Information & Ethics Committee on July 12th, 2021

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

Thank you, Chair.

I thank my good friend Mr. Dong for his remarks. I'm always gratified to see that on this side, certainly, among the people I've gotten to know over the past years, there are a lot of different trains of thought. There's certainly a range in terms of where members on this side want to go when we're talking about changes to the Standing Orders and about how we can do things better here in politics. As I already indicated—that cat's out of the bag—I guess I'm what you call more of a “blue” Liberal. I'm on more that side of the street. However, I am very much gratified, as I say, to see that with such members as Mr. Dong and Mr. Fergus, for whom I have great respect, who are very experienced in political life, we can more forward. We can come together. I actually had my doubts, with some of the things I witnessed here, especially in this current Parliament, but that hope springs eternal. That's really where the amendment I have proposed is coming from. What it seeks to achieve is that we can discuss....

You know, when members come in and they're brand new, they're looking for direction from colleagues, from caucus and so on. It is possible that members, regardless of political party, may not have been aware if they were asked by their whip or their party leader to sign a contract that would impact their expenses on their MOB, as we call it, in their House of Commons budget. Of course, this is public information now. Our expenses are made public. I believe that was—I'm looking for a nod here—our leader, when he was leader of the third party, who started that practice, which quickly became public. Certainly, all parties had to adopt it or questions would be asked about why they didn't want to disclose their House of Commons expenses.

That's how we now have them public. As a former banker and so on, I certainly appreciate that kind of transparency. We are going in that direction, which is why I'm open, at this point. I think this is most appropriately studied by the Board of Internal Economy, but if, as my colleague Mr. Fergus suggested, we want to have a fulsome study of all parties in public, it could be very educational.

I hesitate to use personal names, but please bear in mind, Mr. Chair, that we did not call this meeting today. It's not we who are naming an individual citizen and wanting to drag that person in front of this committee. However, if we're going to go there, then there are members who have been paying—that's what my colleague Mr. Dong was referring to—for contracts. It's public knowledge. Tony Baldinelli of Niagara Falls is paying Momentuum as well—

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

On a point of order, Chair, the committee voted, in fact, on your ruling on this very specific item. There was a chair challenge initiated by Mr. MacKinnon. We voted on that. It's highly disrespectful and disruptive that members are now contravening the will of this committee and an order of the chair. If that organization were named in Mrs. Shanahan's motion, it would be a different story, I suppose, but now she's not even talking about her own motion. That's against both the ruling of the chair and a vote of this committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I have made it very clear, Ms. Shanahan, because we have exhaustively debated this amendment, that all comments moving forward must pertain to the amendment. The comments about other contracts that have to do with other businesses that are not named in the amendment will be ruled out of order. Of course, the member knows the amendment because she drafted it. I would encourage the member to move to the relevant information with regard to the amendment.

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

Chair, I have a point of order. When I was listening to your ruling, there was a very important part that I think wasn't repeated by Mr. Barrett. You said it wasn't relevant to the amendment; however, it is relevant to the main motion, so this information that Ms. Shanahan is bringing forward can wait—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I encourage members to always support me, and I'm thankful for the support, Mr. Dong, but I think we got to the bottom of that as it pertains to the amendment.

Ms. Shanahan, with regard to the amendment, I'd ask that you move to speak to the amendment.

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

Indeed, and I—

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, I've been listening carefully to what Mr. Dong said about Mr. MacKinnon's intervention and to Ms. Shanahan's talk on this. When I go through the wording of these amendments, the issue is the same system that enables partisan, election-related actions to be taken by constituency offices and parliamentary offices, because it refers to the actions taken at constituency offices. When we are discussing that, it is possible that which organizations are involved in that is relevant, so there's no—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I have ruled with regard to this. I am hopeful that we can get through this without another chair challenge, so I'd ask that Ms. Shanahan move to the discussion with regard to the amendment.

Ms. Shanahan.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you for your intervention. I'll take it under advisement.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

No, but related to that, it's just for a small clarification.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I apologize, but the floor is not yours. If you'd like to be on the speakers list, we can do that, but the floor is now Ms. Shanahan's.

Ms. Shanahan.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Actually, we've been hearing a lot of information during this meeting.

We could keep talking about it. We would learn a lot more.

I think there is some concern, and Mr. Gourde pointed to that. It's more and more difficult now to get contact information and so on. Again, this points to how important it is to direct this question to the Board of Internal Economy. Maybe members don't know that there are major Conservative Party donors who received thousands of dollars of licensing contracts. Maybe the individual members, whose names I have here, which are public, do not know that this is the case, and they may prefer, as Mr. Barrett mentioned, to hire a different company. This is something we could certainly explore in the vein of what Mr. Gourde was saying, and whether it would be something that is more neutral.

I think there's something there, and I believe that the other parties here—the NDP and the Bloc Québécois—would also benefit from an exploration of data management.

That's true.

If anyone wants to suggest a subamendment that would bring us to some place where we can study this question fully, I certainly would welcome hearing that.

On that, I think there's room for further discussion on the issue before us, the fact that a number of databases are used by all party members, and that it is the place of the Board of Internal Economy, I think, to study that.

Thank you, Chair. I now cede the floor.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

Ms. Lattanzio.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Following up on the intervention of my colleague Mr. Dong, and quite recently my colleague Mrs. Shanahan, I think Mr. Dong was making his points, and from your intervention, Mr. Chair, I understand that it was going beyond the scope of the amendment. Therefore, the question was, could there be a subamendment?

In light of everything that's been discussed this afternoon and to be able to cover what we've sent from this side of the fence, we're saying that if we want to be transparent, then let's look at the data from all members of Parliament. We want to be transparent. Let's look at it all, because today we came in with one idea, and as we keep talking we keep discovering more and more information that perhaps Canadians ought to know.

I mean, we want to keep it very brief but I'm sort of coming to the conclusion that there's so much more information out there that maybe could be of interest for the Board of Internal Economy to examine.

Here's my subamendment, Mr. Chair. You will recall the paragraph that my colleague, Ms. Shanahan, seeks to amend. If you want to follow in the second paragraph, where it says “that the issue of the CIMS system”, I would add, “and all providers of data services to members of Parliament”, then I would continue, “which facilitates partisan election-related actions to be taken from constituency offices and Parliament Hill offices to determine if they are in compliance with the rules set out by the Board also be”, and I would add “examined and” before “referred to the BOIE”, the Board of Internal Economy.

Is that okay, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Are you able to send that to the clerk?

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

I will. I have it handwritten. I'm going to type it out and send it over to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

We will suspend until such time as that has been circulated to members in both official languages.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I call the meeting back to order.

We're debating the subamendment. I have two speakers on the speaking list. They are Mr. Arya and Mrs. Shanahan. Then we have Madame Gaudreau and Mr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I've read the subamendment, and I'm just wondering.... I understand the Liberal strategy here. The original motion that brought us in today was talking about a study on the conflict of interest related to taxpayer-funded contracts with Data Sciences and about the committee's inviting Mr. Pitfield to appear. Basically, it seems that we're getting further and further away from that. We're talking about everything else but this. It seems that every time the Liberals have an opportunity, it just brings it further and further.

Now we're debating a subamendment. I'm just wondering if it's actually in order with what we're talking about, with the original motion that we have on the table.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I'll leave it to members to determine how far distanced they feel it is from the original, but I have said it before and I'll say it again: While there have been times when things have been referred to the subcommittees of a committee or to the House, it would be unprecedented for a committee to tell another committee what to do. I suspect that it would be met with some resistance from that committee. I know that we do not have any authority over that committee. We cannot tell another committee what to do.

You are correct that this is unusual. I have allowed it. I will allow members to use their discernment to determine whether or not they want to set the precedent of committees telling other committees what to do.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

We have Mr. Arya on the speaking list.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The subamendment proposed by my colleague is very relevant, because the main motion was on the management of the constituency offices. The amendment by my other colleague referred to another party's system of managing the constituency office operations. The subamendments in fact make it very clear that we have to take a global approach and look at every single member of Parliament—how they manage their constituency office operations and whether the taxpayer-funded operations are partisan or not. It allows us to have a good overall look. However, in my view, the committee best suited to study this is the Board of Internal Economy.

That's it, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mrs. Shanahan and then Madame Gaudreau.