Information & Ethics Committee on Jan. 31st, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

The meeting is back in session.

I understand that the question I'm being asked to answer is really what exactly Monsieur Villemure means by the addition of the words “with recommendations”. Rather than trying to sort this out myself, I'm going to allow debate to resume, and perhaps Monsieur Villemure can inform the committee.

I will point out that neither the motion that was initially made nor Mr. Fergus's amendment would provide any forum for study with recommendations. There is a separate study taking place, which will run the course of hearing witnesses, drafting a report and making recommendations to the House. I understand that the intent of Monsieur Villemure's motion is simply, at the earliest point, to recommend to the House of Commons that it not proceed with the tender until the committee has done its study.

With that, I'll invite Monsieur Villemure to speak to the subamendment that has been made. If there are no other speakers following that, we may vote on it, but I'll go ahead with Monsieur Villemure.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will be very brief and will try to be very clear.

I have no objection to removing the word “unduly” and leaving Mr. Fergus's motion as it was. The study will be carried out anyway. So I completely agree.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

With the amendment having been accepted with the other part, I'm happy, if it's the will of the committee, to allow the subamendment to read exactly as Monsieur Villemure suggested, by making only that one single change. That gets us away from the problem of figuring out what is meant by the other portion. Unless I see objections, that will be the subamendment. If there are no other speakers on it, we can start to come to a vote.

I see no objection to what Monsieur Villemure has proposed, so the subamendment would be deleting the word “unduly”. That would amend Mr. Fergus' motion.

(Subamendment agreed to)

Now we go to Mr. Fergus's amendment to the main motion.

(Amendment agreed to)

Now we go to Monsieur Villemure's main motion as amended by both Mr. Fergus and the subamendment by Monsieur Villemure.

In the room here there is a request for a recorded vote on the motion.

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

Thank you.

[The Clerk]

The vote is on the motion as amended.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Madam Clerk, and thank you to committee members.

We still have some time left for additional committee business. I'm going to begin by reporting back to committee.

Mr. Fergus, if you'll permit me, I'll just deal with reporting back the results that came about from the motion adopted at the last meeting and then I'll take speakers. I see your hand up, and I also have Mr. Brassard, who is in the room.

I wish to report back that, pursuant to the motion adopted at the last meeting, we asked to call both Minister Duclos and the chief public health officer of Canada, Theresa Tam. Dr. Tam declined the invitation through the department, which is why she does not appear in the notice of meeting that came out on Thursday. That invitation was declined.

Minister Duclos accepted. I did my best to try to schedule a meeting at the earliest possible time that he could reasonably appear. That was not until this Thursday, but I did what I could, pursuant to what I had said at committee in response to Mr. Brassard's request to arrange that as soon as possible.

That is where we are. A draft work plan has been circulated to committee members, which contains possible witnesses. I don't want to discuss that because it deals with private individuals and it's not the custom of committee to discuss that business in public, although we are certainly able to talk about our schedule in terms of how many meetings we have. The work plan suggests the next six meetings to hear witnesses on this important study.

With that, I will go to Mr. Fergus and then Mr. Brassard.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Concerning the same point of order, I would like to move a new motion on establishing upcoming studies, since a study is underway on the Public Health Agency of Canada or, to be more precise, on the study proposed by Mr. Brassard, which we are currently considering and for which we will hear testimony later this week.

I would also like to discuss Mr. Green's motion to study the potential use of facial recognition technology.

Mr. Chair, we have also talked about inviting the four officers—

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I'll have to stop you there, Mr. Fergus. Interpretation hasn't been.... We didn't catch all of that.

We may also be having some technical issues. Your volume is quite low. Could you bear with us for one moment while we ensure that everything is working all right?

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

We had some interference that was only within the room here.

Mr. Fergus, I did not catch your motion in translation. Could I ask you to repeat that portion of your intervention before you continue?

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

It would be my pleasure, Mr. Chair.

I am proposing a three-part motion concerning the committee's upcoming regularly scheduled meetings.

In order to seize this opportunity and take into account your recent statements, I would first like us to continue the study proposed by my colleague Mr. Brassard. I would then like us to undertake the study proposed by Mr. Green, and to invite the four officers of Parliament.

If I may, I will submit to the clerk the following motion in both official languages, and I will read it to you:

That the following regularly scheduled meetings of the committee be programmed as follows: 1. That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h), the committee conduct the study proposed by Mr. Brassard and adopted on the Public Health Agency of Canada collecting, using or possessing Canadians' private cellphone data, that the committee make recommendations; and that the committee report its findings to the House no later than April 16th; 2. That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h)(vii), the committee conduct the study proposed by Mr. Green and adopted to study the use or possible use of facial recognition technology by various levels of government in Canada, law enforcement agencies, private corporations and individuals; that the committee make recommendations; and that the committee report its findings to the House no later than May 28th; 3. That the committee invite the 4 officers of Parliament who report to this committee for no fewer than 2 hours each to present their work to our committee and to review the Estimates no later than June 17th.

Mr. Chair, thank you for your patience. I will send to the clerk my motion in both official languages shortly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

The motion is in order.

For discussion I have Mr. Brassard. He will be followed by Mr. Green.

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

I guess my immediate concern in relation to what Mr. Fergus is proposing is that it's basically that we program the committee on a timeline, and that, if I'm hearing the motion correctly—because I haven't seen it at this point—this study would provide recommendations to Parliament by April 16. Mr. Green's study would be by May 28, and then the four parliamentary officers would be by June 17.

We have submitted a pretty robust list of witnesses for this particular study, not the least of them being the Privacy Commissioner, as well as privacy and security experts and telecommunications companies. Also, of course, we have the minister coming on Thursday.

The immediate concern I would have on this, frankly, is that I don't think we're going to have enough time, given the parliamentary schedule the way it is, to really do a deep dive into this and address the concerns Canadians have. The challenge is that it may take a few meetings to come up with recommendations for this study as we draft a report.

If we work backwards, I guess what I would ask is.... I'm curious as to how many meetings would in fact be able to take place for this study. Are we reducing it? I don't even know what that number might be if we are to provide that report, because I don't have the parliamentary schedule in front of me.

That would be my immediate concern, Mr. Chair. I don't want to limit or preclude the number of witnesses we can have, because I think this is a very important study, and it has many Canadians concerned as well. There are a lot of witnesses on that list that it would be prudent for all of us to get to in order to really have a fulsome discussion on this.

Mr. Chair, I see you nodding your head. Perhaps you have an answer for me as to how many meetings would take place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

In the interest of being clear for everyone around that, and for other members who may share that question, I count 13 scheduled meetings between now and April 16. We have 13 scheduled meetings before April 16, and if we use all of those meetings for this study, it would start to get tight for the other items. There would be seven or eight meetings before May 28 and then a number before June 17.

We do have a lot of meetings on the calendar between now and the end of June, but you raise a good point around just making sure that we understand the calendar as we contemplate Mr. Fergus's motion.

With that, I will go next to Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I appreciate our digging into the schedule and trying to get a sense for what our legislative priorities are going to be over the next few weeks and months.

I have to say, though, that I have a deep concern I want to voice. The chief public health officer has turned down our invitation to come before this committee. I can't let that go unnoticed. Committees are supposed to be masters of their own domain. They're quasi-judicial. They have, I would say, significant legislative authority to have people come before committee. I can appreciate schedules being tight. I can appreciate the chief public health officer not having the schedule availability in these next couple of weeks to come, but to simply refuse to show up before the committee is a problem for me. I want to state that on the record today. If it is going to be a characteristic of this government or of the senior bureaucrats of this government to refuse to come before the committee, we're going to be headed toward a bit of a problem here and on a slippery slope.

I'm sure people are going to have lots to say about this. It is what it is. She refused to come before committee. That's not a small thing. I'm not suggesting that we subpoena the chief public health officer to appear before this committee, but I want to remind members of this committee that we do have the power within our quasi-judicial capacity to do that. I hope it doesn't become a pattern with this committee that people say, “No, I'd rather not go.”

I want to put that out there. I hope that, working through whatever channels we can on the government side, more care and consideration are given to the seriousness of the requests that are put before our government departments, particularly the most senior officers of those government departments.

Having said all of that, I look forward to getting into these studies and hopefully being able to provide some value to Canadians on these very important topics.

I also want to note that if there's a possibility, sooner rather than later, in the order as written.... I still think there's incredible value in having the four officers of Parliament who report to this committee present themselves—even if it's an hour earlier, rather than later—to update us on their past work and where they are. I'm concerned that if we wait until June, we might find a space where we've narrowed our focus so much that we haven't been able to take a step back and see exactly what's happening out there from the four officers of Parliament.

Those are my contributions. I look forward to hearing from others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

Now we have Ms. Khalid.

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

Really quickly, we're having a debate on Mr. Fergus's motion and not on the witnesses and the meeting plan for our proposed study coming up. I would say that I prefer having that finality and understanding that this is what our plan looks like over the next couple of weeks and months and this is how we're going to conduct ourselves. It gives me time to prepare and understand the issue in a more significant way.

Members, keep in mind that these meetings are about not just hearing from witnesses, but also reviewing draft reports and finalizing our recommendations. Given the robust nature of our discussions, I feel that we would have really good discussions in finalizing those reports.

Having said that, I would love to hear from other members to see if they have other proposed dates, meeting times or study time periods with which they want to amend this motion. All in all, having that finality and those deadlines, for me, creates a very solid study plan and gives us that motivation to say this is what we've got on the agenda and this is what we're going to get done over the next six months. Let's go ahead and get it done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Ms. Khalid.

Next I have Mr. Brassard.

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

I wasn't going to speak on this, but given Mr. Fergus's motion and the fact that it relates to the study and recommendations being due on April 16, and Mr. Green's comments about Dr. Tam not appearing before this committee, as you stated before, I will tell you that I'm extremely disappointed in the fact that Dr. Tam is not coming to this committee. I'll tell you why.

Earlier, when we were discussing motions, comments were made by our colleagues on the Liberal side about the importance of being precise. Motions need to be taken very seriously. I wrote those comments down because, if we truly believe that motions are to be taken seriously and need to be precise, Dr. Tam should be coming here. When we introduced the motion in a prior meeting, it was agreed on a vote of 10-0, Mr. Chair, that we were going to have Dr. Tam come to committee to discuss the collection of Canadians' mobility data and what purpose was being served.

There's only one person who can answer that, and it's the person responsible for the public health response to this emergency. I think it was very important for Dr. Tam to come and tell us why this information and data were important. I know we have the minister coming on Thursday, but the motion was clear and unequivocal. It stated that both were to appear.

The committee has an authority of its own. We can, if we choose, compel Dr. Tam to come. I can tell you that I'm very disappointed that we are not going to hear from Dr. Tam as to why this data was collected secretly from 33 million Canadians to determine public health response. This also relates to the RFP. Publicly, the Public Health Agency of Canada has stated that the RFP was to determine the response to the pandemic—in particular lockdown effectiveness—but also the public health response and measures going forward. Who better to answer those questions than the chief public health officer of this country?

To say that I'm disappointed.... I share Mr. Green's disappointment, as well, that Dr. Tam is not coming to this committee after we voted 10-0 to have her come. I understand she's busy. I understand that we're still at the height of a critical point in this pandemic, but she should take the time for an hour to come to committee and answer these very relevant questions, not the least of which is, what other public health data is available to the Public Health Agency of Canada so it doesn't have to spy on Canadians' mobility data? That data is collected by PHAC, municipal and provincial public health agencies, and territorial health agencies. Hospitalization data is collected as well. That can all be used to determine what a public health response is going to be, so why was this done in secret?

The only person who can answer that question is the chief public health officer of Canada. I'm disappointed, quite frankly, Mr. Chair, that she's not coming to this committee after we voted 10-0. Even the Liberal members voted to have her come to this committee, and she's not coming.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Next, we have Monsieur Villemure.

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

In the same spirit as what Mr. Brassard said, it is not impossible to invite Dr. Tam again. The committee can still decide to do so.

That said, my comments mainly concern Mr. Fergus's motion.

The idea of having a guide for what we intend to do during this session is excellent. However, I don't think we should adhere to absolute dates. Although the idea of a guide is a good one, I would be more comfortable with setting tentative dates rather than final ones.

In addition, as Mr. Brassard was saying, our study could be fairly lengthy. I don't have enough committee experience to know how much time a study should take. That is why I am in favour of a tentative date and of an objective instead of a set date that cannot be pushed back. However, I would be completely in favour of trying to keep the objective, which does not seem unreasonable to me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Before I go to Mr. Fergus, I will point out that when it comes to the actual deadline to table a report in the House, we have to take into consideration the time necessary and the availability of the analysts. It is helpful, just in managing the analysts' time, to have at least a little flexibility.

With that, I will go to Mr. Fergus.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to respond to the comments made by Mr. Villemure, Mr. Brassard and Mr. Green.

The objective of my proposal is for us to establish a roadmap for the upcoming studies. Mr. Chair, you answered Mr. Brassard, concerning his study we will soon begin, that there were 16 meetings between now and the date I proposed. I hope that Mr. Brassard will be convinced of my good faith and my intention to give us enough time to carry out this study properly.

Mr. Chair, before I moved this motion, you said we would dedicate five or six meetings to the study proposed by Mr. Brassard. But I propose that we dedicate up to 16 meetings to that study. So I hope he will be reassured that I in no way want to restrict the committee's work unreasonably. The same goes for the other studies and for the appearance of the four officers of Parliament.

To answer Mr. Green's question, if the officers of Parliament are available to appear before June, they will be welcome to. I am just saying that they should be invited by June at the latest. We know that they have to appear, so we should get organized based on our witnesses' availability for certain studies and invite them when it suits us. That is my motion's objective.

The most important part of all this is that, since January 2019, we have been trying to carry out a study on facial recognition. Everyone is saying that this is important, critical, and even paramount, but we have put it off indefinitely for all sorts of reasons.

By clearly establishing our roadmap for this session, we could finally address this important issue, which disproportionately affects visible minority Canadians.

Two years ago, Radio-Canada reported on this issue with members of the National Assembly. At the time, this kind of a study was already desperately needed. So I think we should conduct this study now. I hope everyone will agree that I am proposing to dedicate a lot of time to these two studies and to the appearance of the four officers of Parliament. I don't think there is anything unreasonable in my proposal, and I would even go further by saying that it is very reasonable.

I hope the members will support my proposal. I think our meetings have gotten off to a good start. Of course, there have been some frictions, but so far, I am very proud to say that we have managed to achieve consensus on each of the motions we have adopted under your leadership, Mr. Chair. I hope everyone will be satisfied that I have the best of intentions—

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Mr. Fergus—

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

—and that I don't want to do anything that is not appropriate.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.