Information & Ethics Committee on March 28th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 13 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. So that you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

We all know the public health guidelines.

I'd like to remind all participants that no screenshots or photos of your screen are permitted. When speaking, speak slowly and clearly. When you're not speaking, your microphone should be on mute. We don't have witnesses here and I think we all know this stuff, so maybe I'll dispense and move on.

I'm going to begin with committee business. There are several motions out there. Once we dispose of any committee business that arises here, we can move in camera and get to the analysts' draft.

Go ahead, Mr. Kurek. You have the floor.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to everybody. Although not early Ottawa time, certainly for those of us out west, it's a much earlier feeling than it is in the capital.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to move again, as I believe procedure requires, the motion I gave notice on about three and a half weeks ago now, and that I moved close to the conclusion of the meeting this past Thursday. Then, if I could, I'd like to have a moment after moving the motion to make a couple of brief comments.

The motion is as follows:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h), the committee undertake a study into issues of conflict of interest and the Lobbying Act in relation to pandemic spending, provided that: (a) the evidence and documentation received by the committee during both sessions of the 43rd Parliament on the subject be taken into consideration by the committee in the current session; (b) the committee adopt the report entitled “Questions of Conflict of Interest and Lobbying in Relation to Pandemic Spending”, originally adopted as the committee's second report in the second session of the 43rd Parliament; (c) dissenting or supplementary opinions be submitted electronically in both official languages to the clerk of the committee within 48 hours of the adoption of this motion; (d) the chair table this report in the House on or before March 31, 2022.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you. This is in order.

You said you had some additional comments that you wished to make.

Go ahead and do so now.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of very brief comments.

As we are hard at work on this committee, there is work that was done in both sessions of the previous Parliament. I believe it is important to see that work finalized. To be very clear, this report does not call any further witnesses. It does not take up any more of the committee's time, other than that required to pass this motion in an expedited manner, which I hope can be done here today.

This is something that procedurally happens quite often. Many committees go forward and they will retable some of the work that was done in previous Parliaments. In the previous session there was a prorogation, where the study was undertaken under the second session, and an election that took place this past summer. I hear often from constituents and Canadians who want to ensure that this is brought to its full conclusion and is taken seriously by both this committee and this Parliament.

I would simply say, Mr. Chair, that the clerks and the previous committee, of which I was a member—and I subbed in on some of the second session's work—did extraordinary work. Having gone through the previous report, I believe there was a lot of work done to try to address the concerns that were highlighted by witnesses and by members of this committee, from all parties. Again, all parties should be given the opportunity not only to see that the work that was done is acknowledged properly, including the work of the analysts, the clerk and all those involved, but also to ensure that there is an opportunity for dissenting reports.

With this, Mr. Chair, I'm hopeful that we can deal with this in an expedited manner so that we can continue the hard work of the committee that is set out before us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

Ms. Khalid, do you wish to weigh in on the motion?

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

I just want to seek some clarity, Mr. Chair, with respect to the report that we were supposed to be discussing today. I know that we received it Friday afternoon. Personally, I haven't had a lot of time to look through it and come to my own conclusions about it.

I'm wondering what that timeline looks like with respect to going over the report and providing our amendments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

That intervention is not addressing the motion that's on the floor, but I will nevertheless address that.

Yes, I agree that we didn't have very much time. It was a long report, but this was set out in the calendar that the subcommittee adopted. We knew that this Monday and Thursday were going to be the days set aside to debate it. We had some discussion about how much time the analysts needed. We knew this was coming. We knew we were going to get it on Friday, and that we would have to study it over the weekend to be prepared to do it on Monday.

While I agree with you that it's not much time and I understand the pressure this puts on committee members, this was what we agreed to as a committee and the work plan that we adopted, so we're going to carry on with that.

Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.

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

I have a follow-up, Mr. Chair.

As per the subcommittee, we were supposed to get the report a bit earlier than Friday, but I'm hoping we can have some fulsome debate around it before we finalize how that report carries on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I agree. I would like to have as much time as we can, but we have another motion that has been moved and has to be disposed of.

You still have the floor. Are you looking to speak to the motion?

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

No, I'll cede the floor to my friend, Ms. Hepfner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Go ahead, Ms. Hepfner.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

We all know that I'm new to committee work. We talked about this at our first-ever committee meeting. I believe I said that I wasn't really comfortable tabling a report from when I wasn't part of the committee, when we went through all of this last time. I think it took place over a couple of years.

My familiarity with this report is covering the committee as a journalist, which I did quite extensively, particularly when the WE Charity was in the hot seat. It was something that was covered extensively by the media, including by me. We watched the testimony day after day. Personally, since then, I haven't heard anything from my constituents wanting to see more from this. I feel that it was covered in depth and that we got a lot of information. It was an important study and it was important to look at, but I don't know why we would get back into it now, when the work has been done.

Maybe we want to see a government response, but we have a hundred and some pages from what this committee already looked at. We're at a different stage in the pandemic now. We're at a stage where we're looking at different measures, and we're looking at how to support things. The work that this committee has been doing on facial recognition, for example, is really important, and I'd like to get back to that. I think that the WE Charity, after this committee was done with it, was no longer a charity, so that's no longer an issue. The key points that the committee covered were important, but we have that information. From my perspective, as a new member of the committee, this feels like a waste of time. I'm wondering why we're continuing with this.

On the first day, we already decided that we weren't going to bring this back, so I'm a little confused as to why we're still here. I'd really like to continue with the other committee business if we could.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

Next I have Mr. Fergus.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Obviously, I am completely opposed to the introduction of this motion in its current form, for several reasons. First of all, we had this report a year ago, almost to the day. I think I'm the only member here who was on the committee last year, when the report was written. Everyone had their say—government members and the other members of the committee. Everyone was satisfied in the end. The report was tabled in the House of Commons by the chair of the committee at the time.

As my colleague just said, the WE Charity no longer exists. This issue is obsolete. I am disappointed that anyone would try to play political games in the middle of an important discussion and testimony on facial recognition, when everyone here has recognized the importance of this issue. It's really unfortunate.

Mr. Chair, we had a private discussion, and I'm not convinced that this motion is in order, since an almost identical motion was moved a few months ago. Back then, we debated the motion, and it was defeated. Yet now, there's an attempt to reopen the issue by making a few superficial tweaks to a motion to make it admissible. We know that's what's going on here, so why debate this issue all over again?

I hope that with a little reflection, we can come up with something that we can all support, with a more reasonable objective. We'll have to see what everyone thinks, of course. All I want to say is that there are other ways of going about this. I hope that we won't spend too long on this and that we won't waste the committee's time or the House of Commons' time.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. I don't have translation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

That is, indeed, a point of order. We have translation on the floor. Mr. Green has translation.

Are you having a translation problem, Mr. Bains, or is it all audio?

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

It's cutting in and out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

It's not specific to the French to English translation. It's simply your audio. Can you hear me speaking in English?

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Yes, I can hear you speaking in English.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Can you hear me now, when I speak in French?

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

Mr. Fergus, you can continue.

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

I'll be brief. I will walk the talk. I don't want to waste the committee's time or the House of Commons' time. I hope all the members have heard me. And I hope that we'll be able to move on to the committee's important work on the study on facial recognition.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Mr. Fergus.

I have a couple more speakers.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have reviewed this report and the study in the 43rd Parliament and have just a few numbers. There were 116 pages in the report, which I read for the first time over the weekend because I wasn't a member of this committee in the last Parliament. Two supplementary or dissenting reports were added. Thirty-four witnesses appeared. There were 25 two-hour meetings, so over 50 hours of study from July 30, 2020, until the report was presented in the House on June 10, 2021, which was 315 days, almost 10 and a half months. There were 23 recommendations.

Unfortunately, there was harassment and a large number of death threats of the witnesses who appeared at this committee.

Mr. Chair, I don't want us to continue this conversation any longer. We have put forward those recommendations, and ultimately, what we're really seeking here is a response from the government with respect to the study that the previous committee members spent so much time going over and on which witnesses spent so much time giving their expertise and then also were harassed by the public.

I would like to propose an amendment to this motion, if that is okay with you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure how this process would work, but I will read it out in total. I propose that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics request: (a) that the government table a comprehensive response to the report entitled “Questions of Conflict of Interest and Lobbying in Relation to Pandemic Spending”, originally adopted as the committee's second report in the second session of the 43rd Parliament; and (b) that the response to the report be tabled no later than June 17, 2022.

Procedurally I could read out what would be deleted and what would be added, if that's okay.