Evidence of meeting #2 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:20 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
I mean all the meetings of this committee.
3:20 p.m.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Okay, yes. We can do this all next week or the week after, but I was referring to Madame Gaudreau's paragraph number 11 and basically questioning how you, colleague, decided to defer her motion and basically continue with your motion.
If we were—
3:20 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
The committee decided that.
3:20 p.m.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
No, I'm sorry; I mean voted—how you voted, how I voted and how everybody else voted.
3:20 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
On a point of order, Chair, could we stop the back-and-forth?
3:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
I always like to give a little bit of latitude. I was trying to be a little patient and have one or two comments, but you're right, Madame Shanahan. We should have one speaker at a time. If we're going to have a conversation, we can always suspend and have an individual conversation together.
Go ahead, Ms. Lattanzio.
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Basically, if we bring this to all committee meetings, we could potentially have a different outcome at each committee, and then which one do we decide on, and what do we submit to the standing committee? To me, it would be nonsense. If we say that we're going to come out with different requests at different committee meetings that are circulating the same theme, then what would be the point of doing so?
I'm not sure I understand the way we're proceeding. I think it would be best that all of this be brought before PROC. I do invite respective parties to have their leaders engage in a conversation, maybe even a Zoom call, to be able to evacuate all of these questions and come to some sort of an agreement. It's not because we don't want to vote. We do want to vote, but I think it's incumbent on all of us to be able to put up our ideas, our preoccupations, for consideration.
My second preoccupation is the issue of privacy. The former committee decided on certain terms and conditions, and now we have it before us again. I'd like to emphasize that I, too, believe that this is a matter of trust, and it's about trusting our Ethics Commissioner. Therein lies the idea of trust. Do we trust our Ethics Commissioner, or do we not? This is the individual who has the task of delving into the very questions that were submitted to him. He will have access to all information and documents that will be able to give him the opportunity to render his decision. If he doesn't have the documents, there's nothing that impedes him from requesting them.
It is not via this committee that we ensure that his work is done. It is not via this committee, amongst colleagues, that we judge our colleagues, or even worse yet, that we lay burdens or we dictate what we want from members or elected officials. This is not part of our mandate.
I looked at the mandate. I requested the mandate and I looked at what the mandate of this committee is. There's nothing in that mandate that indicates to me that we have the power to go into that venue.
Now if something has been deemed receivable or voted on—
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This aspect of the argument was dealt with extensively in the last session of Parliament. It is clear in the last sentence of the mandate of this committee that the committee has the ability to propose initiatives that relate to access to information and privacy, and to ethical standards relating to public office holders.
That's just to clarify for the member. I know she is a new member of this committee, and ironically I'm no longer a regular member of this committee, but certainly this was dealt with extensively in the previous session. I wanted for information's sake to clarify for the member the mandate.
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Yes, it is on the same point, Mr. Chair.
Just to add further clarification, Mr. Kurek will remember when we had the head legal counsel in to speak to us. He made clear in his testimony that there's a larger grab bag than what's in that last part of our mandate, but it does not extend to anything the committee wants to do, in fact. There are many limitations, just to add clarification to what Mr. Kurek said.
I don't want Canadians or other members to have the impression that this is a grab bag or grab-all, an “anything goes” type of clause; that isn't the case at all. We had that testimony from no less an authority than the fellow who makes sure that the legal advice that all committees have is consistent.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Thank you, colleagues.
I'm very patient in this regard, but points of order are for procedure. I understand that we all are bubbling over to give information to our colleagues to make sure they get things right, but let's try to keep our points to procedure and not to points of debate on information.
Madame Lattanzio.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm glad to see that my intervention is stimulating discussion among our peers. I understand and deduce from this that the motion today merits the time it takes to consider the serious repercussions of adopting such a motion.
My preliminary feeling, when this meeting was called this morning, was that we want to ram this through, that it doesn't matter what we think and we are going to vote on this. It doesn't matter what Ms. Lattanzio may or may not think; we are going to vote. If we do not go to a vote today and we stay here later, so be it. If we need to come back next week and keep discussing it, we will.
As I mentioned yesterday, this is not, I would say, a serious breach, but it is a serious consideration that we need to look at. It's a motion whereby we're asking for documents from individuals who are related to an elected official. We're dodging the individual who has the responsibility to do this type of work. Not only that, my understanding is that we will continue to hammer on this issue: It doesn't matter, as long as we get to a vote on this.
Colleagues have made interventions about other motions that could be decided at this particular committee, but they are being sidelined for a question that could be easily considered outside of this committee. We are talking about this going forward and are persisting, regardless of the seriousness of what's being presented and without the opportunity to perhaps get legal opinions as to whether we can even go down this avenue. There's nothing else: We're just going to a vote whether we like it or not, and if we're not ready to vote, well, we'll just keep going.
These reasons and the reasons I mentioned before with regard to bringing up, at various committees, the same issue again and again—and Madame Gaudreau's motion clearly had that intent, with paragraph 11—lead me to conclude that this is where the focus is. The focus is on the Conservatives' pushing an issue through regardless...that we think things through or consider the repercussions of what we are being asked to consider in this motion.
We want to interject and we want to intervene, so, Mr. Chair, through you I ask this: What is the basis for having this motion, the urgency of this motion, and why are we submitting it in this committee if the intent is to present it in other committees?
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Thank you, Ms. Lattanzio.
We've gone through one rotation of every member on the committee, excluding Mr. Warkentin, who has not appeared again on the screen. It is 3:30, so I am going to offer committee members the opportunity to consider the question. If you don't want to, that's fine, but I think at this time I should offer whether members want to consider the question now or continue on.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
I would like to raise a point of order about something that has been concerning us from the beginning of this meeting and, indeed, since this meeting was called.
The notice for this meeting went out today at 9:32 a.m. for a meeting at 1 p.m. This means that members have had to rearrange their schedules to participate today. In explaining why the committee is meeting today, you as the chair indicated that you hoped to get Mr. Barrett's motion disposed of.
In addition to Mr. Barrett's motion, there are a number of other motions before the committee at this time. With all respect, and as vice-chair, I feel it is my role to point this out.
Do you as chair get to decide which motions are more important than others? Do you as a chair have the right to call last-minute meetings based on motions that you have decided are more important than other motions? Should this not be a decision of the committee?
It is the chair's role to be the servant of the committee, and one that you have been serving ably, but on this one issue I beg to differ. I do not believe it's the role of the chair to pick favourite motions and schedule last-minute meetings that cause everyone to scramble and change their schedules to attend, and I would suggest that doing so is not appropriate.
I'd like to point to a statement from Speaker Lucien Lamoureux from March 3, 1967, which cited citation 303(3) of Beauchesne's fourth edition, which reads as follows:
Committees should be regularly adjourned from day to day, though the Chairman is frequently allowed to arrange the day and hour of sitting, but this can be done only with the general consent of the committee.
The key words here are “can be done only with the general consent of the committee”. As the vice-chair on the Liberal side, I was not consulted on the timing of today's meeting, and I believe that proper procedure was not followed in calling this meeting.
I would like the chair to comment on this.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
I'll be glad to comment on it, Madame Shanahan. Thank you very much for your intervention.
We were dealing with the debate on the motion yesterday. There was a call for an adjournment of the meeting, and it was specifically stated that it was not an adjournment on the motion.
We're moving to a time when the House is going to rise for a Thanksgiving break. I felt it was the will of the committee—and certainly, we can put this to a vote, if you want—to continue the debate on this motion, as many members in the committee felt that it was of very significant importance, considering that the motion in the past session, which was very similar to the spirit of this motion, had already been passed by this committee.
That was the basis of my decision and ruling in that regard, and that's why we're continuing this debate now.
Whenever we deal with the disposition of this motion, either for or against, we'll definitely move on to other motions that the committee wants to consider, whether that be just a motion for a recommendation to the House or for a full-blown study where we would call witnesses. I'm certainly open to serving the committee in that regard.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Thank you, Chair.
I would ask that we continue with the speakers list. I believe I'm next.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Thank you very much.
I did not get an indication, but I assume that in that regard there's at least one member, Madame Shanahan, who is not prepared to deal with the question.
We'll move, then, to Madame Shanahan.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Thank you, Chair.
I would move that the committee do now adjourn.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Thank you very much. I will move to the clerk now, who will do the recorded vote.
3:40 p.m.
The Clerk
Mr. Chair, the vote is five to five.