Information & Ethics Committee on Jan. 31st, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome back to the information, privacy and ethics committee as we start in 2023.

Hopefully, Madam Clerk and analysts, you had a good time off. I know the analysts were busy with report writing. Welcome back, everyone.

Welcome to meeting number 54 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 June 23, 2022. Therefore, members can attend in person and remotely using the Zoom application.

Should any technical difficulties arise, please advise me immediately. Please note that we may need to suspend the meeting for a few moments to ensure that all members are able to participate fully.

For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. I see that we have one member on Zoom today.

The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can. We appreciate your patience and understanding on this.

Now, you'll notice that we received an amended notice of motion. We're going to be dealing with one issue first, but Ms. Khalid has asked me for this.

Because you require a substitution for particular meetings, Ms. Khalid, that requires a motion by the committee. Perhaps you could place that motion on the floor now, before we start deliberating on the 106(4) request.

Thank you.

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

Thanks very much, Chair.

Welcome back, everybody. It's going to be a great session, I'm sure.

Very briefly, Chair, I'd like to move that member of Parliament Annie Koutrakis have access to all of our digital binders, and that she be included in all committee submissions and document circulation as well, as she'll be subbing in for me every Friday until June.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Khalid.

I don't see Mr. Green yet. Where is he?

[A voice]

He's here.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay. That's fine.

We have quorum, so the motion is on the floor.

Are there any questions or comments? Do we have consensus on that?

(Motion agreed to)

Thank you, Ms. Khalid.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), the committee is commencing consideration of the request by at least four members of the committee to undertake a study of the subject matter of the report of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner entitled the “Ng Report”.

Again, for members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can, and we appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.

Mr. Barrett, we'll go to you first, sir.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

I have some introductory remarks and am prepared to move a motion. I would just ask, through you, Chair, if perhaps the clerk can circulate that motion to all members. It's available in both official languages. Then they can have the opportunity to take a look at it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Barrett, my understanding is that the clerk has just distributed that motion to all members.

I also want to welcome Mr. Garon, who is replacing Mr. Villemure today.

Mr. Garon, is it just for today, or for Friday's meeting as well?

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

It might be for the whole week.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Garon.

The motion has been circulated to the committee members, according to the clerk.

Mr. Barrett, you still have the floor.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've all received the letter calling for this meeting. I'm pleased we are able to have the meeting during our regular committee slot today, in order to take a look at this issue. We saw the Ethics Commissioner publish, late in 2022, the “Ng Report”. It details how tens of thousands of dollars were paid, with authorization from a minister, to a contractor, and that it was done in an inappropriate way. In fact, the Ethics Commissioner deemed it was in contravention of our ethics act.

The issue here, of course, is the personal friendship between the principal at Pomp & Circumstance, Ms. Alvaro, and Minister Ng.

The situation in which we find ourselves is the fifth occasion on which a member of cabinet, a privy councillor, has breached Canada's ethics laws. It's important that Canadians be able to have confidence in their public institutions and get a full accounting of what went on. The members of the opposition have asked for this meeting, so we can initiate that process.

It's important to note, Mr. Chair, that this committee has a full agenda. We have lots of work to do this spring. Having spoken with other members, I hope this motion was crafted in such a way that it can be addressed in relatively short order, so we can continue to do the other work this committee has planned. That being said, this is some of that important work. That's why it rose to the level of using Standing Order 106(4) to trigger this meeting.

Canadians need to know that the expenditures the government undertakes are done on their behalf, not to the benefit of any individual in an inappropriate way. We're going to look at this case in order to find out what the details are. Ideally, we will find ourselves in a place, in 2023—it's a new year—where this series of ethical breaches has reached its conclusion. First, we need to get the details of what occurred up to this point.

As was said, Mr. Chair, we have circulated a motion. It's in both official languages. I'm going to read it into the record in just one moment. The occurrences we've seen, of course, are five violations of the ethics act: “The Trudeau Report”, the “Trudeau II Report”, the “Morneau Report”, the “LeBlanc Report” and the “Ng Report”. Canadians are rightly concerned. We've heard an awful lot from them. Certainly, my office and those of other opposition members have heard a great deal from them over the last week, since the release of this report.

The motion we circulated is as follows:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h) and in relation to the Ng Report, the committee undertake a study into Minister Mary Ng's violations of the Conflict of Interest Act; that the committee dedicate two meetings to the study; that the committee send for, in unredacted format, all documents related to contracting with Pomp & Circumstance PR, including: time sheets and statements of work performed by Pomp & Circumstance PR under each contract, all work product provided by Pomp & Circumstance PR under each contract, and dates and locations of work performed by Pomp & Circumstance PR under each contract; that these documents be provided to the clerk of the committee in electronic format no later than 12:00 noon on the 10th business day following the adoption of this motion; that the committee invite the following witnesses in addition to any further witnesses the committee may consider relevant to appear: Minister Ng, Amanda Alvaro and the Deputy Minister for International Trade; that the committee report its finding to the House; and that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

Mr. Chair, I think, with the number of meetings detailed in this and the other particulars requested—the document production order—that it's very narrow.

The number of meetings is limited. We are not looking to do an examination of any of the other reports dealing with the Conflict of Interest Act from the commissioner or any other reports with respect to the code for members. This is very narrow, very focused. I hope to find a path forward this afternoon so that we can undertake this work, get answers for Canadians, dispose of it and then move on to the other work of this committee.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

The motion is in order.

I have Ms. Khalid speaking next.

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

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate this.

First, I appreciate my colleagues across the way for engaging in conversations about what we were expecting today with this meeting. I appreciate Mr. Barrett's taking some of our feedback into account in drafting this motion.

However, this is the first time we are looking at the exact wording of the motion. Seeking your indulgence, Mr. Chair, perhaps we can suspend for five minutes while I confer with my colleagues on exactly what documents are being requested and the timelines and the logistics of such. Is that okay, Mr. Chair?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thanks. That's fine with us.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We will suspend to give you that chance to look over the motion, and we'll be back in five.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We're going to resume the meeting. We had a bit longer than a five-minute suspension.

Ms. Khalid, when we left you had the floor. I'm going to go back to you, please.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

I appreciate the suspension. We've been able to have discussions among ourselves. Hopefully we'll come to an amenable conclusion at the end of this.

I have proposed—I'm not sure if Mr. Barrett would like to take this as a friendly amendment or if you want me to move a formal amendment—to delete the words “that the committee report its findings to the House; and that the government table a comprehensive response to the report”.

That is the only amendment we'll propose, if it's agreeable to everybody around the table.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I'm not going to accept that as a friendly. I'll accept that as an amendment and see if there's any discussion on the amendment that's proposed.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

There's consensus for it to pass.

(Amendment agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

It's a new year, Mr. Green. Everybody's working together.

Now that we have the motion as amended, we'll deal with that.

Do we have consensus on the amended motion?

(Motion as amended agreed to)

I went to committee chair training over the break and it's worked out well.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

And I have a great clerk and great analysts to rely on.

We'll go to committee business now, to determine.... In the context of committee business, you've asked that there be two meetings on this particular motion.

For the committee's information, we have the lobbying commissioner coming in on Friday. We've already scheduled that. She has agreed to come in for two hours to deal with the proposals she came up with on changing the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct.

In addition to that, I've had numerous requests on the ATIP study. Since the tabling of the ATIP report in the House of Commons by the Treasury Board president, the Information Commissioner has asked to come back to this committee. We have had other requests to reappear before the committee. That's dealing with the ATIP.

On this issue, here's what I'd like to do, if we can, to deal with this next week. On Friday, we have the lobbying commissioner. We have next Tuesday and Friday to deal with this motion that just passed, and then we can move on.

This is where the discussion needs to take place. We have a lot of irons in the fire here. It's whether we focus on the ATIP study.... We still have the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct. We have the foreign interference study that we're waiting to start. I appreciate the fact that everybody has submitted their witness lists on that.

We also have two other issues that we need to dispose of. One is the ArriveCAN app, which is still hanging, and the other is the Roxham Road study, which is still out there as well—it has been suspended. Those are the things we're dealing with.

My suggestion to the committee—and I think the clerk and the analysts can deal with this—is to deal next week with this motion that just passed and then move forward with some of the other issues.

To me, the priority would be the ATIP study, because there's a lot of interest. I expect that when the lobbying commissioner comes on Friday, there will be some others.... We've heard from others who want input on the proposed changes to the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct.

The decision we have to make in terms of the priority is between the ATIP and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct. I hope that the committee agrees with me that we'll deal and dispose of this matter next week on Tuesday and Friday. Then we can come back and deal with either the ATIP or the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct.

Ms. Khalid, you have your hand up.

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

Thanks, Chair.

I have some remarks on the list we have pending.

On the motion we've just passed, obviously it would depend on the minister's availability as well, I would assume. Pending the minister's availability, I don't think it should be a problem.

I have a point of clarification that I'll perhaps put to you, Chair.

With the foreign interference study, we said it was the first thing we were going to do. Procedurally, how does that work when we've all agreed on a motion that says this is the first study, and now we're delaying it a bit further? That's another one.

With respect to Roxham Road, I know we adjourned the debate or the discussion on that specifically because members were not really interested in pursuing it. I would appreciate it if we could wait for Monsieur Villemure to return before we pick up any discussions on that one, because I know he was interested in that.

That's all I have for now. Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I'm going to deal with some of the questions Ms. Khalid asked.

This is where we stand right now: We have the ATIP study, and we have the Treasury Board report submitted to Parliament. There's lots of interest in that. We have the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct. The commissioner is coming Friday, and there's lots of interest in that. Then, of course, there's the China interference. That is what I'm trying to juggle. I'm seeking the committee's consensus on where we want to go after next week, and what the priority is.

I've spoken with Mr. Villemure, and I know he would like to start the foreign interference study as quickly as possible.

However, I will ask you this, Madam Clerk: In the motion on the foreign interference study, if I recall, the word “immediate” was in there, or something to that effect. Is that correct?

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

It was actually an amendment that was moved and adopted, so it could be a priority of the committee. However, at the end of the meeting, some of the members said that notwithstanding the fact they'd said it was a priority, they would give the committee a bit of leeway to work around it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

That's what I recall.

For the benefit of the committee, we have up until the House is set to adjourn in June. I know it's early to be talking about that, since we just got back, but we have 30 meetings scheduled for this committee, from this point forward. With everything in the air and all the studies asked for, we have to be mindful and try to fit all of that in. My goal is to fit all of it in, but if I were to have priorities right now, as chair, they are ATIP and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct.

I'll remind the committee, as well, that we sent a letter to the Lobbying Commissioner, asking her to hold off on gazetting that, because there was interest—on the part of the committee and others outside the committee—in understanding a bit more about what some of those proposed changes are. That's where things stand right now.

Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.