Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 15th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

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

Chair, I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Sure, go ahead.

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

I should call it my “point of speakers list”, I suppose, Chair, but maybe you were getting to that, just to clarify the speakers list.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

You have kept me so accountable, Mrs. Shanahan. I was about ready to do that. Actually, in all fairness, before doing that, I was going to say that our first break was at two hours. We're now at an additional three and a half hours.

Your magic number is usually 10 minutes, Mrs. Shanahan, so I think we'll take a break for 10 minutes. It's 7:52. We'll come back with Mr. Simms, who's next on the list, at 8:02, and I will review the speakers list at that time as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Colleagues, we'll resume.

I'm going to review the speakers list with you. It's Mr. Simms, Mr. Turnbull, Mr. Sorbara, Mr. Barrett, Madame Gaudreau, and then Mr. Warkentin.

We'll go now to Mr. Simms.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

I am not a regular of this committee. I'd like to think of myself as a little more than an accidental tourist but more of an eager and interested tourist as to what is germane to this debate.

I hope you'll find some of my comments somewhat interesting. I won't say “exhilarating”, because I will start to sound as if I'm reading from my own householder. I would like to say that I hope you find it somewhat interesting, and hopefully you'll find it a little more exciting than simply watching the grass grow.

Over the next little while, I want to bring forward some of my thoughts on this. I've been a member of Parliament now for quite some time, I'd say. I don't even want to put a number to it. I've been here that long.

I haven't dealt much with the ethics committee, except when I was a critic some years back, but I have been involved with procedure and House affairs. I have written about it, some of which was published, some not. I've been very interested in the debate that has unfolded regarding certain bits of legislation.

When it comes to the Ethics Commissioner, I haven't dealt with the Ethics Commissioner a lot in the past little while, so I don't want to get into the weeds of where it is they are, nor privacy for that matter, but I do want to talk about some of the things that I feel about this motion, whether it's in form or not. I understand there has been a ruling that it is in form and can be presented, and I don't want to dispute that whatsoever. What I would like to do, as a parliamentarian, is talk about the spirit of it and—I mean this sincerely—how if falls short of aspects of what I consider to be a motion that demands a lot of a few people.

There are people with lives and feelings who are non-political actors and who are cited in this motion. Whether you feel they belong there or not is one issue, but it's serious. I say that in the context of.... If we are going to proceed with this motion, then we have to give due consideration to what it is about to do to people involved in this text.

Let's consider several things. Let's consider, first of all, the motion itself: “an order of the Committee do issue to Speakers’ Spotlight for a copy of all records pertaining to speaking appearances”. Okay, that's one thing. We have the ability, ostensibly, under the rights of our Constitution and so on, to demand certain things; a committee can do that. I'll get to that in just a moment, because it is an all-encompassing power.

You're demanding documents, first of all, dating back to 2008. I believe one of my colleagues earlier said that the person being sought after as the subject of this investigation would be the Prime Minister, who was not covered by the act for seven of those twelve years. It goes back quite a distance. I remember that. I was there then as well, when the Prime Minister was the member of Parliament for Papineau at the time. Okay, I'll just leave it at that for now.

We're also talking about his wife and his mother, and then it goes on to his brother: “including, in respect of each speaking appearance, an indication of the fee provided”. Now we're getting into the weeds of some really private stuff that we're talking about here. Then you have to measure whether that is significant enough to provide the answers that the opposition is looking for. Trust me, I've spent a long time in opposition. With an equal amount of vim and vigour, I went after information from the Conservatives when they were in government, and when I look back, even I am ashamed of that right now. To say it was theatre would be rather generous.

Therefore, let's talk about those individuals for just a moment and what you're asking of them. As someone pointed out earlier, without a doubt, they are non-political actors. They didn't choose to be on a ballot. They didn't choose to be the brother of the Prime Minister. In the case of Alexandre Trudeau, the brother, obviously he was in a situation where he was in that family. He has been exposed to the political life since birth, but I choose him as an example because....

Okay, by way of a funny story, I hope it draws some relevance out of the conversation I'm talking about, but I'm sure my colleagues will pull me back into the path of right direction if I stray too far, and I'm sure you as chair will do much the same.

A friend of mine was campaigning one day. He was campaigning for a municipal council seat. I'm good friends with him and I think he's a very nice person. He didn't win, but he could have added a lot to the council of the day.

We knocked on several doors. One door in particular caught my interest because the person who came to the door said to my friend, “I'm not voting for you, because I don't like what your brother has said to me.”

For reasons of backstory, let's just talk about his brother. He can be described as that person at the end of a bar who for some reason likes to talk and is never invited to. He's that person on Twitter who randomly shoots out at everybody they don't like. Without providing any details as to who he is, I think I'm painting a picture of a person you don't want to be around for too long. When this person said, “I'm not voting for you because of your brother,” my friend's response was, “If I had to answer for my brother all the time, I'd never leave home.”

I'm not saying there's any dissension between Alexandre and the current Prime Minister. I think they're both wonderful people. Obviously, I have met them both and they have a good relationship as brothers. However, the reason I bring that up is that my friend who was campaigning has a life, a life that is different from that of his sibling, distinctly different. Not only does he have a life that's distinctly different from that of his sibling, but he has a character that is distinctly different. I realize that character has nothing to do with this, but in this case, the brother of the Prime Minister is now being ensnared in a situation where I don't think he belongs.

I don't think for one moment that, if we give it much thought, whether we're Conservative, NDP, Bloc, Green Party, Liberal or whatever, we can ask of this person, who was never really asked to be involved in the first place, whether he is a political actor. There are siblings who are. They're involved in the particular party, or involved in a particular government. Here in Newfoundland and Labrador, we have many siblings who served in the same caucus together and they've had to answer for their brothers or sisters on certain occasions, and that's fair game.

These people were making a living. I'm not saying this motion denies them the ability to make a living, but it doesn't help. It certainly is not a situation where this person is being drawn in, or I should say “persons”, because I'm not just talking about the brother here. I'm talking about this motion that I don't think is going to capture the answers they're looking for. At the same time, I do not think for one moment that the people cited in this should be a substantial part of the information they need regarding this particular situation.

What is this situation? That's a good question. It goes back to students, doesn't it? At the base of it, it goes back to students, many of whom were not in a great situation over the summer. There were measures for them. There was the student benefit. There was the Canada summer jobs program. I know that's an ongoing program, but by the same token, there were some measures added into it because of the pandemic that we are going through right now.

I think that at the very base of it, we wanted to provide a grant in this particular situation. I know some people would think that the money that was involved in this particular program did not measure up to what is either minimum wage or something that is before them, but it was similar to a grant or a bursary or something of that nature. For that reason, I thought it was a great idea.

Then we got into a situation in which the Prime Minister did several things, including apologizing, appearing in front of a committee and other measures. To say that this did not measure up to the standards by which the opposition marches in a direction of true virtuous nature is pretty much.... I've been there, done that. I don't agree with the content of the message you're putting forward, but in a Marshall McLuhan kind of way, I guess the medium is the message. They used the medium by which they can attain power down the road, and so on and so forth. I say that with a great deal of humility, because I did that for several years myself.

Let me go back to Michael's motion. It finishes with, “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....” I'll just leave it at that.

I want to go back to correspondence. This is an important part, I think. This is correspondence from the Clerk of the Privy Council and the Secretary to the Cabinet. That is Mr. Shugart. It says the office of the Clerk of the Privy Council Office. That is Mr. Shugart, Clerk of the Privy Council. This is of course to the clerk of the finance committee. It says: “I am pleased to provide records from the Privy Council Office (PCO) that were requested under the motion adopted by the Standing Committee on Finance....”

Before I get called onto the carpet about it not being germane to the situation, I do this because there are arguments here and there that are similar to what has been talked about thus far.

He brings in a detailed timeline of events in Annex 2, and a full list of organizations that were consulted on program development. The letter reads, “...the Department of Employment and Social Development (ESDC) provided the Committee with a list”.... I'm sorry. I just read that very quickly. My apologies to interpretation. I do that. I am proudly from Newfoundland. It's getting late at night here, later than what it is there. Sometimes we get carried away and we sound like we come from a long way off. I will slow it down for the sake of interpretation. My apologies.

Thereafter it says, “...on April 9, 2020, Department of Finance officials were provided with a report on stakeholder outreach,” which is a very important part of all this, but that in and of itself—stakeholder outreach—is a very important point, because I'm going to bring up something else later in my presentation about another time when they talked about stakeholder outreach and how it deals with privacy.

It says that “the PCO media centre monitors coverage of the Government of Canada priorities.” They provided that as well. We have a list of participants, recordings in mid-April between several members of the bureaucracy, including Ms. Wernick and Michelle Kovacevic. In great detail, they were outlining the situation that took place, that got us to the point where we talked about who was going to be a delivery mechanism of this particular program.

Let's keep this in mind: This is not brand new, this idea that we go outside the bureaucracy to deliver certain programs for the benefit of Canadians. As a case in point, NAV Canada is a private company. They provide all the guidance for airplanes across the country and around the world, so it's not a concept totally alien to Canada to go outside our own organizations to get other organizations, whether they be for profit or not for profit, to help us in delivering more efficient services. That was taking place.

The conversations around this were about how WE Charity was one that was worthy of discussion. Of course I say that because I think they were, and of course other people would say that's where things went off the rails.

Let me just go back to this letter, because I'm not arguing the point about whether WE was appropriate to deliver the services or not. What I'm saying is that this letter provides a level of transparency that I thought was good.

If I can be partisan for just one moment, I did not see a whole heck of a lot of that prior to the last government. Remember that when I was originally elected, it was a Liberal government, and there were some elements of non-transparency there that I wasn't happy with, and it's true that here are levels of non-transparency with the current government. That is true.

Like Mr. Warkentin, who bragged that there were times when he said no to his own, I've done the same thing myself on occasion. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

However, as was pointed out earlier, let's go back to the fact that some of this information also includes that “The committee's motion stipulates that Cabinet confidences and national security information are to be excluded from the package. No information is being withheld on the grounds of national security, since the information does not so pertain. With respect to Cabinet confidences, you will note that considerable information on the Canada Student Service Grant that were Cabinet confidences, is being provided to the Committee. ” What a novel idea.

I did not witness that a lot when I was in Parliament from 2006 to 2015. I remember November of 2013, when we asked Stephen Harper to appear in front of a committee to deal with the issue of Senator Duffy and others involved in that situation. The answer was that he wasn't going to do that. I think it was more that he didn't think so. He paraphrased it more than that, but it was more like he didn't think it was going to happen.

There may have been other times when we asked the Prime Minister Harper to appear in front of the committee, but I don't think Stephen Harper would have appeared at a committee if he had to walk through it just to get home, quite frankly.

That may be a little unfair, and I apologize, but let's be honest: He was not eager to sit in front of opposition politicians.

That said, though, it is surprising, because I remember many question period moments when I thought Stephen Harper was quite adept at what he was doing. I thought he was pretty good on his feet, and one of the better speakers in the House. He was not quite at the status of Bob Rae, but he was good. Nevertheless, I digress.

Let me go back to this situation. I think the level of transparency throughout it was more than I was expecting. I hadn't seen the Prime Minister appearing before committee. I thought he handled it as well as he could, given the situation.

There is a thing about committees. I am a chair currently, and Mr. Sweet, I'm sure you would agree, and there are other people. I see Ms. Sahota is here as well, and she is also a chair.

You know, you get seven minutes or six minutes to ask a question. Things get pretty heated. There are two ways of doing it. You can either ask a question or you can make a statement, but when you try to do both, it doesn't work. Sometimes it went off the rails for that reason, but the fact that he was there impressed me from the beginning, and I was okay with his answers.

Now, do I agree with everything the Prime Minister does? Nope. Do I agree with everything that the government does? Nope, and if you know my voting record, sometimes I don't mind saying so.

However, I'm going to return to Michael's motion. I have to call you Mr. Barrett, because I'm not used to using first names in committee.

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

Chair, speaking through you, let me say please, by all means, Mr. Simms can call me Michael.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Well, I appreciate that, sir, because without getting too emotional, I knew quite well your predecessor and I miss him dearly.

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

If I can just add to that, he spoke well of you also, Scott.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you, Michael. I appreciate that.

I know what I want to talk about. This is something I found earlier in the public accounts committee. It is a report called “The Power of Committees to Order the Production of Documents and Records”. It's the report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts from December 2009. It's very interesting. It's quite straightforward in the sense that the power of the committee is greater than many people would think when it comes to demanding papers, and so on and so forth. The power to actually get the evidence is not as strong as some may think, but there certainly is a right to demand it, as in this particular case.

Before you're beginning to think that I'm making the case for the opposition, let me march through this as slowly as I can. I hope you'll stick around. I'll try to do this more quickly than I seem to be. I know it's late; it's certainly late where I am.

It begins, “Pursuant to its mandate, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts periodically holds meetings” for witnesses, questions or subject matter, and so on and so forth.

Okay, here it is: “On 24 March 2009, the Committee heard witnesses from Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) on the Auditor General’s December 2008 report on Contracting for Professional Services. In the course of the meeting held on the audit report, officials from PWGSC were asked questions relating to the Government Enterprise Network Services (GENS)....”

Let me explain that very quickly. GENS was a former part of the federal government's IT shared services initiative. They were asked to bring forward information; however, they didn't want to. They were dragged into this kicking and screaming, similar to the election of a new Speaker, to a certain degree, except that's kind of fake, while this was real.

In response, the deputy minister of public works—I won't use names, because it's not really germane to the point—stated “that he would undertake to provide the committee with a number of videocassettes”, or audio recordings, “on the industry consultation on GENS. These documents were to be provided by 7 April 2009.”

In a letter, the deputy minister said that public works “would be delivering the requested documents, but on the advice of legal counsel, would do so only in accordance with the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act”.

There was a big to-and-fro about how this was going to work. Essentially, it ends like this: They had done a consultation process with the general public about IT services, but they were not comfortable with releasing some of that information because some people gave it in confidence.

In the ruling here, they said the committees are empowered to do that. They have a right to ask. Other people have a right to deny for reasons that are stated. If the committee feels that the House should look into it, they have to ask them to do that as well, in order to push this through.

Here's what's important, as stated in House of Commons Procedure and Practice by Marleau and Montpetit. They talk about “the power to send for persons and papers, which is accorded to committees”, which includes many powers, of course, as cited here.

The last sentence here in the report, which is quoted from the book, is important. The testimony of this particular report says, “Although the House has not placed any restrictions on the power to send for papers and records, it may not be appropriate to insist on the production of papers in all cases.”

Before my opposition gets excited about the all-encompassing aspect and before they start painting a picture that the committee's power resembles the Death Star, if you catch the Star Wars reference, with a huge tractor beam that sucks in all information, it's also written in there that you can't go crazy with this power.

This is like some wild cash grab to get all the information that you want or need, so they say, “Although the House has not placed any restrictions on the power to send for papers and records, it may not be appropriate to insist on the production of papers in all cases."

Let me put my partisan hat on for just a moment.

Here's what's interesting, and I'm glad you asked. In the supplementary opinion put forward by the government of the day, which were the Conservatives, it says:

CPC members want to highlight that when a committee or the House of Commons calls for persons, papers and records the consideration of the public interest needs to be the first and most important consideration.

I'm sure you would agree, and that's how I'm sure the Conservatives feel right now. What they're doing is, as stated here in their submission, “the first and most important consideration.”

It goes on to say:

The participants in these consultations understood that their participation and comments were to be protected from disclosure by the Privacy Act and therefore may have shared confidential information that they would not otherwise have shared.

The Conservative Party of the day believed that the information that may have been handed over to a committee by private citizens was not right, not fair and not in the spirit of what the production of papers was meant to be.

In other words, it was okay to get information from the Department of Public Works, but there were people involved who had given evidence privately to the government, and the Conservatives felt you'd gone a step too far.

Going back to the original motion, have we built a bridge too far? I would argue that in the spirit of it, yes, I think you have, because of the elements here.

My colleague earlier—I think it was Mr. Housefather—talked about going beyond the non-political actors, going beyond to a place where you shouldn't be going because of the privacy aspect. He talked about siblings and other family members who were going to be subjected to this. I think he brought up a valid point.

I suspect the Conservatives and I could argue this every way to Sunday, and I say that with the deepest respect because I don't want to get into name-calling and so on and so forth. I just think that what encapsulates the spirit of your motion is that it's a bridge too far in this particular case.

I think that what Mr. Shugart has provided in his letter—several letters, actually—does illustrate the great deal of effort to get to the bottom of this. Now I know we—I and the opposition—don't agree on that, but I think it can be.... I just don't want anyone to think that I'm here, as was noted earlier, simply just to defend the boss, as the saying goes. I'm sure people will construe that I am, but nevertheless I do have a genuine concern about what this motion does.

This is going to sound bad, but let me just explain. For the record, Michael, if you spent more time looking at the nuts and bolts of the information that they're looking for, it could be done in a way that doesn't reach out and try to “cash grab" several elements of society. When I first read it, it just seemed like something that went madly off in different directions. It was like a motion that was written and developed by a very large committee of people with differing ideas about how they wanted to establish a fight, as it were.

Michael, I don't mean that disparagingly. Don't get me wrong. Hey, look, I understand—been there, done that. There have been things that I have written and said that when I look back....

I'm glad this is all public. This is great. Now I get to talk about how my days in opposition basically went astray, I guess; I don't know. Nevertheless, it's late and we're still rampant.

I really wanted to put that out there, because it just didn't sit that comfortably with me. If you look at it, I'm not sure.... That's where I look at the to-and-fro of Parliament, when you say one thing on that side of the House and you say this thing on this side of the House. You could be in third place or fourth place or whatever you are in the House, and say something entirely different. I think we have to be honest with ourselves about how we want to argue this in a genuine parliamentary manner and come to terms about how we want to get to a particular subject.

Listen, I get calls. Today was a particularly big day for people calling about their employment insurance and so on and so forth. I will come back to that, but just allow me to build a small arc back to the point I want to make about this particular motion. Yes, we spent a tremendous amount of time going through a lot of programs that flew fast and furiously out the door because we needed to provide the money by which the people could get through this pandemic. CERB started out as employment insurance exceptions. It evolved into CERB, first delivered by Service Canada or the relevant department, and—

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Scott, I'm really sorry to interrupt you, but I want to bring something to the attention of the chair.

I was originally on the speakers list, and the system booted me out. Now I'm no longer on the speakers list. I don't know if anybody got on after me. I just want to make sure my place is held where it's supposed to be.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We have a double redundancy system going on here, Madam Sahota. I still have you after Mr. Warkentin. It's in writing, so we will not be sabotaged by the Internet.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Scott, I'm really sorry for interrupting you there momentarily. You've actually been very entertaining. At the beginning you said you might not be that entertaining, but I think there's a lot to learn from your words, as always.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you. My goodness. Wow.

Ruby, if it's okay with you, perhaps I'll get you to write my householder next time, but I digress.

That's a new term. I've been here 16 years, and a “double redundancy” something is like the redundancy department of redundancy. It's great. It's like Monty Python all over again. Nevertheless, again I digress. Sorry.

I was talking about the myriad programs that we're trying to engage people with to try to make sure they get over this pandemic. I talked about the CRA and the CERB, and then we get to the student benefit. You're put in a situation, and this is not just a Liberal thing. I saw the Conservatives go through this in 2008, around the time of the recession that hit. I remember the term at the time was “shovel ready”, which is a phrase used in politics, but in an entirely different context.

Anyway, these projects were flying out the door. They wanted to get projects out quickly to get people working in society. The shutdown that was happening wasn't to the extent that we see now with the pandemic; nevertheless, there were things that were moving fast and furiously, to the point where sometimes mistakes were made, so we backed up a bit and tried to work it out.

Did we complain? Of course we complained. We were part of the official loyal opposition, so that's what we did and what you do. I'm not trying to belittle the arguments you bring forward to this campaign, other than to say that I don't necessarily agree with the motion. I do it for sincere reasons as a parliamentarian. I know at the time that things were done that we needed to go back and reassess. The key there is to reassess what you felt was done wrong so that it unfolds to reach your target audience. I'm sorry if I'm using a marketing analogy for governance, because they're two separate things, but when it comes to a target audience and delivering services to Canadians, the point is that you need to look at what was done and assess how to provide it better.

In my opinion, what was done when the Prime Minister appeared before committee, when the information was provided and certain cabinet confidences were not redacted, I thought was a sincere measure on behalf of the government to deal with the situation, because at the end of the day, we wanted kids to get their grants, deservingly so. I know this first-hand. I have a son who's in university, and without getting too much into detail, that probably would have been a program that would have benefited him. I say that, but it didn't work.

Like everybody else, I would like to take a look at something as unique as this program, a program that has all the sincere hallmarks of being a good thing for students to allow them to not only just get money. That's one part of it, but what's most important is that it teaches volunteerism, or at least it illustrates the benefits of volunteerism. It illustrates how, no matter what their age, they can provide a huge benefit to society, a massive one. However, in many instances, they don't know how to engage. This grant program helps them to do that, and that's what's so important about it. I know Mr. Johns talked about it earlier, and he had some valid points about it that I hope we can rectify in the future.

I just hope that it doesn't get caught up in a political spat, but it's a little late for that now, isn't it?

I would love to say I'm going to wrap up, but I just had some coffee while you were away on a break, so I'm raring to go again.

I listened very intently to what all the speakers before me were saying, but when I see something that was not delivered, rather than laying blame on a whole myriad of people, including bureaucrats and people who are not on the ballot, I look for improvements.

Now, am I naive? Absolutely. When I started in politics back in 2000, I remember that a wise person looked at me and said I was obviously a little naive when it comes to how Ottawa works. I said yes. Then he said I should stay that way. It might help us. I never forgot that.

In the midst of all that is going on that is typically political, there lies a nub of truth in which we can find common cause. If we don't, we may fall into a pattern by which we never discuss anything together. I only have to point south of the border to illustrate my point.

Trust me that this is not a lecture on my part. I know it sounds like it, but it's in earnest, because I've seen a very high level of debate go to a low level and back to a high level again. I hope that over the next few months, as we go post-pandemic—if I can use that term—the world is going to change. How is political discourse going to change? I'm looking at you on a screen. Some of you are halfway around the world from me, yet here we are at committee.

Mr. Johns just raised his hand. Mr. Johns may as well be in Australia and I may as well be in Iceland as far as our distance is concerned. However, the distance between us, Gord, is not just political; it's geographical.

I can honestly say that I hope metaphorically we're a lot closer when this is all said and done, because we're now into this new world. Someone who's been here.... I'm looking around and I don't know if anyone's been here longer than I have, but it's going to put us into a situation in which we're going to have to be careful and measured.

I'm not trying to get off the rail. I want to go back to the motion again.

On that note, I think we might be going off in several directions that are not focused and we're seeking sound bites. That's from me, who was in opposition for many years.

I think we have to come to grips with the fact that to get to the bottom of this, it's not just a government changing hands. It's also about improving on this program. Let's ask ourselves if this is a good program or not. That's fundamental to what we're arguing here.

Are any students watching this right now? There may be some, but not a lot. However, no matter who's watching or not, they could have benefited from this program.

I can honestly say that when this—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I think students are working to make up for the money they didn't get to help them.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

You know what, Gord? Here's the thing. Sure they're working hard; of course they are, but they're expecting us to work hard too, and if our only goal is to change where we sit in the House, we're leaving them to their own devices to better their predicament, to get some education, to get an experience in volunteerism and to help us do things.

However, if they do, they'll have to be doing it on their own, because we're still playing this game. We're still just rattling back and forth doing this, and look, it's our system. I get it: You're in opposition; I'm in government. Who knows when that's going to change, but—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Just release the documents and then it's easy.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

It did change at one point, right?

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I think Gord has a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Johns.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Chair, I think the bottom line is that if the documents are released, he's right that then we could spend our time doing what we want to be doing, and that's helping those students and helping people, but Canadians deserve an answer and that's what we're doing here. We're asking the government to release the documents so that we get the information and Canadians can get to the bottom of this.

Mr. Simms, I really appreciate it. We both want to see the students get the help they deserve. There's that $900 million that didn't get spent. There were kids out there, young people out there, volunteering and expecting to get help, and they got betrayed. They're trying to figure it out right now. They're trying to figure out how they're going to get through the school year.

That money could be used properly. Instead—you're right—we're trying to figure out why money is going out the door from the government and ends up going to organizations that are connected to politicians. It shouldn't be this way.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thanks, Mr. Johns.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

We just want to get the answers.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Simms, go ahead.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thanks for that point of order.

To go back to the point that I mentioned earlier, about the money, when we consider the fact that these programs are getting to the right people.... I don't know why, and that includes the comments that were just made.... Let's not look into who is involved, by which...they don't get the money. In other words, what I'm saying to you is that if you look at the situation that unfolded, that we have, when you wrap it up into nefarious motives, first of all, they weren't. It was quite obvious that nobody wanted to withhold this money from the students.

That is obvious, but if you want to talk about the system by which we perhaps can propose a better way of delivering the service, in terms of what I would expect if I were in opposition. I would be asking questions germane to the situation, which would be more like, okay, who is best able to provide a service such as this to students, the grant service itself? It was discussed that it was this outside source, which was WE Charity. Then, as you saw from the discussions, which were quite transparent, it seemed that the internal machinations of the Canadian government could not get it out as fast. Now, maybe Mr. Johns could say that maybe they could do it better, and that's a valid argument, but I didn't see that debate unfold.

I saw a debate unfold that was more about dragging people into this. Like I said, in the spirit of this motion, I don't think they belong there. I really don't. In many cases, if you want to look at how we can improve this for the future, there are ways of doing that. The discussion that we could have within either this committee or the finance committee.... Heck, you can even make a special committee if you wish. I'm sorry. I meant that somewhat sarcastically.

You could do that to get what Mr. Johns wants. That is true, but think about all that we're talking about now and the emphasis that we're putting on this particular motion to just have it here. We are confronting each other with it. How could we get to the nub of the issue to do what is most important, which is to allow students to get the services, to get the experience they so desire?

I'm not perfect, Mr. Johns, but sometimes we can get close to perfection if we pretend that we're not perfect, if that makes any sense.

Nevertheless, I want to thank the committee for putting up with my little visit that I popped in. Thank you for having me, although I feel like you really didn't have much of a choice, but nevertheless, thanks for entertaining me.

Mr. Chair, thanks. That's it for me. I'm signing off. It's now 10:30 in Newfoundland and that's it for me. Thank you.