Information & Ethics Committee on April 23rd, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Order, colleagues.

Madam Clerk, let's continue with the vote.

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

Chair, I raised a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Dong, there is no point of order. It's a non-debatable motion.

We're moving to the vote, Madam Clerk.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

We will continue with the debate on the motion.

Ms. Lattanzio, did you have any final comments?

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

At this point, I would invite my colleague Mr. Fortin to reconsider his motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

I'm turning to Mr. Dong.

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

Thank you very much, Chair. I see the growing list of members who want to speak to this motion, so I think we will hear the debate for a little longer.

I'm very pleased to have a chance to speak to this motion, as I haven't had a chance yet.

My honourable colleagues on the committee would all agree that, although we may disagree on certain things, especially when it comes to this very important study, we all agree that a member's right to speak—a member's privilege—should be respected. That's a very important point for all parliamentarians.

Chair, one benefit for me listening to all my members is that I listen to their points and make observations. The one observation I can share with you is the consistency in inconsistency that I've been witnessing here. Whether it's the government members today or a government member in the past, there is evidence of records being pulled out out, showing that when members were in government in the past—a previous government—their positions change. I understand that. I will be very mindful to what I say today so it won't be used later on against me.

I'm actually looking at this motion as part of the larger motion to study the procurement policies of the government. In fact, I should share with you that going back to the very early debate of the study, I had questions on whether or not it was appropriate to do a study that parallels the commissioner's investigation, because we know there is an ongoing investigation on what we are talking about. We've heard from witnesses—people like the former integrity commissioner and other professionals—who warned us, basically, of the dangers of contamination between this study and the finding of the actual investigation that's taking place.

We debate that; we spend a lot of time debating the merits of the study—the details of it. We debate amendments, and we move forward. It's been a long time. I see that there was a big change to the membership of this committee, but Monsieur Gourde, Mrs. Shanahan and I have been sitting through these debates on this study entirely.

For the benefit of the viewers today—some may get confused on what we are talking about, why there is such a difference in positions on what seems to be a detailed part of this overall study—I can share with you that, after we had extensive debate on whether or not this study was appropriate, we moved on. The members of this committee moved on.

We debated on the witnesses when we invited them. What I observed, again patiently sitting and listening to members and witnesses, is that that there were a lot of people affected by this study. We heard from the witness from Speakers' Spotlight on how their employees were affected, to a point that they were receiving threats and it was affecting their families' daily routine. That is sort of the negative outcome of this study. I want to make sure that we pay attention to this.

Then we entered the debate on whether or not financial information of a public office holder's relative should be shared publicly. After 5,000 pages being released by the government, we had extensive debate on this. We had amendments, we had votes, we had change of votes. We had a long history of looking into the details of this study.

I want to just point out that at the end of the day, we're studying the procurement policy and procedures to make sure the integrity of the government process is upheld. In this case, however, there was not a single cent of public dollars transferred to WE Charity. We are doing this work to prevent incidents in the future. It is for all good reasons, and I understand that.

We called witness after witness. To be honest, Chair, when we were listening to the testimony of the Kielburger brothers, I honestly thought I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I thought that was the last stage of this study and that we were all ready to complete this study that has been dragging on. It's been stalling a lot of other important work of the committee.

Then the honourable member for Carleton was subbed into the committee and asked a question on something that was already in the public. In August of 2020 it was reported that there was an exchange on LinkedIn between the Kielburger brothers and Ben Chin. It wasn't news. We had had almost eight months. If we had thought that was important, that a simple reply was important, we could have called a meeting a long time ago. We could have talked about this a long time ago. No, it came out of this questioning by the member for Carleton of the Kielburger brothers. There was an “aha” moment, which I still have difficulty understanding. What was so aha about it?

We heard Mr. Sorbara call this study a “fishing expedition”. I think at that time it felt as though there was a fishing expedition. You go on a trip hoping to catch a bass and you catch a perch—aha! There must be something else we want to dig into. That started a whole new chapter of this never-ending study.

I respectfully ask the members to go back to the original motive and the intent of this study. Ask yourself what we are doing here.

We had the study on MindGeek and Pornhub, and it was going well. It was so important that we thought to interrupt this study to allow us to invite the witnesses from Stella and whatnot.

Chair, are you taking a picture of me?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

No, I'm taking a picture of the speaking order.

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

Okay. Sorry about that, Chair.

Yes, we all agreed to interrupt the study briefly to hear from these witnesses. Then I heard the motion to extend the hours so more witnesses could come forward to give us a comprehensive view on the Pornhub study, because we have the power to recommend, through the House, to the government, the actions that need to be taken to protect vulnerable youth especially, but at the same time respect people's right to privacy, to expression and the right to work. We have to keep that balance, so I thought that testimony was very important.

We are again talking about Monsieur Fortin's motion. It has brought us right back into this extensive debate on a motion on a study that is looking at money that was never spent by the government.

I want to respectfully ask members to just keep your priorities. I looked at all these...whether it's face recognition, whether it's.... These are more urgent and should be in a higher position on our priority list of the committee.

Obviously we're in a deadlock, as cited by Ms. Lattanzio.

You said there are two options, and one is for Mr. Fortin to withdraw the motion, to vote on the motion; and the other is to suspend it or adjourn the debate and then move on to perhaps another study and park this for a little while. Let our caucus and colleagues work out the difference. Maybe they're more brilliant than we are. Maybe they can work out the difference and find a common ground. Give them some time to work it out but not stall the work of the committee, and we can move on to something that's more urgently needed.

When I talk about facial recognition—and Mr. Angus and Mr. Fergus would agree with me—I heard from my community that there is a lot of interest in this. However, the window of opportunity is closing. We are losing a very important, precious opportunity to do a sound study and review of what's going on right now.

I don't want to go on and on and repeat myself, but I sincerely ask members to look at this motion and understand that this is an outcome or part of an outcome of a very random impression. I can't help but suspect that the opposition, whether they're Conservative, whether the Bloc caucus, has any interest to completing this study, because as I said from the beginning, going back to last year until now, there has been concession after concession after concession from the Liberal caucus.

We agreed to look at these documents and we had a huge debate on this. What happened? Those documents were released to the members. Did any new evidence come out of our ability to look at other family members' financial situations? No. There was no new information.

Was this questioning of staff based on new information? No, it wasn't. It was based on old news, from August of last year. You can't blame me for suspecting that the opposition has no intention.... When I say “opposition”, of course I don't mean everybody, but I ask whether the leadership of the Conservative caucus, of the Bloc caucus, have any interest to complete this study?

We can vote on this motion, and is that the end of it? I really have to doubt it, because based on what I've seen, there is no interest. There is only interest to drag this on and to stop the important work of the committee.

Of course, I hear members on the committee talk about how much they want to move into other important studies, but I can't see it.

Rationally, I'm judging by what I'm hearing and the actions that have taken place in the last eight, nine or 10 months, and I can't come to a conclusion that there is interest in wrapping up this study.

There I've said it. That's just my observation. It may be unfair, but I'm still waiting for that gesture to assure me that there is that interest in moving on.

Through you, Chair, to my honourable colleagues, please give me that gesture. We've been very close to the end many times. We've been given the gestures, and we've believed them. We took a dive. We said, “Let's do it.” Then with a random question by the member for Carleton, everything is back in the circle again and we're just chasing our tails.

With that, I will cede the floor. I don't want to unnecessarily extend the conversation. If I see another point that I want to debate, I'll come back, but with that I will cede the floor to my honourable colleagues.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

Moving on with the debate, we'll move to Mr. Barrett.

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

Thanks, Chair.

I'm not sure how many meetings the members of the Liberal Party are going to want to drag this motion out over. It's very clear that they believe that because they get their say, they're going to get their way. They were very happy, when they had a majority, to impose their majority on parliamentarians, but now that they're in a minority, we have a situation in which a majority of members of the House of Commons voted to have witnesses appear at this committee. There was an order of the House issued, and then this committee received correspondence from two ministers saying that they instructed people not to come to committee.

We've heard the quotes from those letters. It's very clear in the letter from the government House leader and from the Minister for Middle-Class Prosperity that instruction had been given.

We've heard about ministerial accountability. These ministers are responsible for their staff. They're responsible for giving that instruction.

Frankly, it's crystal clear in the letters. From Ms. Fortier's letter dated March 30:

Mr Amitpal Singh has been instructed to not appear before the committee.

In the letter from the government House leader, it's very clear again:

Mr. Rick Theis, Director of Policy to the Prime Minister, has been instructed to not appear before the committee.

Those are directions given by ministers. The motion we're dealing with today lays that out very clearly.

If members of the Liberal Party are not happy with the motion, they of course get their say in the meetings, but then they have to vote. It has to come to a vote. I appreciate that that can be inconvenient. We keep hearing that this is the result of a fishing expedition. This is a report back to the House. Blocking that vote from happening is not only delaying all of the other work from happening; it's part of an effort to cover up corruption in the Liberal government. That's very clear.

We heard that the Liberals don't understand why we're dealing with this in May—

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I'm recognizing a point of order.

Ms. Shanahan.

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

Mr. Chair, I object to the use of unparliamentary language.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I didn't hear unparliamentary language.

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

It was the word “corruption".

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I don't know if members were being called corrupt. I think there's a distinction there. Thank you.

Mr. Barrett.

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

Chair, I object to corruption in government.

While I didn't call individual members corrupt, I do encourage them to appeal to their conscience and to their better angels when dealing with corruption. If just the sound of the word is so offensive, my goodness, I would hope that their actions would speak louder than those words and that they would look to take positive steps to demonstrate to Canadians that they can have confidence in their institutions, which is of course what's being undermined with this whole process, this non-stop filibuster.

As I was saying, we heard from the Liberal members that they don't understand what's changed since August. I'll tell you what changed: to cover up corruption, Parliament shut down in August; there were filibusters across this committee, more than 20 meetings' worth of filibusters.

It's very clear that the Liberals want to continue to block this report from going to the House. They can disagree with it, and they can speak with their votes when they do that. It's plain for everyone to see that there's no desire to move on to the other business.

We hear people swinging for the fences. The Liberals are hoping that by not saying that the NDP are looking for this to happen, that maybe the NDP will go the other way. I have to tell you that I've heard very clearly from all opposition members that they want to report to the House, that their votes, the votes of opposition members, to have this issue—

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

I have a point of clarification, Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

That's not in order, Mr. Dong. You've had your time. There is no such thing as a point of clarification.

Mr. Barrett will continue.

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

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

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I recognize a point of order, Mr. Dong.

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

Sorry, Mr. Barrett. I don't mean to rudely interrupt you, but I think you were speaking on behalf of an NDP member, who is in another caucus. I don't know—

[An hon. member]

What are you saying?

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

That's my point of order. I would ask both Conservatives and Liberals not to speak in my name. We will make our decision when we—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.