Information & Ethics Committee on April 23rd, 2021

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

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, colleagues.

I was looking at the clock. The last time I debated this motion, it was for less than 15 minutes, so I will follow that trend. I will keep it short today as well.

I've been listening a lot to my caucus colleagues as well as to my opposition colleagues on this motion. I would like to offer my observations and perhaps some suggestions. First of all, I'm sure that for Ms. Shanahan and other members who have been on this committee since the beginning of the session, there are times when it feels like we are deadlocked on the issues. To me, it's like a ball of tangled fishing line that we have to untangle before we can move on.

There were times that it felt hopeless, going back to last summer, on this specific topic, but eventually, through amendments, through discussions at the committee or in camera, things worked out. I think concessions were made by both the opposition and the governing party.

I like what I've seen here, the good intentions shown by Mr. Fergus. I also want to point out the fact that the Liberal House leader's office issued a statement or letter responding to Mr. Barrett's motion in the House. There is nothing inconsistent between that letter presented in the House to all members—it's an open letter—and exactly what happened following that letter. As for reporting back to the House, I guess the only thing we need to report on is that it was consistent. It was the government's statement of position from the beginning on this specific motion. That's why I agree that it could be included in the report at the end.

I also want to humbly remind everyone here that we had a choice of which study to move on, to discuss and to work on. I'm not going to talk about what happened in camera, but unfortunately we decided to move on this one, this particular motion. That's where we're stuck.

I used the weekend to reflect on the work I've done in the past week. I think it's time for us to think about it and see if we can work out a solution so that we can move on. There aren't a lot of meetings left before we hit another break. I strongly encourage my colleagues opposite to consider this amendment. Maybe there's another subamendment they want to propose, but I think that's a good intentioned solution for us to get out of this current situation

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Dong.

Mr. Angus, we'll turn to you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm growing very concerned because I remember the last round of filibusters that sucked up the equivalent of 20 meetings. That's something I've never, ever seen before in my parliamentary career, where that much time of a committee that is supposed to do serious investigations could be so monkey wrenched.

I'm very concerned that we're in that situation again. It was a little over a week, maybe two weeks, that we met and all agreed that we were going to extend the Pornhub study by one meeting with witnesses, and then to report it to the House. In the middle of that meeting, Ms. Shanahan shut down the opportunity for those witnesses to speak by claiming she wanted many more witnesses. Now, Mr. Sorbara's saying how many more witnesses he wants to bring.

They're sending a message that they want to drag that study out, and I think they want to drag it out because it has become clear that the Liberal government is not interested in applying the legal codes that exist regarding Pornhub. I think that if we report that to the House, it will be problematic for the Attorney General, so they'll drag that out.

Regarding the WE study, I think we need to get this done. My Conservative colleague now wants to bring in Elder Marques. I have no interest in hearing from Elder Marques, but I feel I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, between the Liberals who want to drag one study out that we had all agreed should be done and my Conservative colleagues who want to continue to drag the WE study out.

We had all agreed that we were going to make a priority of the issue of facial recognition technology. I've pretty much given up on that as something my government colleagues are interested in following up because, with 12 meetings left, do they really want to report to the House the findings on the WE scandal? I don't think so. Do they really want us to report on the Pornhub study based on the evidence that we have? Apparently not. They want to drag that out as much as they can, so we're in a tough situation.

I would tell my colleagues that there's another issue that we have to look at. We spent months trying to get answers from the top executives at WE so that we could finish this study, and some of those answers were from Victor Li. As we now learn, according to his lawyer, it wasn't really Victor Li who actually answered those questions; it was the WE Charity that wrote those answers.

I don't know if my colleagues have bothered to read those answers that were recently given, but they're highly problematic. It really raises questions about the credibility of parliamentary committees if you have witnesses simply saying that it's none of our business how their financial dealings went and that they don't have to give us those answers.

This was about a $516 million deal with the Canadian people. It's a pretty straightforward thing that Parliament has a right to know. What due diligence was done? What was the capacity of this organization?

I see on the Canada summer student service grant that Victor Li's signature is on the agreement. Some of the questions were as follow.

What financial information was requested by the Government of Canada in their decision-making process for WE to be awarded the Canada summer service grant?

“I do not know”, he wrote.

What assurance did WE give the Government of Canada that it could handle the financial load of this fund?

“I do not know,” he wrote.

What payment software was in place for WE to pay students through the funds earned through the CSSG?

He wrote, “Our primary system was a national payroll provider.” He doesn't even say which one. “Our secondary service was working with one of Canada's largest financial institutions to deliver the funds.” He doesn't say who it is.

This is not a joke. We're talking about half a billion to a billion dollars of taxpayers' money.

What was the system that they were using? Who was their partner? We don't know.

Your signature is on the service contract to the Canada summer student service grant. Why was the contract retroactive to May 5?

He says, “I was not personally involved with the negotiations.”

What assurances were you given from May 5 onwards expenses would be covered though no contract was signed?

Again, he says, “I was not personally involved,” but the issue here is that according to WE's lawyer, “Because he”—Mr. Li—“is unable to review or access the company records, he asked WE Charity to help answer the committee's questions.”

Are we to believe that the WE Charity executive doesn't know who authorized the spending of money on May 5 when there was no contract signed?

I will be returning to this issue when we have the final documents all presented, but I think it's highly problematic for our committee, regardless of your political stripe, that you could be given such disregard in the answers on WE's corporate ownership.

Why were we asking these questions? We were asking questions about corporate ownership of WE because we wanted to be able to know how the money flows. That's a pretty straightforward question to ask. We still don't know.

One of the questions was, who is the registered owner of Araveli For Mamas corporation? He wrote, “I do not know.” That would be a WE executive saying they do not know. We have documents saying that this corporation was owned by Marc Kielburger. It's one of their flagship operations—a flagship operation selling bracelets—which they say is empowering women. If it's private company of Marc Kielburger, well, that certainly raises questions.

How many of the other WE companies are private or partly owned by the brothers or family members? He says that's outside the committee's mandate and refuses to answer. I think that's highly problematic. First of all, why are the WE executives deciding what's within our mandate to ask in terms of due diligence and funding? This is why we had to ask them back a couple of times. We were dealing with a signed agreement that would have given them $500 and some million in the first round, and maybe upwards of $900 million. We have a right, as parliamentarians, to know how the money flows, and to be told they don't know who runs these corporations, or they're not going to tell us, is not on in my books, not when we're dealing with a supposed charity that raises money in our kids' schools.

Again, Mr. Chair, I'm going to be returning to this, but I'm asking my colleagues to start reading up on these documents, because I think this is something we need to address. Regardless of what else happens at this committee, we need to be able to have a sense of whether we got clear and honest answers or whether we got played. As a parliamentarian, I don't like my committee time to be wasted by witnesses who are not going to give us answers.

We asked for a list of the schools that were built, because their lawyer wrote to us and said that WE built 1,500 schools. I believe they built 1,500 schools. I had no reason to doubt that, but then questions were raised. Questions were raised about donor manipulation. It would have been the best, simplest option for them to shut down all that concern by simply showing us the list: “Here are the 1,500 schools we built.” By the way, 1,500 schools is the equivalent of one school every five days for 20-some years. That's an incredible machine for building schools, yet they can't tell us where the schools are. I find that extraordinary.

If you're raising money, if you're out there and you're on the ground doing this, you would know where those schools are, yet they tell us that it would take too much time to find out.

I've spoken with people who are in the field working in international development. You know where your projects are; you have to know where your projects are. So on this question of the 1,500 schools, where are they? Who built them? Were they built? We know that some schools were built, and I'm not doubting that some schools were built. I'm not doubting that some really good work was done. I am questioning why a parliamentary committee can be told, “It would be too hard to find out where all our schools are.”

They said it would take them months. Well, we gave Mr. Li well over a month—a month and a half—to come up with this. The question of schools was well over four months in the public eye. I would think that if your business model is based on telling people that you build schools, you would have been able to supply that answer to Parliament right away. Instead we are told they can't tell us.

I'm going to be returning to this matter once we've seen all the documents. I want to make sure we know what's in every document and whether or not we were given the straight answers. I'm asking my colleagues to consider this as something bigger than our partisan interests. This is about the role of Parliament to get answers and to be able to report to Parliament.

With that, I would say that I think Mr. Fergus' motion is problematic, but I'm willing to vote on it. I'm asking my colleagues to stop these filibusters and let's get down to business. We have the WE report to finish. We have to [Technical difficulty--Editor].

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

[Technical difficulty—Editor] to the amendment. Mr. Fergus opposed that.

Is there—

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

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Fortin.

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

Does the mover of a motion have the right to announce that he isn't ready to vote on his own motion?

Isn't that contrary to procedure or, at the very least, logic and common sense?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Fortin. It is not customary to allow for a vote until such time as the speaking order is exhausted. Mr. Fergus' name is on the speaking order, so I was polling the members generally.

I'll return to the speaking order as I have it in front of me now.

Mr. Barrett, we'll turn to you.

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

Thank you, Chair.

We're back again and the filibuster continues. We have this amendment in front of us for consideration, and having just heard Mr. Angus' comments with respect to the important work that our committee has done to this point and the important work we had planned to do, it is unfortunate that we find ourselves in this situation having burned the equivalent of 20 meetings in the fall, and now we're into a burn of the twilight of this committee in this session of Parliament. It's important that we do get work done.

A lot of it depends on operating in good faith. The motion to call more witnesses when we were hearing witness testimony, hearing survivors' testimony, was not consistent with the agreement or the understanding that we had, and was certainly disruptive in that meeting. It didn't speak to a willingness to move forward in a collaborative way.

We've seen this pattern at other committees and at committees chaired by Liberals. When there are problematic issues, the committees just don't meet. The defence committee is dealing with sexual misconduct in the military, and the chair has cancelled the meetings for this week.

We need to make sure that we don't get locked into a filibuster and lose all of the work that we've done.

Mr. Dong spoke about the compromises or the progress the committee was able to make earlier in the year, and we have heard testimony following those votes.

It's important that we're able to move forward. Mr. Angus talked about my comments last week about potentially calling witnesses whose testimony could be included in our study on conflicts of interest in pandemic spending on the WE scandal.

I'm a pragmatic guy. I'm prepared to move forward, but we would need a commitment in an open meeting by members on the government side that they're going to commit to a timetable to conclude a report on that study. That's how we do that. We're going to have to make our commitments in open session in these meetings so that everyone knows where they stand.

This motion that we have in front of us I support in its original form. We have an amendment put forward by Mr. Fergus and if this is an overture to end the filibuster, I would offer a compromise on the compromise. I would be prepared to vote on it.

I would move a subamendment, Chair, that the third point in the amendment be deleted. I'd like to speak to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Okay.

I think that's simple enough to proceed. Members can get the sense of what that is, the deletion of the third point.

We'll return to you, Mr. Barrett.

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

Chair, the intent here it to adjust the language, which speaks to the concerns Mr. Dong raised in his previous intervention, and obviously addresses concerns that Mr. Fergus has. This would adjust the language per the first and second points, and then allow it to be reported to the House forthwith. That satisfies the point that Mr. Fortin raised in his intervention.

In its amended form, this is.... As I said, I supported Mr. Fortin's motion in its original form, but let's go with a bird in the hand and forget about the two in the bush, and we can all get a little of something that we were looking for here. I would encourage members to allow.... People have lots to say. We've had lots to say over the last several meetings, so let's allow the subamendment, amendment and main motion to come to a vote today.

Then on Friday we can get back to the work. We need to hear from the commissioners on the supplementary estimates; we need to give further instructions to our analysts, who have commenced their work. It would be wonderful to see the fruits of their hard and professional work be examined by the committee and then tabled in the House. We have a dozen meetings left, including today's, so let's not wipe today's meeting off how many we have left. Let's make today's meeting count. We can have three votes in fairly quick succession, still allowing time for interventions by members on all sides. Obviously, I'm prepared to support the subamendment, the amended motion, and then we can get on to the important work our committee does.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

I'll poll the room as to whether there's a desire to vote on the subamendment. Just so that colleagues understand, we have the subamendment now, the amendment and the main motion once we've gone through this.

There's no desire for a vote on that, so we'll continue down the speaking order.

Ms. Lattanzio, we'll turn to you on this subamendment.

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

That was the question I wanted to ask, Mr. Chair.

I wanted to know if, at this point, we should debate only the subamendment and the amendment or if we're in the process of analyzing it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

That's correct, yes. We are only on the subamendment. Once we have voted on and disposed of this subamendment, we can return to the amendment and then the main motion. Right now we're only debating the subamendment.

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

Once we've debated the subamendment, we should, in principle, proceed to the vote. Then we'll come back to the same list of speakers for the amendment.

Is that it? I'd like to know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

That is correct, yes.

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

Okay.

Since the speakers will take the floor in the same order as before, I'll be the next one to speak to the amendment.

Is that correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

This is the challenging part of these meetings when I have a speaking list to figure out. If you'd like to get back to the amendment, I would encourage you to raise your hand—unless there's a willingness, colleagues....

Just so that we're all clear as to what we're doing, if there's a desire to move away from this speaking order.... This speaking order was started originally for discussion of the motion; now I know there are members who may want to speak to the motion and the amendment, but not necessarily the subamendment. Because we are only discussing the subamendment now, I think it would probably be best to find out how many members would like to speak to the subamendment by raising their hand.

It looks as though, Ms. Lattanzio, you'd like to speak to the subamendment, so I'll let you have the floor.

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

Yes, you gave me the floor. I just want to know if you want me to go to both the amendment and subamendment, or just the the latter.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

We're only on the subamendment, but you will cede the floor by debating on this point now and you'll have to return.

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

Then I'll get back on the list for the amendment.

I got it. I'll raise my hand again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Just so that colleagues all know, I will be very restrictive on where debate will go. This is only on the subamendment.

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

I understand that, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the clarification.

With respect to the subamendment, I understand that my colleague would like to strike out the third paragraph of the amendment made by Mr. Fergus last Friday. Personally, I have no problem with a report being tabled in the House. There was a vote in the House, and we have an obligation to go back and present a report detailing what happened in committee.

There was an impasse over the wording of the original motion, which referred to dissatisfaction. I'm hearing different opinions this morning. I'm very concerned about what's happening at this committee, where we should be working in good faith. There was even the idea of proposing a timeline. I made that suggestion a few weeks ago when we were trying to get to the conclusion of this study. I was told at the time that we didn't know if it was a good idea, that perhaps we could add more witnesses. This is the tendency of this committee, to go ahead in good faith, to start a study, to hear witnesses and then, all of a sudden, we start adding more and more witnesses.

Let's get back to basics. I have heard my colleagues discuss in the past how to get to this motion. Rightly so, this motion before us is a study that started out very simple, but has grown in scope. Why? Because we have been studying other issues that keep adding up. I have the impression that we have lost the essence of the original motion.

That said, I will reserve my arguments for the resumption of this motion. Let's be clear. In the beginning, there was a contract. It was never executed. That's the bottom line. Who paid the price? The students. All of a sudden, we ended up with a multitude of meetings and a large number of witnesses.

Let's go back to the basis of the subamendment. We have this obligation to report to the House. The issue for my colleague is to be able to change the wording and make it very clear that we aren't hiding anything, that we are very transparent. It says that the named witnesses did not show up. It does say that the non‑appearance of witnesses will be highlighted as an appendix to the main report of the study on conflict of interest and lobbying issues in relation to pandemic spending. It seems to me it's very clear, we're saying exactly what happened. As for the motives, goodness knows we have disposed of them, talked about them, debated them. We are clear, we have nothing to hide, we will state it in writing

Let's be honest. First of all, I don't understand why we're disagreeing about not reporting this. Second, we have a proposal that they want to strike out completely and not talk about. Is it because they want to make a separate motion afterwards? When there is dissatisfaction, we report it to the House. When there is dissatisfaction, we propose something. What do we do? We have a choice: vote for it or vote against it. Dissatisfaction can be expressed by voting against. That is all we have to do.

I'm very comfortable telling the facts. I'm not at all comfortable with striking that and not reporting to the House. I'm very comfortable with the amendment made by my colleague Mr. Fergus.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

The next person on the speaking list is Ms. Shanahan.

Go ahead, Ms. Shanahan, on the subamendment.