Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 15th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Hello, colleagues. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I've often said publicly that no matter how much or how little we agree with the present government, we still live in the greatest country in the world. I hope you gave thanks in that regard over the past weekend.

I have just a few reminders in regard to interpretation. At the bottom of your screen there is a button for interpretation, so make sure you've put it in your preferred language, either English or French. Also, more importantly, remember that if you are switching from English to French, you'll need to switch that button as well for interpretation to work properly.

Colleagues, please make sure that you address your comments through the chair. That's not just to help me guide the meeting successfully, but also to make sure there's accuracy in the blues afterwards. I'll also remind you that when you're speaking, speak slowly. We always have that challenge with interpretation, but doing this over broadband makes it that much more difficult. If any technical problems arise, please put your hand up if we can't hear you and you're muted so we can make sure to pause the meeting to look after whatever the technical problem is with your system.

In our last meeting, Madame Gaudreau moved to adjourn the meeting. I wanted to specify whether it was the meeting or the debate. It was the meeting. In preparation for this meeting, I advised both vice-chairs, as well as Mr. Angus, because he does not have the luxury of having a vice-chair represent him, that we'll be continuing with the attempt to dispose of Mr. Barrett's motion at this meeting.

I'll now open the floor for comments in that regard.

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

Chair, I'm sorry, but could you clarify what we are opening with now?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We're continuing the debate from the last meeting, which was adjourned. Mr. Barrett's motion was on the table at the time. I'm just waiting for folks to put their hands up. I have a picture of all those who have their hand up.

Madam Shanahan, you're the first one up.

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

I take it that the speakers list is a new one that we have before us now.

As always, thank you, Chair, for your instructions at the beginning of the meeting, and thank you for allowing us to remember what a privilege it is for us to be here in this hybrid setting. It's the staff, interpreters, clerks and all of the wonderful IT staff who allow us to be here to exercise our parliamentary duties, and indeed to continue on, even under these most difficult circumstances.

Earlier this summer, in the previous session, the committee sat. It was actually in person, under somewhat similar but equally stressful conditions. I'd like to take this opportunity, since we have some new members who have joined us, to talk about some of the issues concerning the spirit and intent of the motion we have before us. Indeed, I'd like to bring the committee's attention to the mandate. I think I will switch to French here because that gives me a chance to practise my French.

It is important to understand how this committee has evolved. I consulted the website to get an idea of the history of the studies it has undertaken.

Initially, the approach was to bring witnesses before parliamentarians during investigations. That meant that parliamentarians were investigating the behaviour of their colleagues. Later on, legislation was rightly enacted and a code of ethics was established to govern the conduct of parliamentarians with respect to conflicts of interest. At the same time, a commissioner position, at arm's length from Parliament, was created to enforce the code, receive complaints, explain members' responsibilities and, of course, render judgments following investigations.

I emphasize that the commissioner is independent of Parliament. I believe we will have an opportunity to talk more about this. This is a key principle of ethics in the institutional environment. If parliamentarians investigate other parliamentarians, the conflict of interest is clear.

In addition, Parliament gave this committee a very important mandate, and it is always helpful for us to review it:

The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics reviews, among other matters, the effectiveness, management and operations as well as the operational and expenditure plans relating to four Officers of Parliament: the Information Commissioner; the Privacy Commissioner; the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner; and the Commissioner of Lobbying. It also reviews their reports, although in the case of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, the reports concerned relate to the Commissioner’s responsibilities under the Parliament of Canada Act regarding public office holders and reports tabled pursuant to the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act.

I think those are two important elements that we will need to discuss in view of the motion before us today.

The mandate continues:

In cooperation with other standing committees, the Committee also reviews any bill, federal regulation or Standing Order which impacts upon its main areas of responsibility: access to information, privacy and the ethical standards of public office holders. It may also propose initiatives in these areas and promote, monitor and assess such initiatives.

It's very important that we discuss the last two sentences of the mandate. Actually, you might think that this means the committee can study anything in any manner, but it does not. My interpretation is that the committee can look into any legislation or any issue related to access to information, privacy, or the establishment of ethical standards or criteria.

The last sentence talks about proposing initiatives in these areas, and it is here that something is clearly missing. No one would have believed just five years, let alone 10 or 15 years ago, that devices like our telephones would be used to not only do extraordinary things in our day-to-day work, but also collect personal data. Who would have imagined that we could do so many things with computers?

I've been in the workplace for a long time. When I started in the banking sector, nobody had a computer. Only one teller had a small computer, with a green screen, and we could use it to get customer account balances.

Who would have thought that all the personal, financial and confidential data in our smartphones and computers would ever be available, but more importantly, that people we don't know would have access to it? This is an example of an issue that perhaps those who wrote the mandate perhaps did not foresee about 15 years ago.

Thank goodness they included that sentence in the mandate, because that is how this committee was able to form a supercommittee of sorts in the last Parliament with our colleagues in Great Britain. I believe some of my colleagues took part in that. It was truly a source of pride to see Canada able to take the lead on the issue of the tech giants controlling people's personal data. Again, that was really not foreseeable five or 10 years ago, in my opinion.

So that is what I have to say about the mandate itself.

As we discussed this summer, the committee is studying these matters, which are very sensitive to Canadians, and studying them, in a large sense, to make recommendations to different government ministers. We are working in conjunction with our four commissioners: the Commissioner of Lobbying, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner and the Information Commissioner. This is the work we are doing, I submit to you, Mr. Chair, not studying the private business of individuals who are in no way connected to the work we do here in Parliament other than they happen to be related to a member of Parliament who either happens to be a minister or the Prime Minister. The fact that we have chosen a public life is one thing, but I think we can agree as parliamentarians, as we all have families here, that this is not something we would have expected our families to be subjected to.

I would like to refer the committee to the part of the Conflict of Interest Code, where we have the definition of who is considered a family member for the purposes of this code. It is in the section for definitions. It states:

(4) The following are the members of a member’s family for the purposes of this code:

(a) the member’s spouse or common-law partner; and

(b) a son or daughter of the member, or a son or daughter of the member’s spouse or common-law partner, who has not reached the age of 18 years or who has reached that age but is primarily dependent on the member or the member’s spouse or common-law partner for financial support.

That is the definition we have in our code, and members will recognize that. It's in an appendix of our Standing Orders.

I'd also like to point out that any information obtained by members of Parliament should not be used in a way to further their own interests. I take you to “Rules of Conduct”, subsection 10(1), which states:

(1) A member shall not use information obtained in his or her position as a member that is not generally available to the public to further the member’s private interests or those of a member of his or her family, or to improperly further another person’s or entity’s private interests.

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Go ahead, Mr. Angus, on a point of order.

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

I'm sure Madam Shanahan has read the Conflict of Interest Act, so she wouldn't want to misrepresent the facts. I think she overlooked the definition of “Relatives” in the act, under subsection 2(3):

(3) Persons who are related to a public office holder by birth, marriage, common-law partnership, adoption or affinity are the public office holder’s relatives for the purposes of this Act

I think the attempt to deny the fact that the Prime Minister's mother is his relative and his brother is his relative is very spurious. If we're going to be here all night, I would ask the member to at least tell the truth when she—

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

Chair, this is debate.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

It is debate. Thank you very much, Mr. Angus.

Go ahead, Madam Shanahan.

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

I will continue, and I would look forward to other members speaking about the definition, but it's clear to me that it is not intended to be a mother or a brother or a sister or any member outside the immediate family.

To continue here, under the “Rules of Conduct”, 10(2), it says:

A member shall not communicate information referred to in subsection (1) to another person if the member knows, or reasonably ought to know, that the information may be used to further the member's private interests or those of a member of his or her family, or to improperly further another person's or entity's private interests.

Where I'm going there, Chair, is that if in this role here, this privileged role on the ethics committee, we were to learn of private and confidential information about a person that would help our own interests, I would find that very serious indeed. I would want to have full legal counsel in that case, which I think is another issue we encountered this summer and was something that was very much welcomed by the members of this committee.

I would like to continue speaking about the role of the commissioner. It's almost as if it's protecting us from ourselves.

There has been some very colourful history in this committee, and I know that my good colleague Mr. Angus was present for many of those sessions, and others may have been as well. Thank goodness that we have a commissioner of ethics, again so that the propriety of what is discussed when we're discussing the conduct of individual members is maintained in a professional and a productive way, shall I say. It's not for political or partisan gain, but indeed looking at the behaviour at hand and how it affects the course of Parliamentary business.

What I'm wondering about what we're debating here is that, when we have a motion like this before us, are we expressing a lack of confidence in the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, who is well within his powers to order any documents that he sees fit and where we have full confidence that he will handle those documents in a proper manner?

I would like to share with the committee some notes I made regarding this rule, because I think it is important, as we are back here again, for this to be on the record.

The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner administers the Conflict of Interest Act by establishing compliance measures, investigating possible contraventions of the act and providing advice to public office holders on their obligations. The commissioner is an officer of Parliament. Being an officer of Parliament is no small thing. That means that he is responsible.... He reports to Parliament. Officers of Parliament are independent of the government and report directly to Parliament.

The Conflict of Interest Act came into force on July 9, 2007—so it was not all that long ago—and created, for the first time, a legislative regime governing the ethical conduct of public office holders. Prior to this date, public office holders were subject to non-statutory codes of conduct that could be changed on a whim.

At the time, I was a member of the Canadian public. We could see that it was quite under control at that time with the various things that were going on.

Some additional information on the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner is that this person “is appointed by the Governor in Council by commission under the Great Seal, after consultation with the leader of every recognized party in the House of Commons and after approval of the appointment by resolution of the House.”

That is very important, that there is consultation among all of the parties, because any one of us and any one of the parties in the House can find themselves in a situation where they would be glad to know that we have an independent commissioner looking at our affairs. He or she holds the office for a seven-year term. Moreover, “under the Conflict of Interest Act, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner must be a former judge of a superior court in Canada or of a provincial court; or a former member of a federal or provincial board, commission or tribunal who has demonstrated expertise in at least one of the following areas: conflict of interest, financial arrangements, professional regulation and discipline or ethics”.

I daresay that is an evolving field. I think we are seeing situations on a regular basis in every sector of our economy and in administrative and institutional life, and I think this committee can contribute to reform and that evolution so that we get to a place where it's more about prevention rather than about hitting people on the head.

The Ethics Commissioner can be “a former Senate Ethics Officer or former Ethics Commissioner. The position was created in 2007 and replaced the Office of the Ethics Commissioner [under the] (Parliament of Canada Act, s.81).”

The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner also “provides confidential advice to the prime minister and to public office holders on all matters pertaining to the implementation of the Conflict of Interest Act. In addition, the Commissioner may, at the request of a parliamentarian or on their own initiative, investigate any alleged breach of the Act by a public office holder.”

Again, that's very important, and we know that is indeed what has happened. Members of Parliament have written to the Ethics Commissioner with their complaint as they saw it and have asked for the commissioner to do an investigation. Sometimes he does the investigation and sometimes he does not, but we have the satisfaction that he has looked at it impartially, at all of the facts before him and has made that determination, unless we're going to say that we don't have confidence in that officer of Parliament, which would be a very serious thing to say, although it could happen.

Furthermore, “The Commissioner may, in the course of investigation, consider information provided by the public” —by the public as well, and not just by other members of Parliament—“that is conveyed to the Commissioner by a parliamentarian.”

I think this information, which is publicly available, is important for the Canadian public to understand. The role of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner is to undertake any investigation of alleged violations of the Conflict of Interest Act. If the intention is to usurp their role or to carry on a parallel investigation or to somehow override what the commissioner is doing, then I must voice my serious objection to this committee's participating in such an action.

It's clear to me, and I think to other members of this committee, that this is the work of this committee in fulfilling its mandate, in reviewing the work of the four officers of Parliament who report to us, and ensuring that any current or evolving issues.... And I can think of one right now, and that's the COVID application. It's being downloaded. I think it has downloaded over four million times, but there are questions about it. Is it efficacious? Is it doing its job? I'm going to switch into French here now.

People in my constituency still had concerns about privacy and how the application collected data.

I am so glad that Quebec not only accepted the application, but also studied its effectiveness. It even came up on the TV show Tout le monde en parle. People are talking about the application and right now, we can see that, with the measures—

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

Sorry, I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Angus, on a point of order.

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

Mr. Chair, out of respect for our committee, which is actually discussing the refusal of the Liberals to work with us on the WE documents, there has to be a point to the member's comments. The fact that she's trying to talk about a COVID app in Quebec has nothing to do with our committee.

If we're going to be here all night, let's stay focused on the issues at hand. I'd ask the member to keep her remarks focused on the issue, which is the blocking by the Liberals of our access to these WE documents.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

Relevance is really a point of order; however, as is the custom in the chamber, we treat that broadly. I would ask all members to try to keep their comments to the motion on the table, so that we can dispose of it as quickly as possible.

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

Thank you very much for your patience, Mr. Chair.

I only wanted to point out that a study like this falls under our purview. It's a highly relevant and timely subject that is important to people where I am from and across Canada.

I could go on, but I will stop there.

I yield the floor.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much, Madam Shanahan.

Now we move on to Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is a very disturbing situation we're in. It's been one week since the ethics committee met to get re-formed after Prime Minister Trudeau prorogued and shut down our investigation. We had a number of motions to get to in order to get on with business, because we have an obligation to the Canadian people to finish the work that was begun on the WE scandal. Part of that was a simple motion to follow through on the documents that our committee agreed to ask for last July. There should have been a very straightforward process of reintroducing the motion, having the documents presented, and then our moving on to many of the other things that all of us would like to talk about.

Ms. Shanahan wants to talk about a COVID app. Well, I don't think it's actually under our purview—it's probably health—but rather than waste our time in an endless filibuster, she could just agree to turn over the documents and then could bring forward a motion. That's how Parliament is supposed to work. We have an obligation to Canadians to get answers.

I find this situation very frustrating, because last week we attempted to work with the Liberals on the documents. On the documents they had agreed to in July, we agreed to put very specific provisions to protect the privacy of individuals. The privacy of individuals is an important principle. We're not here to do naming and shaming. We're here to verify facts. Yet when we responded to the Liberals' demand for all manner of protections in this new motion, and we offered that, then the Liberals changed and wanted to fight about something else.

The reality is that we are going to get those documents, because they're pertinent. Why are they pertinent? One of the unfortunate things we've seen in the WE scandal is that we have been told, time and time again, very conflicting stories about the Trudeau family's very close financial relationship with the Kielburger group. Why does this matter? Well, the Liberals are trying to tell us that family does not include mother and brother. I don't know what kind of family they envision, but in the Conflict of Interest Act, “Persons who are related to a public office holder by birth, marriage, common-law partnership, adoption or affinity are the public office holder’s relatives for the purposes of [the] Act”.

The reason the issue of family is included in the Conflict of Interest Act is to ensure that family, whether knowingly or unknowingly, cannot be used as a conduit to exert influence on a public office holder. When that public office holder is the Prime Minister of the nation, and when we're talking about a decision by key Liberal ministers to support what would have ended up being a $900-million plan to transfer money to this organization that has close financial ties, that requires a good deal of scrutiny. It relies on answers being given very clearly.

I would also suggest that under section 5 of the Conflict of Interest Act, which I notice Ms. Shanahan.... All the relevant parts she seemed to be missing. Section 5 is key, because it says, “Every public office holder shall arrange his or her private affairs in a manner that will prevent the public office holder from being in a conflict of interest.” So when she's talking about the private affairs of the family and how it's none of our business, well, it actually is our business, because under the Conflict of Interest Act, it is the obligation of the public office holder to protect themselves from being found in a conflict of interest. That's not something that's academic. This is what the Prime Minister of our nation was found guilty of in the very first findings by the Ethics Commissioner, under the first “Trudeau Report”, namely, that he breached section 5. It wasn't over illegal lobbying by the Aga Khan. It wasn't about his agreeing to take a trip and then setting up meetings. It was about the connection between his family and his family's decision to go to the island that put the Prime Minister in a conflict of interest.

These documents should simply verify the latest claim we've had from government and from the Kielburger group about the payments that were made to the Trudeau family.

We know that when questions were raised in the beginning, the Prime Minister said he'd never received any money from WE. We do know that the Prime Minister, after becoming the youth critic for the Liberal Party, carried on quite an extensive side business doing public speaking while being a parliamentarian. Was he paid by WE? He said he never was. Those documents will simply verify that. If they verify that, we move on, but what if they don't? What if the Prime Minister was paid? That's a legitimate question and a very serious question. I can't, for the life of me, understand why the Liberals would be filibustering and trying to block access to documents if those documents conform to the Liberal line, which is that the Prime Minister never received payments from the WE group.

Fine. Show us the documents.

In terms of his family, what struck us from the beginning was that we were told that Margaret Trudeau and Sacha Trudeau received no payment because they were volunteers, but we've learned that wasn't true and that upwards of half a million dollars was transferred for their work. We also learned the WE charity board was told explicitly that the Trudeau family was not being paid. What kind of deal is going down when a charity board asks a specific question—whether the Prime Minister's close personal family are being paid—and are told, “Don't worry; they're not being paid” when payments were made?

This isn't to suggest that Mrs. Trudeau or Sacha did anything wrong. That's not the issue here. The issue is that this relationship that the Kielburgers developed with the Prime Minister put the Prime Minister in a very clear prima facie conflict of interest. These payments were affecting him, because at the end of the day, he was the one who signed off on this deal with WE. We know from the documents we received that the WE group was using photos of his family to show key ministries and key ministers who were going to sign off on this $900-million deal. That is an obvious conflict of interest, and yet in the 5,000 pages of documents, no one from the Prime Minister's Office raised a red flag and said, “Hey, you cannot use my family to promote your ability to get this $900-million contract. That cannot be done.” Nobody said that.

If the $500,000 in payments to the Trudeau family was as the WE group finally admitted, then the documents will simply verify that. When we pushed the Kielburgers at the finance committee about how these payments were made and why the Trudeau family was being paid while other illustrious public speakers were doing it for free, what I found really surprising was that they said these payments were not made for public presence. Margaret Trudeau was not paid by WE because of her extraordinary and, I think, very exceptional public presence as a mental health spokesperson. They didn't pay her for that. They paid her to work the after-events. Those after-events were the major corporate sponsorship events. They were paying the Prime Minister's family to do work for them. That's an issue and a conflict of interest. Those documents will either verify what those payments were or show us that there were other payments or other services rendered. We need to know that.

If everything's as straight up as the Liberals say, they don't need to have us go all night. They don't need to derail our work at committee. They need to say that we will set up a process.... We're all professionals here. We understand how these documents have to be treated. We will look at those documents, and if they verify what the Liberal government says and what Mr. Trudeau says about his financial relations with the Kielburger group, then we can move on, but if those documents contradict those statements, then I think this scandal will move into a whole different turf.

I'm only raising that because I cannot understand this obstruction of a motion that had already been passed by committee in July and that we had support for. The only thing that stopped us from getting those reports was the prorogation, the forced shutdown of Parliament by the Prime Minister when we began to get close to getting answers.

I said at the last meeting, and I will repeat it again, that we are trying to work with the other parties to move to a new committee through which we can actually look at all the issues from finance, government operations and official languages to deal with this and to deal with the larger issues of the pandemic spending.

Those issues include, for example, David MacNaughton, a close insider friend of the Prime Minister who got an all-access pass, right up to the Deputy Prime Minister and General Vance's chief of staff, while promoting, I think, a very dubious company. He got it because he's an inside Liberal.

We need to look at the issue of Mr. Rob Silver and the fact that I've had many, many calls from businesses in my region that are barely hanging on because the rent subsidy program was such a debacle, yet a company that was tied closely to the Prime Minister's inner circle was given the mandate. Was that done right, or were there friends involved?

We need answers. Canadians deserve answers because we are in the biggest medical and economic catastrophe in a century. We need to be able to show them that Parliament is focused on making sure that we're getting help out the door in a timely manner and that money is going to people who need it.

At the end of the day, I think the biggest scandal in this deal to help the Kielburger group was that the Prime Minister made a promise to university students—who are suffering massive levels of student debt and massive levels of insecurity—that there would be a billion dollars to help them. Not a dime of that money rolled out the door. As soon as the Kielburger group couldn't get the money, the Prime Minister walked away on the university students of Canada. He left them high and dry. That is the fundamental scandal.

We need to report to Parliament. We need to get this report done. I'm saying if it takes all night, if it takes all week, we will be here until the Liberals stop obstructing and stop interfering with the work of Parliament. Allow us to do our jobs as parliamentarians so we can get on with dealing with the many, many other issues facing Canadians. Our COVID numbers are spiking again. There's more economic insecurity. We see cities like Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto possibly being hit with more lockdown measures. We really need to get focused here, but to do that, we need to clear up the stench of corruption that's been raised around this scandal.

We need to get answers. We need to be able to say to the Canadian people that your parliamentarians went to get you answers and got answers, and this is what the answers tell us. Whatever those answers are, good or bad, we have an obligation to get them.

That is why I'm calling on the Liberals to stop the obstruction. Stop the interference. Stop the game-playing. You have an obligation to Parliament, just as we have. Let's get this job done. This is the role of our committee. We will continue to push until we get these documents.

I will now cede the floor, Mr. Chair.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise on a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much, Mr. Angus.

Madam Shanahan, what is your point of order?

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

Yes, I'd just like to clarify the speaking list.

Is it possible that it's actually in the order that we see on our participants list—the raised hands—or do you perhaps still need to tell us from time to time what the speaking order is?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

You read my mind, Madam Shanahan. I was just about to do that.

What I have in front of me right now is Mr. Barrett, Mr. Warkentin, Mr. Dong, Madame Gaudreau, Ms. Lattanzio, Mr. Sorbara and Mr. Fergus.

Now I'll move on to Mr. Barrett.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

It's incredibly frustrating to find ourselves in the third day of a Liberal filibuster to stop the release of documents that deal with the corruption scandal involving Justin Trudeau.

There's been a theme since 2015, and it's not openness by default; it's that every time Justin Trudeau needs to cover up his actions, he makes Liberal members pay the price. We saw that with all-night voting to block Daniel Jean from testifying. We saw that with all-night voting when the Liberals didn't want Jody Wilson-Raybould to be able to talk about the SNC-Lavalin scandal. Now we're back, and we see the Liberals filibustering to stop Canadians from getting answers in the Prime Minister's latest scandal. He's under investigation for a third time, twice having been found guilty of breaking ethics laws.

Here we are debating a motion that was approved by this committee. The committee debated and voted on receiving these documents, and we were to receive them. However, the Prime Minister shut down Parliament. On that same day, he released illegally redacted documents and then blamed the parliamentary law clerk for having redacted them, which we now know was not true. At the time, the Prime Minister said, “Well, we're proroguing, but there will be lots of time for questions.” It seems that was as disingenuous as a lot of things that we hear from the Prime Minister.

Now, across multiple committees.... We had a shutdown of a committee at PROC. We had the finance committee shut down. It was suspended for a week, and it's being filibustered concurrently with this committee. At the immigration committee, the meeting was adjourned—while they were dealing with a motion on COVID, I might add. They adjourned the meeting. The same thing happened at the health committee.

We heard from the Prime Minister this week. He got very upset that the opposition would dare to exercise their constitutional obligation to hold the government to account and said that we need to talk about COVID. The only people stopping parliamentarians from talking about COVID are the Liberals. That's it.

This could have been resolved in 10 minutes at the first meeting, and this is true of multiple meetings. That they filibustered the health committee is I think the supreme irony. It's the biggest tell that the Liberals have no interest in accountability. They have no interest in actually doing for Canadians what they claim they want to do, because if they did, the hours we're pouring into these filibusters could be devoted to all kinds of other things. This was a choice made by them.

Reading newspapers into the record, reading PCO memos into the record, reading the committee mandate and asking for the committee mandate in meeting after meeting does not get results for Canadians. That's being complicit in a cover-up into corruption in Justin Trudeau's government and around his cabinet table.

I've heard from members of the committee that this isn't Main Street, that this is the Ottawa bubble, and this isn't what people want us to focus on. Well, I can tell you that folks of any political stripe don't like corruption and they don't like cover-ups, and that's what this is.

The Ethics Commissioner is investigating the Prime Minister for breaking the law for a third time, but we have the ability, we have the power, to order these documents. This motion is in order; it is consistent with the mandate of this committee.

The individuals involved who are named in the motion are relevant to the matter at hand, and to try to skate around this and say it's some kind of a game that is just meant to delay getting results for Canadians.... We've shown as members and the official opposition and all opposition parties have shown that when the rubber hits the road, we're there. We're there to improve the programs that the government proposes and to pass them into law quickly when it is necessary to do so. To say that is just a shield to try to protect against the scrutiny—the rightful and lawful scrutiny—of what has gone on with this government.

When you talk about the pandemic and about measures to help Canadians, that's how this happened. That's how we got here. When given the opportunity to help students, when given the ability by parliamentarians, by Parliament, to create these programs and to help students, what did the government do? They found friends of the Liberal Party. They found insiders and tried to shovel some cash out the door to them. That's why we're here.

This is specifically about COVID, because instead of doing the right thing, the Liberals did what they always do, just as they did in Adscam. We saw it before under the guise of an altruistic purpose. They were helping out insiders and giving cash to their friends. While I'm sure we are going to be here for a very long time, that choice is one that's being made exclusively by the Liberals. For my part, I'm being consistent with exactly what we said we're going to do when the Prime Minister shut down Parliament, and that's to get these answers for Canadians.

It's surprising to me that the Liberals are taking it in such great stride across many committees with the coordinated cover-up efforts, and I'm certain that I'm going to hear I'm being partisan, that the Liberal members on the committee would never do such a thing and that this is about doing what's right. I have to say that if the shoe were on the other foot, I can guarantee you that Liberal members would be looking for accountability. I guarantee you that if across the border members of the President's family received half a million dollars in payments and then the company that paid them was asked to administer an agreement worth half a billion dollars, we would hear a lot of commentary. Those same members would be saying that we're certainly not like that. They'd say we have moral superiority, and never would that happen here, but it is happening here. It's happening inside the Liberal cabinet room. Now it's spreading into the Liberal caucus room and into the committee rooms.

The power to stop it is with the people who are sitting in on this call right now. I will cede the floor, Mr. Chair, and let all of the members of the committee make their contributions. Then, I'm sure, we'll hear supplementary contributions and then tertiary contributions.

We're here to get results for Canadians. Once this matter is disposed of, we can move on to other business, but the decision to travel this circular path is one that has been made by the Liberal members.

Like many people, I'm here in search of answers and accountability. We find ourselves here because of one person, and that person has twice been found guilty of breaking ethics laws and is under investigation for a third time. That person is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In the same way that he had members vote for hours and hours and days and days to stop accountability in the past, it seems that history is repeating itself.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

Now we will go on to Mr. Warkentin.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think some history is important here, because it is important for Canadians to understand that this motion was passed. A decision by this committee was made to request these documents. There had been a considerable amount of discussion at that point and there was a considerable amount of filibustering by the Liberals to try to delay the release of those documents. In the end, the ethics committee voted to have these documents brought to committee. It was just hours before those documents would have been available to committee members that the Prime Minister shut down Parliament, shutting down all investigations into the Prime Minister with regard to these documents and this scandal.

The national media are now reporting that Liberal members, Liberal MPs, are afraid of what these documents will show. They have been quoted as saying that they are afraid of what's included in these documents. As a matter of fact, I think it's telling that we have members of this committee who, I would say, are respected members of the Liberal Party and who would rather humiliate themselves than allow these documents to see the light of day. I think that says something about the severity of the contents of these documents.

If these documents were going to exonerate the Prime Minister, I don't think there would be a single member of the Liberal Party who would be fighting to see that we would not have access to them. I believe that if these documents were going to exonerate the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister would work day and night to ensure these documents would be released to the committee members, and I do not believe that any members of the Liberal Party who are members of this committee would humiliate themselves the way they are doing by going on for hours and hours and reading documents into the record. We all have access to those documents. This is simply a decision by those members to humiliate themselves rather than have these documents see the light of day.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used to say that “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. Well, Mr. Chair, I believe that the spreading infection of Liberal corruption desperately needs the disinfectant of sunlight right now. I strongly believe that it is time for this committee to have access to these documents in the way that this committee has voted in the past to have these documents brought forward. I believe now more than ever that we need to see these documents so that we can put this matter to rest. If in fact there is nothing to be seen in the documents, then Canadians will never see the contents of these documents, because regardless of what happens, these documents will be held in the clerk's office and will not be readily available to Canadians. They will simply be accessed by members of this committee to ensure that we can verify the evidence.

Mr. Chair, I believe that how desperate the Liberals are to ensure that these documents do not come to committee demonstrates just how damning the evidence within them must be.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Warkentin.

I said that I would remind the committee on occasion of what the speakers list is. Next will be Mr. Dong, and then we have Madam Gaudreau, Ms. Lattanzio, Mr. Sorbara, Mr. Fergus and Ms. Shanahan.

Now we have Mr. Dong.