Information & Ethics Committee on Dec. 13th, 2021

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's been quite interesting listening to my colleagues and their views on this specific motion. In the past 20 months, I think our government—in fact, just team Canada—has done all that we can to ensure that Canadians are protected and had the ability to stay at home while COVID raged in public settings, whether it was through providing CERB or supporting small business through the business account or wage subsidies. I think it's a little surprising that there seems to be an automatic assumption of guilt declared by a couple of our members here on how we were able to support hundreds of thousands of Canadians to get through what has been the most challenging part of their lifetimes and of our generation.

We worked really hard—not just members on the governing side but also members from all parties—to ensure that our constituents were well supported throughout this whole process. I think we need to continue doing that—indeed, we realize that COVID is not yet over—whether through Bill C-2 or other ways. We want to continue to support Canadians and I think we should. I think we need to find that collaborative approach. We need to find that balance in the work that we do here in this committee to make sure that Canadians are feeling supported and are being supported.

The last thing I think that our committee should be doing is using this committee for political posturing or to distract from the work we've all been doing among all parties over the past 20 months. We need to ensure that, as we continue to finish the fight against COVID, we all lend our hands and work together and really try to move things forward.

I think there are other more pertinent issues that we should be looking. As members have said, this one was really hashed out in the 43rd Parliament. I think artificial intelligence, facial recognition and equity are huge topics that Canadians are very much concerned about, and we would be doing an injustice if we played into what I think may be political posturing. I think it would be an injustice if we stepped way from continuing to protect Canadians from this changing world, from the changing digital space and from the changing normal of what COVID has brought for us.

I would respectfully ask my colleagues to think about this, guys. We have an opportunity to move forward. We have an opportunity to do the right thing. We have an opportunity to really work on issues that impact each and every one of us every single day, and we can do that here in this committee. I would really encourage you to work on those issues as opposed to rehashing things that have already been settled, and not participate in what is going to be a political posturing session. I think Canadians deserve better than that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Go ahead, Mr. Brassard.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

I'm fine right now, Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Go ahead, Mr. Fergus.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Once again, Iet me point out two things.

First, in the last Parliament, this committee spent not one, not two, but dozens of meetings on this topic. We heard from many witnesses. We worked on a report. I certainly commend the work of all my former colleagues who, given the difficulty of the topic, worked in a spirit of collaboration to produce a report, which was then adopted by the committee. This very voluminous report, with hundreds of quotations from dozens of witnesses, was tabled in the House of Commons less than six months ago. Not much has changed since then.

I recall that, in November of last year, the member of Parliament for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, a very honourable man, suggested that we have just one more session with witnesses to discuss this issue. Instead, we had dozens of additional sessions on technicalities. It seemed that, just because someone said “six” and someone else said “half a dozen”, there was a difference between the two and we need to look at it in detail. So the sessions went on and on.

We really exhausted the topic. A report was tabled in the House of Commons. I invite all my colleagues to read it. I read it carefully because I was on the committee that wrote it. I do not want to give the impression that all the credit goes to members of Parliament; we have to congratulate our analysts for all the good work they did under exceptional circumstances, to say the least.

I know my colleague the member for Barrie—Innisfil; he is a very honourable man. I know that he is sincere when he says that they just want to see what is new and that, if there is nothing, we will move on. I have heard that kind of talk before, and, as a result, we missed out on the opportunity to focus on issues that are much more relevant and where we're discussing the negative effects on Canadians. Instead of playing these games here in Ottawa, we want to get to work for our constituents in Quebec and Canada.

As a member of Parliament from Quebec, this is my first objective. The work of parliamentarians must focus on issues that are relevant and important to their constituents. We have the opportunity to do so. I am very concerned that, almost three years after we agreed to conduct this study on facial recognition technology, we are still missing the opportunity to do so. As I said, we will be playing games instead of doing things that really matter to Canadians.

I'm going to make a plea: I'm asking my colleagues to move on to something else that is actually relevant.

I also invite them to read the report and come back to the table to explain, with arguments, why they think conditions have changed or what new elements deserve our committee's attention. We should not waste time on this issue.

I hope my colleagues will consider my heartfelt plea. We need to move on to things that are much more important to Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Mr. Villemure.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

These topics are certainly important. We cannot simply pretend that they do not exist.

However, something came to mind when Mr. Fergus talked about the report that was produced. I had read it at the time, long before I went into politics, and I don't think I have seen a formal response to that report from the government. That might already point us in some directions. It would be helpful to see the government respond to that report before we make our decision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I find it interesting; I think we've all acknowledged the size and scale of revisiting our lobbying legislation in a meaningful way, and yet there seems to be an appetite or a move toward limiting the application of this study to two days. That to me is a contradiction. If we're going to acknowledge the size and scale of it, we should be considering this in a longer view. Maybe the two sessions we have set aside for it will provide us with a framework to look at how we can elevate Canada's lobbying registry.

I can share with you, Mr. Chair, members of this committee, and people who might be watching at home, that in my own research pertaining to issues of Canadian interest, I've had to pin and research the United States of America's lobbyists registry to find connections of Canadian lobbyists who have to report in a deeper way to Congress than they do to this House of Commons. That's a problem.

We actually have a very weak lobbyists registry, in my opinion. I think there's an opportunity for us to elevate that and to create something that is more substantive. I don't think it's going to happen in two days. Maybe it doesn't happen in my lifetime as an MP. It's certainly going to be one of my pursuits, though. Having watched the comings and goings on government operations and procurement, I can assure you that there were questions—questions that all Canadians deserve to have answers to. I would hope that the government would be able to provide those to us in a meaningful way, or I would hope that, having learned from perhaps some of the gaps in our systems and principles in the previous session, we can as a committee propose to the House of Commons ways in which we can strengthen and shore up our lobbyists registry.

I know that there are members around this table with subject matter expertise. I'm keenly interested in hearing what their perspectives would be on this if they had a blank slate and we were able to draft from scratch the gold standard of a lobbyists registry. What would that look like? I can assure you that from where I sit, there are significant gaps when we have to look to the south to find tougher legislation on lobbying, given the state of their affairs there.

If the compromise is that we go to two sessions, so be it, but I hope the members of this committee have within their purview, or their line of sight, ways in which we can improve our lobbying registry and our procurement practices to ensure that we are leading in that regard and not woefully lacking, which appears to be the case currently.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Ms. Saks.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, colleagues.

While there will always be an enumerable list of important issues that we need to cover and explore and, in many cases, rehash and review, I share Mr. Fergus's concern about our not getting to the matters of the day.

In my own riding of York Centre, the digital space is a terrifying one. It's filled with hate. It's filled with anti-Semitism. It's filled with inciting language that disrupts the lives of many constituents in my community. They are are asking us time and again how we, as a government, find the fine line in making sure that freedom of speech is available to every constituent in the digital space they use, while at the same time making sure that communities and their narratives and sense of safety are there, not only in their day-to-day lives out on the street, but also in the digital [Technical difficulty—Editor] how their information is accessed, who is seeing it and so on and so forth.

We're not getting to those important conversations while the rhetoric and the temperature in the digital space continues to become hotter and hotter. We're not really taking the time in this important forum to table those discussions.

I agree there are things that we take a day on here or there, but things like AI, facial recognition, public access to information, how the digital space is used and how it moves forward to protect Canadians' information, while also protecting them from these kinds of vulnerabilities are things we haven't got to. It's an important time to do that.

When we take time going back over old reports that have been concluded, when we take time to tweak them a bit more, we're not getting to the issues of the day that are keeping Canadians and members of my constituency up at night with regard to these platforms and how we create a safe space for the people using them.

I ask colleagues to consider that as we move forward and line up what we are going to discuss here and what the issues are that Canadians are not just asking, but demanding, of us. Community after community is asking us to engage with what happens in the digital space, yet we can't seem to get there. These technologies are evolving more quickly than our discussions, I can assure you. If we don't get to these matters of the day, I fear for what.... We're not serving Canadians well when we don't address these issues here in this forum.

Good work was done last session by the colleagues at this table. Some of them are not here. I read parts of the report. I haven't read it completely from first the page to the last page, but good work was done.

If we keep going backward, we're not moving forward on really critical issues that matter to our constituents today. I'd be terribly disappointed to see that we failed them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Hepfner.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

I just want to chime in as new member of the government and a new member of this committee to say I agree with a lot of the comments I heard from my Liberal colleagues here.

I have some concerns about adopting a report I haven't read. I wasn't part of this committee last time. I look forward to reading it and to learning what this committee came to, but at this point, I don't think I can support something that I don't know enough about.

I also agree with my colleagues who are suggesting there are more important issues for this committee to address, like facial recognition and AI. I think those are top of mind for Canadians. They're something that Canadians are thinking about, more so than a Lobbying Act, frankly.

I wanted to put my two cents in there, as a new member of the committee, just to say I do have concerns about moving forward on this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Go ahead, Mr. Fergus.

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

Mr. Chair, I made my comments in all sincerity. I tried to convince my colleagues. As my colleague Mr. Green said, the majority of colleagues are in favour of the proposal. So I have no further comments and we can proceed to the vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

We still have speakers.

Mr. Brassard, and then Ms. Khalid.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate all of the interventions. I think we have had a good, very respectful discussion on this.

We've also talked, Mr. Chair, about the importance of moving on to some other issues, and very important issues, by the way—privacy, and facial recognition. I understand Mr. Green has a motion that I think is good for this committee to move forward on.

But this is not about resubmitting or rehashing.... This will inform the work we do not just now but going forward. I will remind you again, Chair, that much of this work basically fell off the table as a result of the election, so there is a response from the government that can come forward. But understanding and listening to the debate of my respectful colleagues I will suggest, if it's okay with you, Chair, that we move to study this for, I'm going to suggest that it not be for more than four days so we can move forward.

I would make amendment to the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Does Mr. Brassard have unanimous consent to amend his motion to four days?

Okay.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

I thought that would be a reasonable compromise, Mr. Chair, understanding the concerns that Mr. Green had about the seriousness of this issue and about the concerns that other members had as far as other important issues were concerned.

The motion is on the floor. I will leave it to your discretion, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

Ms. Khalid.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I really do appreciate, like Mr. Brassard, the comments made by all colleagues.

I want to quickly note something that Mr. Green had said with respect to the Canadian lobbying regime. I think Canada has one of the most robust lobbying regimes in the world; it is one of the toughest. Our five-year lobbying ban is really competitive across the world in how it operates.

But as Mr. Fergus says I think we should be calling the question at this time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Well, we have exhausted the speakers list so we may now proceed to a vote.

There is a request for a recorded vote. We will have a recorded vote. I will turn it over to the clerk.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chair, we have the recorded vote on the motion by Mr. Brassard.

Mr. Bains, can you unmute yourself and tell me if you vote for or against the motion moved by Mr. Brassard?

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

Madam Clerk, could you also tell him to lower his microphone?

[The Clerk]

Can you bring your boom microphone to the side of your mouth, please? Thank you.