Information & Ethics Committee on May 9th, 2022

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd hoped that the member would address the two points I had outlined with respect to the unredacted piece and the ethics analysis piece.

Perhaps I will just move an amendment to the main motion to remove the word “unredacted” from the motion itself and then replace the words “ethics analysis” with “a charter analysis”. Those are the two amendments I would seek to the main motion.

Just to explain, it's always the committee's prerogative, if the documents requested and received from the RCMP are not satisfactory, to go back and request them again or see how we can conduct ourselves after the fact.

At this point I really think we should go forward with these two amendments, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Procedurally, Ms. Khalid, you said that there were two amendments you would like to make.

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

It would be removing the word “unredacted” from the motion and then replacing the word “ethics”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Okay, so this is one amendment to do both of those things.

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

Exactly.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Yes, go ahead.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

May I please request that those votes happen separately?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

That's the trick. The only way to do that would be to move them one at a time. Ms. Khalid is moving them together in one amendment. That will be the question for the committee, unless she would like to withdraw that amendment—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

—and move first the substitution for “unredacted”, allow us to vote on it, and then move the second piece, which is charter” versus “ethics”.

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

Mr. Chair, if it's okay with you and with members of the committee, perhaps we can just suspend while I talk to my colleagues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I'm sorry?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

The bells are going to ring in three minutes.

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

Are they?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I'm sorry; there is going to be a bell, yes. A time allocation motion was moved.

I will suspend for discussion if there is unanimous consent to do so.

There isn't. All right.

If there's no other debate on the amendment that Ms. Khalid has moved, I will put it to a vote.

We'll have a recorded vote.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Nancy Vohl]

It is five in favour and five opposed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

With the tie vote, I will vote in opposition.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

If there is no further discussion—although it looks like there may be—we will go to the vote on the main motion.

Is that any debate on the main motion?

Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.

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

Thanks, Chair.

I want to seek clarification from members, then, on how we will deal with these unredacted documents, and perhaps we can come to an agreement as to how we will protect the potential sensitivity of these documents. I'd like to hear from my colleagues on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Is there any other discussion on the main motion?

Go ahead, Mr. Bezan, Ms. Saks and then Mr. Fergus.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Chair, to Ms. Khalid's comment, I believe that any documentation, anything submitted to the committee, is always owned by the committee and handled by the committee. It is not necessarily turned public unless it's attached to reports we release down the road. I believe that this would be held in confidence and only available to and under the control of the committee members themselves.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Go ahead, Ms. Saks. You're next on the list.

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

Similar to my colleague, I think that respecting confidentiality, at least for an unredacted review, would be valuable for security and privacy law considerations.

I'd also like to encourage us to ask.... I'm curious as to whether or not the Privacy Commissioner, in their own analysis of Clearview AI, had an opportunity to review the documents themselves. It would be safe to assume they may have.

Perhaps that could be part of the consideration as we do this review, because the Privacy Commissioner should have had, in their own review of this situation and this file, a look under the hood, as they say, at the contracts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Go ahead, Mr. Fergus.

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

Very quickly, I just want to make sure that my colleagues agree with the idea that this document would be brought in and that we would review it in camera.