Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 15th, 2020

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I have one final comment.

Based on what Ms. Shanahan and I have read in the act, how are we to control the actions of the mother or brother of a sitting MP? How far do we go, if it is within the purview of this committee?

Many interesting and, I think, valid questions have been raised since last week. We have yet to get answers to these questions. Yet we have colleagues who say nothing but “let's vote”. They say it doesn't matter if we have questions; it doesn't matter if we have concerns. We've just got to get to a vote here, they say. They say they've got other business to take care of and that if we want them to deal with other matters, we've got to get this thing done.

Well, I'm sorry. I think we are parliamentarians. We have a job to do. As Madame Gaudreau said, we have very important work to do, especially on this committee. I think we need to get all the answers and information that we've requested before we make a decision.

I'm ready to cede the floor.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much, Madame Lattanzio.

Just to refresh everybody's memory, and because there are some additions as well, the next speakers are Mr. Sorbara, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Housefather, Mrs. Shanahan, and Mr. Warkentin.

We're now at 4:45. We've been in debate for two hours and 15 minutes, so we'll suspend now for about seven and a half minutes. How is that, folks?

[A voice]

Can we make it 10 minutes, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Sure, 10 minutes. It's 4:46, so we'll resume at 4:56.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much, Clerk.

Colleagues, I think I've demonstrated my style of chairing enough now that you realize that my main concern, as I mentioned when I introduced myself, is that everyone has a right to speak. That's very important. You're representing constituents, and you've all made an oath to Her Majesty to do that, and do that effectively.

I did want to point out two things that I think go to the reputation of our committee, and also the way that we can operate in a very effective and collegial way.

The first is that I'm fully fine with your pointing out the actions of your colleagues. I think that to point out the actions and the consequences of those actions is quite permissible, but just be careful not to impugn the motives of your colleagues, unless you have a great ability beyond mine to actually read the minds of individuals. That will also ensure that we can work together in the future. This is only one motion and we want to make sure that we have a collegial representation of each other, as it's never fair to assume what the motives of someone are when they make their comments.

Also, I want to mention another thing that I think is important for our reputation as a committee. I've chaired the veterans affairs committee in the past, as well as the industry committee, and been the vice-chair of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. On several occasions, and certainly with veterans affairs in regard to PTSD and the sensitivity around that and a number of people who came to testify in confidence, as well at the subcommittee on human rights where people testified against very evil regimes at risk of their own lives, the testimony was guarded by the clerk of those committees. I never recall a leak endangering anyone.

I just want to be clear that if there's a procedure, whether it's a result of this motion or any other, where we have to protect the information of individuals, the clerk and I will do that with the utmost of integrity and utmost care to make sure that those people are not endangered in any way, either to their reputation or from some other harm.

That said, let me go over the speakers list once more. Up next are Mr. Sorbara, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Housefather, Madam Shanahan, Mr. Warkentin, and Mr. Dong.

Now we will go to Mr. Sorbara.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and for those wise words.

We were all elected to represent a number of residents in our ridings, all 338 of us. If we consider all the colleagues here and those not in this meeting, we have the right not to be questioning the reasons for wanting to do things other than to represent the interests of our residents, and to ask questions from all sides of the House. That's what governing is about, and that's what being a member of Parliament is about.

Before I begin, I want to highlight one thing. It's not relevant to the actual study, but I would encourage all MPs to go online to the Royal Canadian Legion and spend a few dollars to get these wonderful masks to wear in their community. They're $10 each. I ordered 10 of them, and they just arrived, literally yesterday, and I wear them with much pride. We're going to be having virtual Remembrance Day ceremonies—and I'll stop in a second and move on to the actual motion, Chair—but it's one way of showing a lot of respect for our veterans by ordering these masks, supporting our Legions, and wearing them for the next few weeks. I'm going to give some away to some residents.

Onto the motion at hand today, there was much excitement. I got to sit on the public accounts committee this morning with Mr. Green, so again, Matthew, it's nice to see you here today. You're doing a great job of representing the wonderful hard-working residents of one of the Hamilton ridings where I have many friends.

I was thinking about the motion at hand today. I looked directly not at the wording of the motion, and not the intent, but the mentioning of someone's family. We are all in politics, and we all have loved ones who support us. That's the reason we're allowed to do this wonderful job. I don't think I could be here without the support of my wife, my children, and many friends and relatives. I also don't enjoy the fact of having to drag people in, in the sense that they have nothing to do with the matter. They're not in elected office, they're not political office-holders, or anything to that extent.

When I see someone's mother or someone's brother brought into the discussion, it does concern me in many ways, because it raises a number of questions for me regarding privacy. I'm not a lawyer. If the story were that my mother—who worked her entire life, raised three boys—were in this sort of situation, I wouldn't be very happy with this motion.

I'm not going to question the intent of the motion. Mr. Barrett. You're a member of Parliament and you have your job to do. I am looking at it from my view and saying, “Bringing someone's mother in, I just don't like it.” I'm going to be frank. That's my opinion. You don't have to agree with it, and you probably won't, but personally, I really don't like it.

When I speak to my residents, I speak to the job I'm doing as an MP, first and foremost. We were elected to represent all the residents of all of our ridings, so whether they voted for us or not, whether they supported us or not, we listen to them, we answer their questions, and we help them out. That's our job. We try to make this country better than it is, and it's a pretty great place to be. We're blessed to have been born here. It's like we won the lottery.

When I see this motion, it concerns me. It concerns me not only from the point of view of privacy, but also of smearing, if I can use that word. Maybe that word is too strong for some, but it concerns me from that point of view.

When I speak to my residents and say, “What happens if I were going after your mom and your brother, as a response of the government, and they had nothing to do with the program?”, that raises a lot of questions. I've heard that feedback, and it gets to my gut. After six or seven months of COVID, I've probably eaten too many pastries, but it really gets to the point of asking, “Where are we going as a committee, but where are we going as parliamentarians?”

When I think back, in my humble view, looking at this motion and understanding where it originated from, for me COVID really hit home in the month of March. We have a lot of friends and family back in our home country. My parents...I'm a Canadian of Italian heritage. COVID hit really, really hard in certain parts of Europe. For me, COVID hit really hard around the March period because we were going to do a spring break vacation and it got cancelled. We stopped it, of course. Then our government had to respond with a number of programs. The program, which this motion doesn't even reference but wants documents pertaining to it in a round-about way, is one of those responses where we actually, as a government, asked a lot of questions. Because this has been a unique and extraordinary period of time in our country's history and in the world's history, we had to, as a government, listen, consult and respond. Some of our responses were improved after consulting and listening more. That's what a government should do. That's what people elected us to do: they elected us to respond and to listen, too.

I ask myself, as a member of this Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, or if I'm a citizen out there listening, what has the government done? It's done the Canada emergency response benefit, the Canada emergency wage subsidy, the regional relief and recovery fund and the Canada emergency business account. And I'm glad to see the unanimous support in the House for the extension of a number of programs that are helping Canadians today, as we speak, whose lives were impacted, are being impacted and continue to be impacted by COVID-19. That's a fact. We know it. We can debate this motion, whether I like it or Mr. Barrett likes it, or I don't like points of it, but right now we know Canadians at home are being impacted, and continue to be impacted by COVID-19. This motion is in response to a program that we put forth, which we then, when we looked at it, said, “No, there's a number of questions that came out from the intention of the program”, so we continued with the Canada emergency student benefit, which I believe over 703,000 students benefited from.

This motion with regard to these documents naming the individuals here concerned me. If it were my family, my brother and my mom, from a privacy point of view it would concern me. On a really straight gut point of view, I wouldn't be happy, and I'm not happy. I'm not happy that we have to sit here and debate such a motion, which, in full frankness, is for me, Chair, if I can use the term, a fishing expedition.

For me, that does not in any way assist any of those individuals in my riding and across this country from coast to coast to coast who continue to be impacted by COVID-19, and it does not deal with the issues of privacy at all. In fact, I spent some time reading the commissioners' annual report, described by the news release as, “Pandemic raises privacy concerns highlighting urgency of law reform. Public health crisis has pushed daily activities online, underscoring critical need for change”. I tie that privacy to the commissioner's annual report back into this motion, where we will dig into, potentially—and I hope not, for many reasons—people's privacy, unelected individuals' privacy. It's nothing more than what I call a fishing expedition.

When I see the response from March, and I see our government's introduction of so many programs, so many initiatives, with help, I will more than gladly admit and say that a number of opposition members have contacted me, have contacted ministers, have spoken out publicly, and said, “How do we strengthen things? How do we improve things?”

And that's what Canadians expect. They expect us to work for the betterment of themselves and their families. They expect us to work for the betterment of Canadians who have been impacted. They expect us to work together, and we've seen that at all levels of government. Here in Ontario, between the provincial government and the federal government, on a regional basis and in our cities, everybody's working together.

You know what? We have to step back and do what's in the best interest.... Yes, Mr. Barrett and other opposition members, yes, we must always hold government to account. We must always ask tough questions. That is the job of opposition members, and frankly, it's the job of any member of Parliament, but when it comes to the privacy of Canadians, when it comes to looking at a motion that speaks to someone's mother and someone's brother, there's something wrong with that. There's something that strikes me as being very.... It just doesn't sit well.

I had the pleasure of listening to Margaret Trudeau when she came to the city of Vaughan to give a speech to the Vaughan Chamber of Commerce in front of a thousand people. It was a women's event, and she spoke about mental health and her experience and life. There were a thousand people in that room glued, listening to this individual share her life experience. You could hear a pin drop in that room.

So I ask myself, for this individual, this mother, this grandmother, why are we undertaking a fishing expedition? For me, it doesn't sit well. The motion in no way sits well. I do not support the motion. I don't support the motion, not only because I'm a Liberal MP. I don't support the motion because it doesn't sit well with my values.

With regard to protecting Canadians' privacy, in 2016 there was a study done called “Protecting the Privacy of Canadians: Review of the Privacy Act”. I think this is relevant to this committee and to the motion at hand. I'll just read some of it into the record:

The Privacy Commissioner recommends creating a legal obligation for government institutions to safeguard personal information.... In his initial appearance before the Committee, Commissioner Therrien said, “In the digital world, it is infinitely easier to collect, store, analyze, and share huge amounts of personal information, making it far more challenging to safeguard all of that data and raising new risks for privacy.” Regarding the safeguarding of information, he noted that “[c]urrently, that is the subject of government policy, not legal obligations per se.”

In a brief submitted to the Committee, BC FIPA said:

We agree with the Commissioner that administrative direction from the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) is not sufficient, and that the Privacy Act should be brought in line with other legislation (including the BC’s FIPPA [Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act] and PIPEDA) by expressly including this requirement. There should not be a lower standard of protection in the public sector than the standard the federal government has imposed on the private sector through PIPEDA.

In its brief, the Privacy and Access Law Section of the CBA also agreed with the need for including safeguards in the legislation

—and here I reiterate the word “safeguards” because we don't want fishing expeditions, and that is what so concerns me about the motion—

pointing out that while the TBS and other government institutions have created policies on safeguarding information “[t]hose efforts have been inadequate to signal to public servants and the public the serious risk of loss, theft or misuse of personal information in digital form.” The brief also noted, “A feature common to many other Canadian privacy laws, both public sector and private sector, is to require the organization to create reasonable safeguards to protect personal information including administrative, technical and physical safeguards.”

Mr. Israel of the CIPPIC and Ms. McPhail of the CCLA both endorsed the idea of creating a legal obligation to safeguard personal information. In her testimony, Ms. Austin pointed out that, “there are serious Charter issues in not safeguarding that information properly that the courts are starting to really pay attention to.”

Some witnesses discussed the need for sanctions when there are violations of the Act. Mr. Fraser said, “Many more modern privacy laws … have an offence provision that if an individual or even an institution, unlawfully and usually with knowledge, is in violation of the statute, they can be charged under that.” Mr. Gogolek of BC FIPA said, “There should be a broader scope and a broader availability of sanctions, including damages, under the Privacy Act.”

We know individuals' privacy in the modern age is of paramount concern to us.

I'm a new member of the ethics committee. I've read Mr. Barrett's motion several times, or Michael, if he likes to be referred to that way. I understand what he's asking about—I don't agree, like I said—but I am very, very respectful of someone's privacy, especially a non-political office-holder's privacy, especially during a time when the government came out with a number of programs.

We have to remember that there were no funds administered or distributed under the proposed program. Students were assisted through COVID-19 through the Canada emergency student benefit. They were assisted with an increase in the Canada summer jobs program, and I know that's something that Mr. Barrett and his party called for. We actually boosted, we listened and we consulted. That's what a government is in power to do. We didn't just say “no”, we didn't bury our heads in the sand; we listened, and that's what we continue to do.

When I was reading through this brief, I was able to glean and pick up:

One of the safeguarding measures that was suggested is to require that data be stored in Canada. This is referred to as domestic data storage or data localization. Mr. Gogolek testified, in British Columbia our public sector act has a domestic data storage requirement, something that does not exist at the federal level. Again, this requirement was recently supported by the committee reviewing our Act earlier this year, and also by the Government of British Columbia. We would commend this to you as something you may want to look at....

Other witnesses had reservations about this approach. In referring to the concerns about storing information in the United States, which has a different approach to the privacy of information, Ms. Austin said, Data localization is one response to that dynamic. I think it's an unrealistic response to think that this is a solution in the long term. Another response…is to negotiate a bilateral agreement with allies like the U.S. to say that when Canadian data is in the United States, you protect us to the same extent that you protect your own citizens.

Mr. Chair, I know I veered a little bit away from the motion. I'm going to tie it back in, because I understand the point and principle of relevance.

Mr. Fraser said that the location of data is only one of many factors to be considered. He said there needs to be “nuanced risk analysis” and referred to the TBS policy, which is, if any government department is going to make any decision about the location of data in connection with outsourcing…location is going to be a factor, but there are other things as well. Who is going to be the service provider? Who are they beholden to? What national ties do they have?

Similarly, Assistant Commissioner Oliver of the RCMP also called for a risk-based approach to safeguarding information....

That is why I believe, when I read the motion.... I think at one point, regarding who has access to the material, whether it's in camera or out of camera, we as MPs know that information in today's world is very powerful because it can be used in many different ways, and it could be torqued in many different ways and it could be leaked.

The idea, the opportunity or the chance of someone's family being impinged—if that's the correct word, and I know there are many lawyers in here who will correct me on that—scares me. I think about this motion, and it does scare me. I go back to that basic rule of life: Why are you going after someone's mum? Why are you going after someone's brother? I fundamentally disagree with that.

Is it right to ask questions of sitting office-holders, of sitting politicians or public servants? Yes, absolutely, ask as many as you want. In fact, one member of Parliament, during a committee I was able to sit on, when the power went out, assumed the title of chair when the chair was unable to log back in due to climatic effects in P.E.I. We understand that. We understand it is our job to ask tough questions, and tough questions were put to the Prime Minister and to Ms. Telford, and they were answered.

To be frank, we as MPs need to bring in policies at this time. I know that MP Green has brought forth a number of policies that he's championing. Some I agree with; some I probably don't agree with, but at least I give him full credit for doing that.

Mr. Barrett, you have your right to bring forth motions and ideas. I would love to see ideas that help us to get through COVID-19 more, that improve the situation, that get people back working faster. If they're tough questions, they're tough questions, and we have a responsibility to answer them. The ministers around the cabinet who have the privilege of being ministers of the Crown have the responsibility to answer those questions, to be frank, to be straight up, to put their cards on the table and say, this is where it is, this is what we're doing, this is how we're going to get to a better place. And I welcome those tough questions. I don't shy away from them and I wouldn't shy away from them.

One of the recommendations in this report that I was able to read on privacy and why it's so principal and central to the motion at hand, and why I so adamantly oppose the motion, is recommendation 7:

The Committee agrees with the commissioner's recommendation on creating a legal obligation for government institutions to safeguard personal information and therefore recommends: ....That the Privacy Act be amended to create an explicit requirement for institutions to safeguard personal information with appropriate physical, organizational and technological measures commensurate with the level of sensitivity of the data.

Recommendation 8, which balances it out, states:

That, the Privacy Act be amended to set out clear consequences for failing to safeguard personal information.

This part is particularly relevant to the motion before this committee, I believe. Why? It is because what we are debating here in this motion affects Canadians in a very profound manner. We are talking about a family. We are talking about a brother and mother who are non-political office-holders, who have given their time to many charities across this country to assist and to educate. Within that spirit, I have a significant issue with it. When I think about the breaches of privacy or the breaches of personal information, I think of this:

The Privacy Commissioner recommends requiring government institutions to report material privacy breaches to the OPC and, where appropriate, to notify affected individuals....

I would personally love to hear from the Privacy Commissioner on what he thinks about this motion, about what it touches and what it doesn't touch. Are my concerns real, or can they be alleviated? Are we really undertaking a fishing expedition, which I think we are, or are we not?

I do not believe, in my good heart, that I'd be supporting a motion that will not answer any more questions, or raise any questions, but basically delves into the private lives of two individuals who are not the Prime Minister of Canada and his wife. It just doesn't give me good feelings. I've been a member of Parliament for six years and I've participated in political life. My first election was in 1988 and I did not enter into this realm to vote for a motion that delves into the lives of someone's mother or brother.

I know when I speak to my residents, because I have spoken to some of them about this, they're in alignment. They're totally in alignment.

Therefore, I caution the opposition, I really do, in saying that the focus of Canadians is not this motion. The focus of Canadians is not going into the privacy of Margaret Trudeau or Alexandre. That's not their shtick, if I can use that term. I think as a committee we need to be very judicious, very diligent in our studies. We need to understand what Canadians are thinking about.

We as a committee should be very judicious in what motions we undertake to study, and which motions we don't. I look at the need for privacy protection, and I share MP Sweet's.... I know you've been a member of Parliament for many years and have done a phenomenal job representing the residents in your riding. We all want to do the same thing and we all want to reach certain levels of building that profile and that brand. I say to you, sir, and to all our committee members that we all need to look at this commissioner's annual report on privacy, and we need to think about what we do as a committee and where we spend our time.

The motion at hand does not move us forward. The motion at hand does not answer or, if I can use the term, meet head-on the issues that are impacting Canadians. The motion at hand delves into privacy, and I'm going to go back to that. I'll go back to it a thousand times in the next 24 hours if I need to. The motion at hand goes back and delves into the privacy of individuals where I fundamentally believe we have no right to go to. Again, it just strikes me as completely wrong.

You want to ask tough questions, ask the tough questions. Over the summer we had a number of sittings of the House of Commons. We had a number of sittings of the finance committee, which I was able to serve on and help out. Now here we're back in Parliament. We'll be back sitting next week. Again you'll have a number of chances to ask questions. This motion frankly is not [Inaudible—Editor]. I look at the commissioner's message from looking at the Privacy Act and the privacy of Canadians. I want to read this because it's so important to understand what we're up against in today's world...even for the fact that the committee and MP Barrett have put forward this motion to seek to look at documents that pertain to the privacy of Canadians who are non-elected office-holders, who do not benefit from a program that was introduced by the federal government. I question that.

I will read the commissioner's message for the well-being of the committee:

The need for federal privacy laws better suited to protecting Canadians in the digital age has been a common thread in our annual reports to Parliament for many years. Last year in this space, I noted how major investigations into Statistics Canada, Facebook and Equifax had all revealed serious weaknesses within the current legislation. This year, the COVID-19 pandemic makes the significant gaps in our legislative framework all the more striking.

When I read that third sentence of the commissioner's message, I think about this motion, because if it weren't for COVID-19 we would not have needed all of these programs to be put in place to keep our economy afloat, for that 20% of the economy that was shut down, to help millions of Canadians out, to attempt to put in place programs to assist not only seniors, not only disabled Canadians, but to assist students as well.

One of the avenues that we investigated as a government was to look at the WE organization and to see if we could go down that route, which we pulled back on after doing our due diligence and asking those tough questions.

We put in place the Canada emergency student benefit to help those students who were impacted, who had those summer jobs lined up that were no longer there. We know, fundamentally, that when there is a recession, for whatever cause.... And this was a shock to our economy. It wasn't a failure of the market. We needed to put in place programs, and that's where we got to this motion.

I would love to sit on a committee where we can go through all the programs we put in place and ask tough questions, because I know those programs help millions of Canadians, including thousands in my riding, whether they are businesses, students or seniors, and now, at the end of the month, disabled Canadians.

I know we worked a lot with the opposition. I know we all worked together to ensure that no one was left behind, and no is being left behind. That's why there was a unanimous vote in the House of Commons, but by golly, am I going to oppose a motion that goes after someone's mum and brother? It strikes me as wrong.

I know the folks sitting outside in the morning having coffee—socially distanced, of course, and wearing masks—in the area that I represent; I know what you are doing. You're going after someone's mum, after their brother. You're spending time doing that. We have businesses to run. We have kids to keep in school. We have personal protection, making sure that's being delivered everywhere. We have to make sure we get Canadians to get that flu shot. And you're spending time doing what?”

At my core, I don't like it. I've always represented my constituents; I'm in my sixth year now. I'm a very frank MP, as my colleagues know. I just don't like it. I don't need to be a politician to say that or a party to say that. I know this is a motion that is fundamentally wrong.

I want to read the commissioner's message into the record.

The pandemic has raised numerous issues for the protection of personal information. Around the world, there have been heated debates about contact tracing applications and their impact on privacy.

We need to look at that, tracing applications, the COVID-19 app. That's what our committee should be doing:

Many of us have been asked to submit to health monitoring measures at the airport, or before we enter workspaces, restaurants and stores.

More broadly, the pandemic has accelerated the digital revolution – bringing both benefits as well as risks for privacy.

Again, we go back to privacy, Mr. Chair. For me, that's what this motion talks about and dwells on: privacy. Are we ensuring that people's privacy is being protected? Are we delving into people's privacy that we have no right to delve into?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Quite some time ago, the honourable member admitted that he was stretching the relevance of his remarks, and now he has become deeply repetitious. We've heard repeatedly that this is wrong, that we shouldn't do it. And we've heard repeatedly this idea of privacy. These are two points of order on both accounts, in my opinion, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

In the past, I have instructed members to try to stay relevant to the motion at hand.

Thank you for that intervention.

Mr. Sorbara, please go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to Mr. Green for his intervention.

You'll have to excuse me if I steered away from relevance in pointing out the Legion mask at the beginning of my comments, but I've always tried to stay within the purview of the motion at hand, Mr. Barrett's motion.

If there's something we disagree with, we disagree with it, but in my humble view I will try to stick within the realm of relevance. We're not here to waste anyone's time. We're not here to not debate. We are here to debate the issue at hand, and for me it goes to the heart of one word, which is “privacy”.

The need for social distancing has meant that even more of our daily life takes place via the use of technology. Instead of meeting in person, we have further shifted to working, socializing, going to school and seeing a doctor remotely. Through video conferencing services and online platforms, technologies have been very useful in halting the spread of COVID-19. By allowing essential activity to continue safely, they can and do serve the public good.

At the same time, however, they raise new privacy risks. For example, telemedicine creates risks to doctor-patient confidentiality when virtual platforms involve commercial enterprises. E-learning platforms can capture sensitive information about students' learning disabilities and other behavioural issues.

I read the Privacy Commissioner's official response to the pandemic:

In May, we issued a joint statement with our provincial and territorial counterparts, outlining key privacy principles to consider as contact tracing and similar digital applications are developed.

Privacy guardians from across the country felt it was important to issue a common statement because these applications raise important privacy risks. But the fact that such a statement was necessary is an unfortunate reminder that some of Canada’s privacy laws – certainly its federal laws – do not provide a level of protection suited to the digital environment.

Respect for privacy rights should not be a suggested best practice left to the goodwill of government officials or big tech. It should be a clearly codified and enforceable requirement. In a joint resolution last fall, our provincial and territorial counterparts also joined us in calling for effective privacy legislation in a data driven society.

Our response to the pandemic as well as how this enormous public health challenge demonstrates the importance of rights-based law reform is described in more detail in the next section of this annual report.

I'm not going to read the entire report this evening. If given the opportunity, maybe later on this evening I will, but I'm not sure.

On the motion at hand from Mr. Barrett, the privacy of a family in this most extraordinary and unique period of time needs to be respected, and it's not being respected. As I stated from the beginning, when I think about all the programs we've put in place and how we have arrived at this motion, going through the study and the work that was done during the summertime, this is not a motion.

I'm not going to use “worthy of consideration”, because all motions should be worthy of consideration by my committee colleagues. It is a motion that is a fishing expedition. If you want to call it painting a wall with a brush and just throwing paint on it, that's what it is for me. It's nothing more and nothing less.

As for the exact wording, “any expenses that were reimbursed and the name of the company, organization, person or entity booking it”, I'm actually going to read the entire motion, because I do want to delve into that.

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.

When I look at the line that says, “that were reimbursed and the name of the company, organization, person or entity booking it”, I see that it is a very broad definition for a motion. That means that we, as a committee, can go and pick out one of 38 million Canadians, write a motion, put their name in, and say that we want to know what you've done since October 14, 2008, independent of who you are, and bingo, you're coming in front of our committee. That is terrifying. As I've said before—and this is repetition, MP Green—we're doing it to two individuals who are not public office holders. It's a mother and a brother. On that level there, I think to myself, as a member of a committee reading this motion, that any Canadian can just be put in there. You know what? Let's go do it to this business person. Let's go do it to that lawyer, or somebody who has emailed their member of Parliament asking for help or providing recommendations, or a stakeholder we have met with. This freaks me out a little bit, and again, it's fundamentally wrong.

With that, Chair, I think I've emptied out my brain cells for the last 45 minutes. As a member of Parliament sitting here tonight at 5:41 p.m.—and I have to go to a viewing after 6 o'clock for a friend's father who unfortunately passed away—I think to myself, “Why am I looking at this motion? What am I investigating? What documents are these folks after, other than going after the documents of the Prime Minister's mother and brother and wife? How is this moving Canada forward?”

I know MP Angus earlier said it was a $900-million program. No, it wasn't a $900-million program. No, there weren't any funds distributed by the federal government. No, there were not any taxpayer funds used. We know that. We know the only program that assisted students was the Canada emergency student benefit, and it was approximately 704,000 students who received funds from that. We know that.

This motion is as wide as a dump truck, and I'm talking about the big ones, not the small ones. These are the ones that you can put tons and tons of soil in or that you use when you tear down a building. Where is it going? This is basically saying that we want you, Margaret Trudeau, to empty out to us the last five years of your life when you've spoken for mental health. If someone spoke for mental health, we want to know. Whoever booked it, we want to know.

Think about that. It's pretty rotten, isn't it? It kind of smells the joint up. Sorry for using that unparliamentary language, Chair. It could be mental health, the Children's Aid Society, or if you've spoken at various causes. We know charities these days, especially in this pandemic, see a declining number of donors and people who can assist. That's what you're going. There's not even a mention of the organization that the government had spoken to to put in place the program. No, there's not even a mention.

To me, this motion here is completely different from the motion that was brought forward in July, and the intent is different. This is like digging a big circle and just digging and digging and digging until you can find one stone that doesn't match the other stones, and saying, oh, I found something. That's all it is.

It troubles me—I say this to you, Chair—when there's an opportunity cost. For me as an economist, an opportunity cost is a big thing. When we're spending our time talking about something, we're not spending our time talking about something else. When I'm spending time talking about MP Michael Barrett's motion from October 8, 2020, about this, that means I'm not spending time talking about and reading “OECD releases global tax reporting framework for digital platforms in the sharing and gig economy”. I'm not talking about “Model Rules for Reporting by Platform Operators with respect to Sellers in the Sharing and Gig Economy”. I'm not looking at things for this committee to deal with in relation to privacy so we can strengthen and improve laws for Canadians.

When I read this motion, I keep thinking about it. These documents should be provided “within 24 hours of adoption of this motion”. Is that even realistic?

For me, this motion contains a number of errors. I think I've pointed out a couple of them.

First of all, it doesn't even delve into something that Canadians are concerned about right now. Canadians are concerned. Here in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, we've had one school that had to close down because of COVID-19. If I told those several hundred parents who have their kids home right now that I'm dealing with a motion this evening to look at where the Prime Minister of Canada's mother has spoken in the last couple of years and who booked it, I think they would have a few choice words for me and my committee members. I think so. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I can read those tea leaves quite well, and as a parent, I know that's a fact.

When we want to talk about the issues at hand for Canadians, when we want to talk about what Canadians are worrying about, I preface this by saying I believe in full accountability, transparency and asking tough questions of the government, because I do that myself, and I've done it for the last six years.

When I think about this motion, “each speaking appearance, an indication of the fee provided, any expenses that were reimbursed and the name of the company”, what are we looking at? What are we asking here?

This says I want to go into someone's private life and get all their information because I'm going to undertake a fishing expedition and I'm going to smear you. That's what it says to me. Maybe I'm wrong, and the MPs from the other side of the aisle or even my side of the aisle can say, “No, Francesco, you're wrong.” I'm going to say that I'll listen. I'll hear you out, but that's what I get from it. That's my interpretation of it.

Chair, I don't know what other motions the opposition members plan to bring forward. We're debating this one, and I look forward to continuing to debate this one because, in my other time, when I'm not sitting on public accounts and helping out in finance, along with parliamentary secretary duties to help Canadians, I have such a privilege of being a parliamentary secretary to the Minister of National Revenue. I know I'm reading about things that concern Canadians today, and I would have hoped that there was a motion that was tight, that asked the questions that need to be asked on any subject. When I read this, I'm thinking, “Oh my God, what is this?”

For me, Chair, when someone puts together a motion as an MP, maybe there should be a training course, because when you're elected a member of Parliament, it's like you're going to become a father, but there's no book. No one says, “Here's the book. This is what you're going to do.” It's kind of like trial by fire. You learn as you go. You read Bosc and Gagnon. You look at the book and you think, “Oh my God, am I actually going to read that or am I going to go grab a drink with my colleagues?”, and you kind of take up the “drink with my colleagues” situation first, and then you go back and read the Standing Orders.

When you are a member of Parliament and you put together a motion, you ask, “What am I looking for? What am I asking?” This is just a broad fishing expedition. That's all it is. There's nothing more, nothing less. It does not ask any tough questions, such as whether the programs were effective and whether they helped Canadians.

We know from the testimony during the summertime that we got the information we needed. The Prime Minister—and this is me speaking as someone who was raised in northern British Columbia, whose parents were union members—owned up and said, “I didn't recuse myself. I made my mistake.” When you have someone do that, that's called leadership. That's saying, “You know what? I'll take responsibility for what I did wrong by owning up to it.” As a father, I need to do that; as a husband, I need to do that; as an MP, I need to do that, and as a person. That's the first thing you're taught in life. When you do something wrong, you say, “Hey, I made a mistake. I learned from it, but I've got to move on.”

That's what we saw this summer. That's called leadership.

In this day and age, when it's easy to use our digital platforms and put together our little five-second blurb and say you scored a political point, much like in this motion that I have in front of me, it doesn't help anyone's life, it doesn't improve our lot and it doesn't strengthen our communities. You know what does? It's when we work together.

When we take ideas from all sides of the aisle and come back, much like if we worked with the NDP on ensuring a very robust recovery benefit and we listened to their ideas, or if we listened to the Conservatives on CEBA or to other stakeholders that we all meet with, that's when we shine. That's when we come forward and say we're really proud to be a member of Parliament. I'm proud not only to be part of the governing party, but to be a member of Parliament first and foremost.

At this point, it's nothing more than a fishing expedition. Mr. Chair, I'll have one swig of water and I think I'm almost finished. I'm sure some of you will be happy with that.

Mr. Chair, on the notion of privacy, the first thing that strikes me about this motion is the privacy concerns I've raised. I think we all need to step back as parliamentarians, as Canadians and as individuals and say to ourselves that we are looking at something that, for me, impinges on a person's privacy as an individual who has a profile here in Canada whom we all know, whom many in our community have been with when, for instance, the Prime Minister's mother has spoken to us. This does not strike me as a good motion to approve in any way.

Whatever the opposition is looking to find, my hunch tells me that you're going to be greatly disappointed. The programs we put in place during the summer have a lot of moving pieces for sure. I think every government has demonstrated that across the world. Today we see cases spiking in a lot of different countries in second or third waves. We're all in this together; this isn't going away. We need to dig deeply as Canadians, as parliamentarians, and ask ourselves if we are we doing the right thing, because right now, whether it's in Quebec, Manitoba, Ontario, the United States, Europe or other countries, we are dealing with a pandemic. At the same time, this motion brought by MP Barrett, to me, completely veers us off that tangent in doing the right thing for our constituents and as Canadians.

MP Barrett, I understand your rebuttal and I empathize with you. This is politics, so we have to go ahead. There has to be something there.

Do you know what you're doing? You're going after someone's mother and brother. You're asking for this big fishing expedition, which my constituents don't like. They don't. I've heard it.

I'm going to stay focused. I'm going to enjoy this committee. I enjoy making new friends from both sides of the aisle. I'm quite honoured to say I have friends on both sides of the aisle, from whichever party. That's just the way I was raised.

However, from a basic value proposition, not even a political proposition, I look at this as going right to the heart of someone's privacy. I can't accept that. I think this motion is completely wrong. I think the intent of this motion, for me, is not in line with my values. It's just not.

It's unfortunate, but again, Chair—I'll stop in a few minutes, or I'll try to—the idea that you can ask for someone's records is.... I read this line over and over, “...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....”

For the Prime Minister's mother, who came to the city of Vaughan to speak to the Vaughan Chamber of Commerce event on women's issues, do you need that record? She came and told her story. Do you need that record? That is the motion. Really? Is that why we are here? We are here for someone who came to a luncheon with 1,000 other women and a few men, and this motion would capture that. It's kind of shameful.

The opposition really needs to think about this motion and really understand what this motion means, because it's easy to write something like this down and say, “We need these documents. There has to be something burning there.” Well, do you know what? You are going to get somebody who spoke to a room of 1,000 women, a couple of men and the mayor of Vaughan—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Go ahead, Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

He has used the term “privacy” almost 20 times in the last 20 minutes, and he has now retold the story for the third time. We can tell he is parched, and I would love for the member to either find something relevant or cease and desist the repetition.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

Mr. Sorbara, you mentioned you were wrapping up.

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

Yes, Chair, I'm wrapping up.

Thank you for the intervention by the honourable member from one of the Hamilton ridings. There are four Hamilton members, if I'm not mistaken, and they all do a great job for their constituents, so thank you for raising the issue of relevance and repetition.

In the last 10 minutes it has been said that the Prime Minister's mother, Margaret Trudeau, came to the city of Vaughan and gave a speech to over 1,000 individuals in the city, in my riding, and actually right next door to the training facility for the carpenters union. I love my union members in my riding, Mr. Green, and I got the training facility for the LiUNA local 183 and the carpenters. My Dad was a labourer, a carpenter, and a proud union member, so I have to point that out.

I have to point out that the Prime Minister's mother came and gave a speech on mental health to 1,000 people. This motion, if passed, would want to see the records of this individual coming to give a speech on mental health and telling her story. That is important for Canadians to know. The Conservative Party of Canada is writing motions down, and Canadians need to know where it is going with them. If that is where we have come to, I am really sorry to see that.

With that, Chair, I will stop at this time and cede the floor to the next honourable colleague.

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you, colleagues.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Sorbara.

Mr. Sorbara, we ask you to pass along the committee's sympathies to the family you're going to visit who lost a loved one.

I'd also like to point out, with respect to my four venerable members of Parliament for Hamilton, that other than me, there are two Liberal and two NDP, so there are five representatives from Hamilton, not four. That's just so you know for the future, Mr. Sorbara.

Now we move on to Mr. Barrett.

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

I do apologize for that oversight, Chair. Please forgive me on that one.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

There's no need to request forgiveness on that. It's all good.

Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

He forgot either Bob or Filomena, so we'll have to go to the tape for that.

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

Thanks very much, Chair.

We're three and a half hours into the latest prorogation continuation cover-up filibuster, and the finance committee has been filibustered since the 8th of this month. If you check the calendar, everyone, it's the 15th. That committee was suspended mid-filibuster and it's resumed. It's been going on for a ridiculous amount of time; and into our third meeting here, the same is true.

It's time to see what's in the documents. It's time to end the cover-up.

I could swear that some of the colleagues on the other side of the aisle get paid every time they say my name. If you get a quarter every time you say my name, there would be big cheques being cashed, so it—

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Go ahead on a point of order.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I just want to say that we feel the same way every time that Mr. Barrett says “cover-up”.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin, but that's not a point of order.

Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.

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

I have a point of order, Chair.

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

On the subject of the cover-up by Mr. Drouin and Mr. Dong—