My apologies, Ms. Gaudreau, if I'm speaking too quickly.
The third party needed a demonstrated track record of mobilizing youth for service and to be technologically strong. Some of the bodies we considered and set aside were small advocacy groups with no program delivery experience. Other organizations did not have experience with youth, nor did they have strong technological capacity. Many had never delivered a program of such complexity.
I did engage WE Charity as a potential partner—
Again, this is Ms. Wernick's testimony:
—letting them know the broad parameters of what the government was looking for. They were an obvious option as the largest youth service charity in Canada, with high technological capacity and a Facebook following of four million youth. They had already provided to several officials and ministers a proposal related to social entrepreneurship and indicated it could be adapted as needed.
On April 22, WE Charity sent me a detailed proposal to quickly develop tens of thousands of volunteer placements for youth within a few weeks. Given the need for speed and scale, I determined, with my team and colleagues, that their draft proposal was the best available option in the time we had to work with. The team proceeded to work up the proposed initiative in a form that could be vetted by central agencies and considered by cabinet.
I sent the draft cabinet proposal to the deputy minister for approval, and her office sent it on to the minister in early May.
To be clear, the department's recommendation was that a contribution agreement with WE Charity to mobilize other not-for-profit partners was the best available option, given the requirement for speed, scope, scale and to reach a broad diversity of youth.
There has not been one single iota of evidence of any interference by ministers, their staff or any others in the awarding of this contribution agreement, and when the Prime Minister made his appearance before this committee, it should have been clear to all Canadians, with of course the exception of the rabid partisans who never let the facts get in the way of their arguments, that there was no political interference, either direct or implied, in the awarding of the contribution agreement.
I find it appalling that in the middle of a pandemic, with real work before the committee, we spend any more time on this study.
We know we are here in reference to the amended motion that began from Mr. Angus's motion. I think I said this in the last meeting we had. Obviously we are on the break week and because of the call for today's meeting, many of us have had to rearrange our schedules, which is fine. These are, like the TV series, The Facts of Life.
I would go back to Mr. Angus's original motion and how we worked together on it. We removed, I believe, two of the bullet points that were really not of significance: “an examination of the use of partisan resources and processes in the appointment of federal judges that may have constituted violations of the privacy rights of nominees” and “an examination into MCAP and Rob Silver's involvement with the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy and the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance program”.
I would go back to that original motion, the motion that Mr. Angus put forward on October 22 of this very remarkable and unique year of 2020. Yesterday we lost two great Canadians—Mr. Howie Meeker, a former Progressive Conservative member of Parliament and great champion of ice hockey, someone I watched for many years; and Alex Trebek, no explanation needed.
Let me read Mr. Angus's motion:
That pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h), this Committee undertake a study into issues of conflict of interest and the Lobbying Act in relation to pandemic spending;
that this study continue our work relating to the Canada Student Service Grant, including this committee's work to review the safeguards to prevent conflicts of interest in federal government expenditures; government spending, WE Charity and the Canada Student Service Grant; and the administration of the Canada Student Service Grant and WE Charity;
I apologize, interpreters, if I am going too fast.
The motion then states that the study would include four bullet points, two of which we removed; we voted on and passed it.
I would say to Deputy Angus, for whom I've always had a great deal of respect, which I'm not just saying because we're sitting here at the ethics committee—I would say this privately and publicly—that to me this was very constructive. I thought we could move forward from that motion. Then we had the mulligan, and the mulligan came back in terms of amendments brought forth by Ms. Gaudreau. To me, we've gotten to a place that I just don't think I would call correct and right. I don't think we should have gotten there. I think, looking at Mr. Angus's original motion, everything that was here encompassed what we needed to study and encompassed where we should be going. We could have moved forward in a constructive manner. We have a lot of stuff to study. We have a lot of stuff to do and a lot of stuff to learn.
It's fascinating, with everything going on in this world, how technology is leading us in different directions. As members of the ethics committee, we know full well and with full conviction.... I always hear about the conviction of your values or the conviction of your thoughts. For me, the conviction of my values right now is to make sure the interests of my constituents are represented not only at the ethics committee but obviously in everything I do, but here specifically there are privacy interests. Whether it's facial recognition or whether it's going back to the Privacy Commissioner's report of a few weeks ago, we have a lot of work to do.
I believe there was another.... I don't know if it was another motion by Mr. Angus. It was on facial recognition. I have much interest in it and would be glad to support it when it comes up during the appropriate period.
Chair, I will stop in a couple of minutes. I'll try to be done by hopefully three o'clock or so.
As we know, all committees are masters of their own domain. We are free to study what we choose, when we reach unanimous consent or if the committee decides to—