Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was still looking forward to having you lead us in Christmas carols.
I think that rather than taking the opposite tack, I'd prefer to take the tack that we are in a holiday season. We're in the Christmas season. We're in the Hanukkah season. We're in the season of probably other festive holidays from different religions. I'm hoping that we can put a Christmas truce in place here, because I also am somewhat disturbed by the type of language being used. I really hope we can remember that we're here to be productive. We're here to be colleagues. We're not here to insult one another. We're not here to fight with one another. We can disagree, but we can disagree, as Scott Aitchison and I have always said, without being disagreeable. It feels like too much that has happened today has been disagreeable.
That being said, let me come back to the substance of the motion. The main purpose of this motion is difficult for me to understand. We're ordering various productions related to Taylor Swift concerts. As my colleagues have pointed out, for umpteen years different politicians have gone to concerts like this.
PavCo is the company mentioned here:
(a) Order PavCo to provide to the Clerk of the Committee, within two weeks, all records concerning the offer or providing of tickets for any of the Taylor Swift concerts at BC Place to any federal ministers, officials, or ministerial exempt staff, including copies of any related communications; and
Well, PavCo is a provincial Crown corporation. It is not a federal Crown corporation. It is a provincial Crown corporation. PavCo has said that its standard practice is to make these offers, and it continues to want to do so in the future. That is what I've read in multiple articles from the CBC and CTV and other sources.
If there is an issue with PavCo and PavCo's practices, should it not be a committee of the B.C. legislature that looks at PavCo and its practices and determines whether or not on an ongoing basis this is a correct means by which PavCo continues to promote its concerts at BC Place or other venues? I fail to see the link to the Parliament of Canada in the practices of PavCo.
Then you get to the fact that minister is covered by the conflict of interest and ethics act, which means that this committee has jurisdiction over the minister, Minister Sajjan, in his decision to accept a ticket or two tickets to the concert. However, we also know, from all the information we have, that Minister Sajjan didn't accept free tickets. He made a $1,500 donation to a food bank, which was what BC Place had suggested or PavCo had suggested—making a donation to a charity. He checked with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner before doing so.
Now, all parliamentarians deal with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. It's not just ministers or parliamentary secretaries like me and Ms. Khalid. We all, as parliamentarians, deal with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. We should be able to rely on the advice we receive from the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. It's not correct that if the minister is told by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner that this is in compliance with the act, the committee should then be able to discredit the advice given by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and pursue a different level of inquiry.
Maybe politically it's not smart to take tickets and maybe it's not a smart political decision, but it's not a violation of the conflict of interest and ethics act, which is what the committee's jurisdiction is. It's fair if the Conservatives want to criticize the minister for taking the tickets and say that it was silly politically, but it's not a violation of the act. The commissioner actually gave him advice that he could do this.
I'm less and less convinced that this is the committee's responsibility. If we have a problem with what the minister did, we should ask the Ethics Commissioner to look into this matter. If the committee wants to pass something to ask the commissioner to look into what happened, I have no problem with that.
However, I find it problematic to ask a provincial public company to produce documents in connection with a file for which the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner gave favourable advice to the minister.
I think we're prolonging this discussion because there's a new motion today. It shouldn't be before this committee and certainly doesn't meet the needs of Canadians right now.
Mr. Chair, I'll give the floor to the next person.