Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you as always for clarifying the speakers list for us; that's very helpful.
I do want to revisit some of the points that were raised at our last meeting concerning the redaction process, the privacy process, and the importance of respecting the privacy of individuals. I would also like to address the documents that were just released this morning, which my colleague Mr. Barrett just spoke to.
I would like to read this out for the benefit of the committee members and for anyone who is watching here. Bear with me because age dictates that the glasses come on and the glasses come off.
The letter that was released this morning by the government House leader and was addressed to the other House leaders—Mr. Deltell, Mr. Therrien, and Mr. Julian—reads as follows:
Dear Colleagues,
When Parliament was recalled last month, our government presented a strong plan to support Canadians during this global pandemic. Our main focus has been, and continues to be, how to best help and protect Canadians through these moments. The last few months demonstrated what Parliament can achieve for Canadians when Parliamentarians work together. In that spirit, I was glad to see that we received your unanimous support for our plan to help Canadians who lost their jobs due to COVID-19.
We recognize the financial impact of doing what needs to be done, all while knowing that doing less would end up costing more. That is why I agree that a Special House of Commons Committee, dedicated to studying COVID-19 related investments, should be established. Adopting the reasonable motion I shared with you previously will achieve this. This Special Committee will help ensure that other Standing Committees can do their work and focus on the issue that truly matters: COVID-19. For your convenience, I am also attaching our proposal to this letter.
Unfortunately, the motion for a Special Committee put forward by the Leader of the Official Opposition would not accomplish this. Rather than focusing on how the government and Parliament can work together to best support Canadians, Mr. O'Toole put forward a blatantly partisan proposal. Its main objective is to paralyze the government at a time when the entire Government of Canada is focused on keeping Canadians safe and healthy. This proposal, were it to pass, would raise serious questions about whether the House of Commons continues to have confidence in this government.
Similarly, Opposition MPs have claimed that their privileges were breached by the hard-working and non-partisan public service, following certain redactions they made to the more than 5,000 pages provided to the House of Commons Finance Committee in August. In fact, so much information was provided that the Conservative Party launched a website to ask for the public's help to review the exhaustive amount of information. So as to move forward, Liberal Members have offered to have these public servants appear at committee and explain the reasons behind the redactions that were made. Thus far, you have refused this reasonable step, choosing to forego due process.
As explained by the Clerk of the Privy Council and Deputy Ministers in their letters to the committee, redactions were made to protect Cabinet Confidence, following the exact directive of the motion adopted at committee. Though these letters were provided to committee members, Opposition Members seem intent on ignoring them, and so I am sharing another copy of the letters with you. They also redacted items that were completely irrelevant to the Canada Student Service Grant program, as it was not information requested by the committee. Finally, the public service respected their statutory obligations throughout this process. However, rather than permitting public servants to explain this, you have already decided that they are in contempt of the committee for not providing information that the committee never requested. That is why our motion will also give a forum for the public service to further explain the reasons for their redactions. If, after hearing from public servants and the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons, the committee remains unsatisfied, the government has made clear it is open to working with the committee to address its concerns.
Furthermore, the House of Commons Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee is debating whether to force private citizens to provide personal financial information to the committee. I believe that the House of Commons would be severely abusing its authority in doing so. No Canadian should have to fear that Parliamentarians may arbitrarily force them to divulge their personal financial information, even more so when they did nothing wrong.
As a demonstration of transparency, the Prime Minister has asked that I proactively share exhaustive information with you about events organized through Speakers' Spotlight, for which the Prime Minister was a guest speaker. Speakers' Spotlight has confirmed the accuracy of the events and fees listed. You will also find this information accompanying this letter. I can also confirm to you, as previously disclosed, the only payment to Ms. Grégoire Trudeau regarding WE Charity and any of its affiliates was the February 2012 event for $1,500. However, we will continue to strongly oppose attempts by committees or the House of Commons to target extended family members of Parliamentarians who are not involved in political life.
Finally, in regards to the numerous forthcoming motions for the production of documents at different committees, the government will do all that it can to provide the information requested by Parliamentarians. In normal times, calling for the vast production of documents across multiple departments places a significant strain on public servants who must physically go to the office to conduct such searches. Now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I fear that such sweeping document production motions with extremely tight timelines put forward by Conservative MPs are intentionally designed to be impossible to complete. In the midst of rising cases of COVID-19 in the National Capital Region, the government will not put at risk the health and safety of hundreds, if not thousands, of hard-working public servants. We want them to remain focused on delivering supports for Canadians, as should all Parliamentarians.
I sincerely hope we will continue to be able to work together constructively for Canadians. We believe we have put forward an extremely reasonable proposal that will permit Parliamentarians to be focused on the issue that should be occupying most, if not all of our attention: the health and safety of Canadians during this global pandemic.
It's signed, “Sincerely, Hon. Pablo Rodriguez...Leader of the Government in the House of Commons”.
The appendix to this document also includes a list of speaking events that the Prime Minister spoke at when he was not the Prime Minister but, first, a private citizen, and then a member of Parliament, such as events at the University of British Columbia and the Toronto District School Board. I'm naming just a few of them to give a flavour of the types of organizations that, yes, wanted to have a keynote speaker of the reputation of Justin Trudeau at their event.
I challenge my Conservative colleagues to continue in this vein of implying that these charitable organizations, non-profit organizations and esteemed institutions were somehow seeking to influence someone whom they thought might be in a position to help them. We're looking at groups such as the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, the Ontario Hospital Association, the Alberta Teachers' Association and Carleton University. Moreover, there were groups such as the London Convention Centre, Reading for the Love of It—that's a wonderful title for a group—Eventful Times, Blessed Events, the London Interfaith Counselling Centre, the Municipal Finance Officers' Association, York University, and we have a number of universities on the list. We can continue. Furthermore, there was the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, Charity of Hope, the Regional Municipality of Halton, Humber College, the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, Kincardine District Secondary School, Queen's University, Literacy for Life, the Grace Foundation, and I could go on.
I do find it very forthcoming on the part of our Prime Minister and our government House leader to have put forward this information—again, in the interest of all transparency.
I want to return now to the points that were brought up at our last meeting regarding the redaction process, why it is so important that this be done by non-partisan, professional civil servants and the principles they serve in doing so—