I appreciate that.
Here we have a member of the Liberal Party—the governing party—who has moved a motion, when we have clear questions that need to be asked of a senior minister of the Crown, who happens to be the only member of cabinet from Alberta. Out of the 34 seats in Alberta, there are two Liberals elected and two New Democrats, and the rest are Conservatives. One of the concerns that I would suggest.... If this was a one-off, it could be explained just in passing as happenstance or circumstance or whatever the case may be, but there has been a clear effort to bog down oversight committees with things that do not have that significant impact on getting Canadians the answers they deserve on the conduct of their government.
What are the practical implications of that?
I hope, as the committee agreed to, that Minister Boissonnault will be able to testify, because I think that answers to some of the questions that Canadians have need to be brought forward. Why that's not only relevant in terms of what's required for the operations of a committee like the ethics committee, but what is key here and why I would suggest that this motion is simply an attempt to censure a member from asking tough questions, is that instead of Conservatives or Liberals—it could be a Liberal member as well who could ask a tough question—is that any attempt to limit the ability of that to take place is certainly very concerning.
I think what needs to be highlighted in the context of this is that when some of the allegations have been made, when we've talked about some of the evidence, whether that be Justice Hogue's report, whether that be what the Prime Minister himself has said, very much a changing story.... In fact, I would just highlight something that I think hasn't received the press that it deserves, which is that the Prime Minister's chief of staff, when she was asked if the Prime Minister reads everything, said very clearly that he did, yet it was, I believe, in some of the interviews associated with foreign election interference that the Prime Minister said very clearly that he didn't.
I found it very concerning, that disconnect, that you would have the Prime Minister's top boss, so to speak, the chief of staff of the Prime Minister.... For anybody who's operated in political circles in either Canada or the United States or the United Kingdom, and I'm sure this is the case in other countries, the chief of staff of the leader of the government, whether that be the Prime Minister or whether that be the president.... In fact, it was Ronald Reagan who brought forward—and of course they have a different system—and gave his Chief of Staff cabinet-level standing in, for sure, his first term. Off the top of my head, I don't remember all the specifics of that, but that's how much authority the Chief of Staff wields.
When you receive a call—I'm sure that if there are any political staffers in the room who have received a call from the chief of staff, they'd know this—I tell you, it's quite something. That chief of staff has significant power, and the chief of staff of the Prime Minister made a very clear statement. It was definitive. She didn't even say, he tries to, or he references, or whatever the case is. There are a hundred ways that you could say what she said.
However, when the Prime Minister was asked a similar question related to security briefings about pressing matters that had called into question direct contradictions in the way that he had acted when there would have been the possibility of impacting him politically, there was a clearly different type of response.
I believe that bears highlighting in this context, because it's that sort of attitude that filters down.
What is the direction that may have been given to Liberal members and parliamentary secretaries that suggests there may be this need to slow down or for oversight committees to not function as they should? What's the direction that suggests there need to be these motions that take up time, or whatever the case is?
What about the fact that we have the federal government's use of technological tools capable of extracting personal data from mobile devices and computers? The fact is that the report is not necessarily sitting in limbo but will be delayed, because we're now two meetings in when that's been listed as a topic we were to have discussed.
Although there are certainly exceptions to this, sometimes, when reports are less controversial, you can go through them quite quickly. Sometimes it takes an extended period of time, whether it's because it's a more controversial matter or because there were some contradictions in the testimony.
The fact is that we have now, for two meetings, been inhibited in our ability to get this stuff done.
I would highlight again that one of the issues I expect this committee has been seized with is the documents that were requested at a meeting a number of weeks ago. I believe it was the New Democrats who requested those documents, if I recall it correctly.