Information & Ethics Committee on April 23rd, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

That was what I was hoping we would get to. Mr. Bachrach was offering another option. I think Mr. Fergus is right that if we're going to get there anyway, let's move there with what he intended and where we'll probably end up.

This is a motion to suspend the meeting until the next scheduled meeting time.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0)

The meeting is suspended.

[The meeting was suspended at 3:10 p.m., Friday, April 23]

[The meeting resumed at 11:03 a.m., Monday, April 26]

Colleagues, I'm going to call this meeting back to order.

We are resuming meeting number 32 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. As you know, on Friday, April 23, 2021, the meeting was suspended, so we're simply returning to where we left off.

Colleagues, as a reminder, we are in the midst of a debate on Monsieur Fortin's motion of April 8 that was circulated earlier in this meeting, which started on Friday technically, so we're going to resume where we left off in the order of speakers.

Monsieur Fortin will be first, followed by Monsieur Gourde, Mr. Sorbara, Mr. Carrie, Ms. Lattanzio and then Mr. Dong, followed by—

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I recognize Mrs. Shanahan on a point of order.

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

I believe I was next on the speaking list. I did not have the opportunity to speak.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

No, I was able to capture the speaking list as it was on Friday's meeting, and so I do have it. I can assure you that you are on the speaking list now. Your hand has been raised. Once we've completed this list, we'll move on to today's list, which is Mr. Barrett, then Mrs. Shanahan—

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

I'm sorry, Chair, I respectfully ask that you—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Do you have a point of order, Mrs. Shanahan?

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

I have a point of order, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I'm recognizing you on a point of order, Mrs. Shanahan.

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

I would like you to review the speaking order with the clerk if need be, because I was immediately after Mr. Bachrach, and we recall that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

That's not a point of order. I have read out the speaking order, and we'll continue.

Monsieur Fortin, we'll begin with you.

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

Mr. Chair, could you repeat the speaking order again? I missed it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Is that a point of order, Mr. Dong?

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

It's a point of privilege.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Dong, do you have a point of privilege?

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

No, I have a point of order.

I want you to repeat the speaking order, if you could.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I'd be happy to, Mr. Dong.

It's Monsieur Fortin, Monsieur Gourde, Mr. Sorbara, Mr. Carrie, Ms. Lattanzio, Mr. Dong, followed by Mr. Barrett, Mrs. Shanahan, and then we'll continue down the line.

I'll go back to you, Monsieur Fortin.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I listened closely last week to our colleague Mr. Fergus when he shared with us the significant number of matters that the committee must address. I agree with him. I feel there are important issues, and I'm amazed—I would even say astounded—at the amount of time we're spending on such a simple motion. When I was drafting it, I felt like we were not even going to discuss it before we passed it, and now we are spending hours and hours discussing it. I agree with what Mr. Fergus said, that one of those important topics is the women who were called in for the Pornhub matter. The people we need to hear from on that need to be heard. It's an important issue. I'm really sad to see the amount of time we're wasting on something as trivial as this motion. It's trivial, but important.

I will come back to the motion. It simply says that, almost a month ago, on March 25, the House ordered that three witnesses be called and heard at our committee, and that a due diligence report be produced for us. The three witnesses did not appear and the due diligence report was not produced. It was all orchestrated by the government. I am stating fact, contrary to what my Liberal colleague was saying. These are facts.

I want to remind you of the following: Mr. Fergus told us that was wrong, because the motion points out that these individuals received an order. Point 5 of the motion reads: “The Committee noted...”

There is no discussion or interpretation here. I've tried to stick to the facts.

“... that Minister Pablo Rodriguez appeared on March 29, 2021, instead of Rick Theis...”

Listen, we were all there. That is what happened. It's a fact. I will continue with the quote.

“... after having ordered him not to appear before the Committee...”

This is where our colleague, Mr. Fergus, told me it was wrong.

I invite Mr. Fergus and the entire committee to reread the email we all received from Mr. Rodriguez on March 28, in which he wrote in the second-last paragraph, “Accordingly, Mr. Rick Theis, Director of Policy to to the Prime Minister, has been instructed to not appear before the committee. In his place, I will attend the meeting on behalf of the government on Monday, March 29th.”

I didn't make it up. It came from Mr. Rodriguez, who told us that Rick Theis was instructed not to obey the order from the House. I don't want to judge Mr. Rodriguez and I don't want to judge Mr. Theis, but we have a job to do as a committee. We have to follow up with the House; they issued an order, and we have to show them what happened.

Point 6 of the motion refers to the letter dated March 30, 2021, that Minister Mona Fortier addressed to you, Mr. Chair. The final paragraph of that letter states: “Accordingly, Mr. Amitpal Singh has been instructed [we're no longer talking about an instruction, it's an order] not to appear before the committee. In his place [again], I will attend the meeting on behalf of the government on Wednesday, 31 March, 2021.”

Two ministers, Ms. Fortier and Mr. Rodriguez, confirmed that they do not care about the order from the House and the order from the chair of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. They are confirming that it doesn't apply to them and that they are in charge, not you, Mr. Chair, and not the House of Commons. They are confirming to us that these individuals have no authority and no power. The real power in Ottawa is held by Pablo Rodriguez and Mona Fortier. That bothers me. I have said it before and I will say it again. That bothers me.

It's a major affront to democracy and to the authority of the House, and it's unacceptable in a democratic Parliament.

However, that is my opinion, and I will repeat it in the House if given the opportunity. As a committee member, I am simply and dispassionately saying that we need to report to the House. If you read the motion again, you will see that there is no emotion in it. Believe me, I was feeling quite a bit more than you could detect from reading the motion.

The motion contains no emotion or opinion. It simply states what we have seen and indicates to the House that we are dissatisfied with it. Admittedly, expressing dissatisfaction is not a very optimistic reaction. It's fairly neutral.

The House will do what it wants with it. I feel it should react, but we will see what happens in due course. You know as well as I do that it's pretty hard to predict what the House will do. However, it's our job to note that these witnesses have been summoned and have not appeared, and to report it to the House.

The rest is up to the House of Commons. I could quibble all day about these matters, and I know that some of my colleagues will be happy to spend the remaining time expressing views different from mine on the issue. I know I can't do it, but if I could, I would simply ask for a vote so that we could vote on this motion, move forward and get on with the important things. We owe it to the people of Quebec and Canada to do an efficient job. Right now, we're not being efficient because we're wasting our time on simple things like this.

I will stop there. I'm asking the committee to report back to the House and work on all of the key issues that concern it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Fortin.

I'm going to poll the room, because I think there is an effort by many members of the committee to ensure this gets to a vote so that we can move on to important business.

Is there support to move to a vote now?

I'm getting a lot of yeas and a lot of nays, but we do require unanimous consent in order to move to a vote if there is somebody still on the speaking list. I see several members indicating by their motions that they're not in support of that, so we'll move to Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's been a long time since I had the opportunity to speak to the committee. I feel like I'm sitting at a desk full of files that have been started, but will never be resolved, despite all the work that has been done in that direction. It's really sad.

I have been involved in parliamentary committees for 15 years. I've seen some difficult and complicated situations at times, but at least we've always been able to vote, and that was even if it took an hour, 10 hours or 40 hours to express the various points of view on a motion. We are adults, and we need to understand that we are going to have to vote on this motion.

It would be very unfortunate to waste all the meetings of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics until June because we disagree on the motion. You can express dissatisfaction by voting against the motion and you can express agreement by voting for the motion, but it's our duty to vote on this motion.

It's also our duty to do so as quickly as possible, because we're paid by the taxpayers, and they need us to work. They understand that we may disagree, but sooner or later they are going to demand that we vote and finish the work that is important to us.

I understand Mr. Fortin's frustration very well and I will not take half an hour to express that I also want us to vote and get to work. That's our goal and it's our job to finish what we started. If we don't, we will unfortunately lose all the testimony and all the work we have started, it will die on the Order Paper. We're going to go down in history as an excessively lazy committee, and frankly, that is heartbreaking. We could have changed some people's lives. However, right now, we're not making much of a difference because of the personal pride of some, and that really saddens me.

I will now give the floor to those who like to talk a lot.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

We're going to turn to Mr. Sorbara.

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

Good morning, everyone. Again, happy Monday.

I think this is the first time in a number of days that I've had an opportunity to speak during the committee's proceedings. Obviously, I have a lot of thoughts on the work the committee has been doing in discussing Mr. Fortin's motion, which is in front of the committee, but also on the committee's direction overall.

I understand MP Gourde's sentiments. I have a lot of respect for MP Gourde in terms of his role as an MP but also for his work, more importantly. I do know that he's an individual with a lot of integrity. I agree with Mr. Gourde's suggestion that the committee has a lot of work ahead of it. The committee definitely has a mandate to do the good work that our constituents sent us here to do, and to do the good work of all Canadians and for all Canadians, of course.

We've spent a lot of time discussing Mr. Fortin's motion. Perhaps I will take a step back to how we arrived at Mr. Fortin's motion in terms of the proceedings during this committee and also testimony during the finance committee over the last, I would say, almost year, or eight or nine months.

I look at Mr. Fortin's motion, and I don't see....

First of all, as we've stated a number of times, and as has been set by the precedent of the former government, ministers do need to appear, but not ministerial staff. I think that needs to be pointed out.

Second, on point 6—and I know Mr. Fortin pointed out point 5 on his motion—Minister Fortier “also ordered witnesses Amitpal Singh and Ben Chin not to appear before the Committee, as mentioned in her letters to the Chair dated March 30 and April 7, 2021.”

I don't know where that came from. If I am missing something, then please, someone, do point that out to me. At this moment in time, I'm not too sure—and I cannot confirm from the information that I've received and the information that probably all of us on committee have received—that Minister Fortier, in any sort of way, told anyone not to appear. She appeared here as a minister. She appeared as a minister of the Crown to answer questions. The opposition or the other parties decided not to ask the minister questions, and that was their prerogative. I believe the meeting was ended, so I'm not too sure about the nature of that.

I'm just looking at my notes. Again, it's the responsibility of the ministers to appear here before our committee, not the individuals representing individual offices.

I'm not too sure what Mr. Fortin's intention is with this motion. Is it to provide information to the House that ministers appeared in lieu of their staff or staff members? We know that has been done in other governments. Is it that ministerial responsibility is the correct thing? Is it that we're being prevented from finalizing the report on this study that we've undertaken and that we're close to concluding?

I personally have invested a lot of time in looking at the other studies the committee has been and will be tasked with. Obviously, there is the MindGeek/Pornhub study, which is an ongoing, very important study for our committee. I understand that in the province of Quebec there are even heightened sensitivities that are important to that study. I know that many, if not all, Quebeckers, much like all Ontarians here in Ontario, want us to resume that study, want us to make recommendations, and also want us to ensure that we hear from the other individuals on that study.

Then we obviously have to return to Bill C-11 as well.

That's where I stand.

With regard to Mr. Fortin's motion, if we were to proceed to being able to write a report and put our recommendations down, why couldn't this motion be amended—these are just my humble thoughts—and looked at in the light? If Mr. Fortin wanted to have this appear in the appendix of the report, for example, it could be something very simple on the fact that the ministers were able to appear here.

I'm not saying that I'm putting forward an amendment. I'm just speaking my thoughts.

In the testimony that I've been privy to or had the privilege to see, we've had the Kielburgers show up for seven hours. We've had Katie Telford show up for several hours. We've had the Prime Minister show up for several hours. We've had witnesses come back to us. We asked questions. We've received literally thousands of documents on this study.

We need to finalize this. I agree with Mr. Gourde. We need to move on. I don't think any one of us wants to be debating Mr. Fortin's motion until the end of June. I don't think that's really the will of the committee.

At the same time, I do have significant concerns with Mr. Fortin's motion. In my mind, I can't see why some sort of conversation can't take place.

The ministers of the Crown came to this committee and appeared on behalf of the government. Minister Rodriguez answered several questions from our committee for an extended period of time. Minister Fortier was ready to answer further questions from the committee, but then the committee chose not to; the committee was closed and that was it.

This government followed the precedent set by the prior government in terms of having ministers appear. I think that was the right thing to do. I think that ultimately ministers are accountable.

I know on my team I express all the time that for everything that happens with regard to my being a member of Parliament, I have to be accountable. I have to be accountable for whatever happens in my office and be knowledgeable of it. That's the way I operate, and I think that's the right way to operate organizationally for any such entity.

Again, to Mr. Fortin, I look at this committee, and I've read, understood and heard all the conversation taking place with all our colleagues. In terms of the words, “That the Committee report these events to the House of Commons in order to express its dissatisfaction”, I don't see why it couldn't just be that this be reported in the appendix of the report, if that was the committee's will.

I think that's something we need to examine. I think that's an alternative. Because we've had so much testimony at this committee, as I stated....

Mr. Chair, I don't want to be verbose this morning. I don't want to repeat myself. We have a lot of work in front of us. There's stuff on the notice paper in the House of Commons. There's the budget, which we know is going to assist all our residents. I don't want to veer into the budget, obviously, because that's not part of today's motion.

We have a lot of work to do as parliamentarians in the coming weeks. We're obviously still in the third wave of the pandemic here in Ontario. We need to ensure that we get the support out to all our businesses, workers and employees. Quebec is facing another wave, as is B.C., as is Nova Scotia now and many other provinces.

We know we have a lot of work to do. Part of that is the study in front of us, which is the WE study, if I can refer to it as that.

I think if it's something I do wish to put forward and maybe we can get the language to you, Chair, I could put forward an amendment to Mr. Fortin's motion. We'll see if we can arrive at a way to proceed forward. I want to gather my thoughts before succinctly thinking about where I want to get to.

Gathering our thoughts is how we as a committee can move forward. We do know, again, that we have spent endless hours on this study. I think about how we even got to this point, where a note was sent in.... Over the weekend I was looking at my LinkedIn account. I think I have over 2,000 contacts over LinkedIn, and I receive notes from a number of people. Also, we all work with stakeholders and stakeholders reach out to us.

I know, for example, to the chair and to my Conservative colleagues, that MP Baldinelli and I and others have worked extensively with the wine industry—and I'll take this back to the conversation at hand, Chair. We've been able to work with the wine industry to ensure that we have a prosperous wine sector and there is something in the budget there. We only did that in interacting with the representatives from that sector and reaching out to the various ministers' offices to raise issues. That's part and parcel of our job.

Again, on this one here, a LinkedIn note that was sent said, “Thank you for hearing me out. Thank you for our conversation.” That was the catalyst for the various individuals to say, “Oh my God. Something untoward happened.” Well, not really. We all deal with stakeholders all the time and we all deal with entities that reach out to us to inform us. I'm sure, Chair, many of your members from the beautiful provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan deal with the beef farmers, dairy farmers or chicken farmers or whoever else in the agricultural sector for lentils, barley, or wheat. That was the catalyst for how we got to this motion and why these individuals appeared and why specifically Ben Chin was asked to appear, because there was a LinkedIn note. Funnily enough, on Saturday I was reaching out to the residents of my riding and asking them how they were doing and I was looking at my LinkedIn account and that's how Ben Chin was asked to appear. That's how Ben Chin's name is now in this motion that Mr. Fortin presented to us.

I agree with Mr. Gourde's comments. We need to move on. We need to finalize this study. I do agree. At the same time, I think, as a committee, unfortunately, we've become potentially and possibly bogged down in looking at this motion and saying, (a) what purpose does this motion serve, and (b) how does this motion relate to the study at hand? I'm having a hard time with that, Mr. Fortin.

I do respect every MP equally and try to cordially always have a great working relationship with all MPs on all sides of the aisle and of all political views, even my colleague on public accounts, MP Green, whom I may differ vociferously with on many, many things in terms of policy, but obviously always in respectful disagreement.

I'm looking at this motion, MP Fortin, to maybe break the logjam. We're going to look at it from other points of view in due order so we can complete this study and then move on to a further study. We need to wrap this up and get to the MindGeek/Pornhub study. I know that the individuals in that study, the individuals we had, have reached out to me personally and so they really would like to continue to present. They would love that opportunity, of course.

On this study here, on WE, we've exhausted our time. We need to wrap this study up, but we need to do things, I think, in a manner that's prudent and a manner that obviously reflects the will of this honourable committee and my honourable colleagues.

The reason, if I can even take a big step back, is that in the motion here, the idea of calling parliamentary staffers, bringing them in or not, and any government of any stripe saying no, which the Conservatives did in the prior Parliament because of ministerial accountability, and then getting to the point where this is reported back to the House could potentially be repeated in a future government. The ministers are accountable and do appear. Questions aren't asked, because the parties say, “I don't want the minister to be here; I want this or that particular staffer.”

Again, I go back to the fact that Ben Chin's name is here because someone, the Kielburgers, sent a note to him saying, “Thank you very much”, just saying thank you. Well, now we need Ben to appear here for six hours to ask him every question under the sun, and we want to go into that fishing expedition.

I think that's what really sort of got to me, because, since we are parliamentarians, many people reach out to us. MPs from various parties reach out to me as the parliamentary secretary to the national revenue minister. A member from Mr. Johns' New Democratic Party, the honourable member for Windsor has reached out to me several times on various issues dealing with international taxation issuance. We've collaborated very effectively on that issue and other issues relating to Canada and the U.S.

It's at the point that I think we'd be having Ben Chin or this individual or this staffer come in because a note was sent, when there was really nothing wrong with that, with just saying, “Thank you for listening to us.”

I get the fact, and believe me when I say that transparency and accountability are two pillars within my DNA. I say that in terms of democracy and in terms of any committee's operations and in terms of how we operate as a society, a civil society. Transparency and accountability are the only things that count for me at all levels. For me, transparency and accountability start with the ministers, and that's where they end, with the ministers. That's the only place we can go and the only thing we can do.

It's just so important that we focus on that. That is why the original motion to call these parliamentarians—I was offside—and then the motion now to report this back to the House is something that has left me—and Mr. Fortin used this word “dissatisfaction” at the end of the motion. I'm actually dissatisfied with the original motion, and now with this motion I'm dissatisfied because it points us in the direction, in terms of the accountability and transparency, of saying the staffers should be responsible, not the ministers. The minister should be responsible.

I have a wonderful team that works for me. I think one of them is on the committee right now. At the end of the day, they do great work for me and they work extremely hard, but at the same time I think—our office is not open, but somebody's knocking at the door and I cannot answer that—we need to ensure that the accountability stops with the ministers. That's been my point of view all the time. I believe it was former House leader Jay Hill— I think it was him and if I'm mistaken then please correct the record on that—and I think it was even John Baird who appeared before a committee, and I think that is something that we really need to think about. That's why I think this motion here, going to that point and saying, “We're going to report to the House that these parliamentary staffers did not appear”, is a very, very dangerous thing. I think that's something on which we need to have a collective rethink and so forth.

I understand it is at the will of any member to put forward a motion and they can do so. I think the original idea of bringing these parliamentary staffers—and, remember, I always go back to the catalyst being a thank you email on LinkedIn. Actually, the way LinkedIn accounts work, it's actually already set up. When you log in and you respond to somebody, it's already set up; you don't have to type it. It's just there. It's there: “Thank you for reaching out” or “Thank you for...” or “Congrats”. It's actually quite easily set up. I know I have received emails from individuals from literally all over the world, usually from Europe or here in North America, that say “Let's connect”, “Thanks for connecting, Francesco”, “Hopefully we can work together”, “Hope you're enjoying...”, “Hope you're well”, “Great initiative on the part of the government”, or even questions relating to initiatives. I receive those all the time, probably 10 to 15 messages a day.

That's why I'm saying that to specifically single out Ben in that email between folks.... That's what LinkedIn accounts are. That's why we're here today. That's why we're here on this motion.

Again, Mr. Fortin, I respect the work you do. I respect your advocacy and so forth, but at the same time, I think we need to come to a conclusion on this study, because I want to move on. I definitely want to move on to the MindGeek/Pornhub study. I have 45 briefs that my team and I are going through at this moment, making recommendations, because we know how important that is.

We know how important that is to all Canadians. We know how important that is with the presence of MindGeek/Pornhub in the greater Montreal area, in Quebec, la belle province. We know how important that all is, but we also know how important it is to conclude this study with this motion currently in front of us. We know how it is so important to get this done.

Like I said, my thoughts continue to percolate in terms of putting forward something that I hope we can work with. If we were to present this scenario, if we presented a report and when we concluded the report, we can conclude it with—

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor]

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

Oh, I think somebody just spoke.

Can I proceed? I'm looking at my screen and I see two folks whose mikes aren't muted. At the best of times we're not perfect on that, and even after a year, I'm still not perfect at that. I don't think any of us are.

I'm still percolating with the fact that maybe there's a compromise or a conclusion we can reach together with folks, so we can say we understand the various parties' views on calling parliamentary staffers. Our view is that ministers need to held accountable. In fact, the Conservatives' view is the same thing, that ministers should be held accountable.

At the same time, being able to look at Mr. Fortin's motion and say that—I'm still percolating on this, much like I could probably have another coffee at this point—we could potentially put this into the appendix of the report, where this could be noted, I think could be something we could work with. I keep thinking back on how that would work and whether that could potentially be a way to go.

I've just been writing this down to make sure I can come up with it. I want to make sure that if I do, we can go down this path and potentially talk about this, and gather my esteemed colleagues' views on this.

This is, I believe, week two or three of the five-week sitting period before the week in May when we get to be back in our constituencies. I hope that we can further speak as to how we proceed in terms of wrapping up this study, getting it so that the analysts can proceed to writing up their thoughts, and us, each individual MP, being able to proceed and provide our thoughts, so as a team, a collective team, we can reach some sort of conclusion with regard to the study that this motion is in reference to and so forth.

I know that MP Johns is here covering his esteemed colleague from northern Ontario, MP Angus, and I welcome him this morning.

I don't want to say that I feel bad for you coming here this morning, but nonetheless it's always nice to see you, Gordon. I always enjoy your company and having a conversation.

I think at the same time, we have received further documents with regard to WE and the goings-on there. We've received some pictures and so forth. That's important. At the same time, we want to reach a conclusion. That is something we all want to get to. I don't think any one of us at this point in time does not want to conclude this study and move on to the other studies at hand and get these things wrapped up.

I believe one of my colleagues mentioned that we don't want to be talking about this in June; we don't. More news has transpired today with regard to our other study that we've been looking at in reference to Pornhub and MindGeek. I think it's important that we get to that study to get things firmed up, because that study is very important to our constituents. If I could rank the importance of this study here it pales in comparison to ensuring that non-consensual images are not utilized on the Internet, in reference to where we are with Mr. Fortin's motion.

In terms of the news coming out from Montreal this morning, the executive's home is no longer standing as some sort of fire happened from a cause unknown at this point. It behooves the committee that we wrap up this motion and this study and proceed to the Pornhub/MindGeek study. I think it's of significant importance and I think we need to continue making that point.

In fact, going back to the representatives who were here from the study in the prior meeting with regard to their reappointments, this morning La Presse has a story on Pornhub where the title is

“J'ai voulu mourir”.

I believe this means, “I want to die”. There is publication

[Inaudible—Editor] without consent on Pornhub.

Again, Caroline Touzin from La Presse this morning has put up an article on Pornhub and MindGeek. I know how important this is to the people in la belle province and all Canadians.

I'm looking at the article. It describes an adolescent named

Catherine, victim of sexual exploitation, young adult; she became an escort.

She talks about her suffering with addiction and—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.