now.

Can everybody else hear Mr. Fergus okay?

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

I'm certain you can hear me, but I just want to make sure that this is okay for the interpreters. Great. Thank you.

I hope the clerk, the analyst or Mr. Angus may have noticed this. I came on early and noticed that Ms. Shanahan had her hand up. I put my hand up second using the “raise hand” feature. I forget where it was, but someone was asked to test to see if it worked and my hand went off automatically. It wasn't me who did it. I put my hand back up, but I don't know if anybody noticed that I had my hand up second.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Fergus, we're wrestling with all those kinds of technical difficulties. If you registered it before I gavelled the meeting, then it probably went back to zero because the meeting hadn't started until we actually gavelled in.

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

I didn't notice anybody else's flip off. It was just mine.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay. You are number five right now, Mr. Fergus. I don't know how to resolve it other than to leave it as it is.

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

I guess we can't, but if we could take note, that would be very helpful.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Yes, we will take note of that.

I know that the clerk, by the way, has been very great. Every time you put up your hand, she has been sending me screenshots, so we try to do that. We try to look at the technology but also try to capture it in a screenshot in case there is any kind of a glitch like that again so that we can correct it. We're going to get a handle on this virtual stuff. For the next meetings, I will be in Ottawa, so it will be a bit smoother.

Colleagues, I have the speakers list.

I'll just get Mr. Barrett to repeat his motion and then we'll go to the speakers list.

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

Thanks very much, Chair.

Like our colleagues, we all have things to do today. Already having spent quite a bit of time on this yesterday, I don't think there are going to be any surprises where folks vote. If the meeting is 30 minutes or if it ends on Monday morning, my wife said she'll keep the turkey warm for me. She'd be happy to see me later this afternoon, but I am ready to do this until it's resolved because we're into a second meeting dealing with the same motion.

It states:

That, pursuant to Standing Orders 108(1)(a), an order of the Committee do issue to Speakers’ Spotlight for a copy of all records pertaining to speaking appearances arranged, since October 14, 2008, for Justin Trudeau, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, Margaret Trudeau and Alexandre Trudeau—including, in respect of each speaking appearance, an indication of the fee provided, any expenses that were reimbursed and the name of the company, organization, person or entity booking it—which had been originally ordered to be produced on July 22, 2020, by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, provided that these documents shall be provided to the Clerk of the Committee within 24 hours of the adoption of this motion; and that the documents be reviewed in camera.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much.

I understand. I just want to go to the clerk because we've had to revise the speakers list because, in fact, Mr. Fergus, there were witnesses who said your name was up top and then it was shuffled out.

Just to be clear, Madam Clerk, is it Mr. Fergus and then Madam Gaudreau and Madam Lattanzio? You can give me the list, and I'll just copy it down right now and we'll go from there.