Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 18th, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you for that, Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Villemure, you raised your hand. Is it for the amendment or something else?

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

No, just to say that I would like to hear the three amendments to give us an overview.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay.

We are talking about the second amendment right now.

It's on the floor. Is there any further discussion on this? Do we have agreement among the committee?

We don't.

Let's go to a vote on the amendment, which is to remove “the Minister of Environment” and “the Minister of Finance”, and to have the Minister of Industry, Innovation and Science appear before the committee.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 7; nays 3)

We have another amendment by Madame Fortier to the main motion.

Is this the final one?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

This is the final one coming from me today.

Again, as we see in the current motion that has been tabled, we talk about perusing all documents related to this program, including emails and briefings. I believe that the report presented by the third party that has been given the mandate to audit this issue—Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton—would be a sufficient document to bring to the committee's attention. I don't think we need to do the job for a third party that just audited this report.

Therefore, my third amendment, Mr. Chair, would be that, after the word “produce”, we would replace the remaining text with a copy of the report by Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton. That is my third amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay. We've heard the terms of the amendment, which is, just to recap, after the word “produce”, to include the report from Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton; that is, to eliminate all the words after “produce” and replace them with that.

Mr. Kurek, go ahead, please, on the amendment.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

I think it's concerning that we would not permit the committee to take a look at what, obviously, is a very concerning situation and the associated documentation. The government has a track record of covering up, of not producing documents when asked and of hiding behind things like cabinet confidence.

Mr. Chair, I think it's important that this motion be expansive in allowing this committee to access any and all documentation that is related to this issue to ensure that Canadians can in fact get answers.

With respect to the intent of the motion, we understand and we've heard that an audit and an investigation has taken place, but certainly, there's a basic question of trust here. Certainly, I hear from Canadians on a daily basis that there is not trust in the government and, as a result, I think this committee needs to have the ability to ask for those documents and certainly should be entitled to do so.

I think it is incumbent upon us to keep that in the motion, and I certainly will not be supporting this amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you for that, Mr. Kurek.

I see that Mr. Green's hand is up.

Go ahead, Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to take a moment to just draw on some experience I had in another committee that had a prolific number of document requests.

Through you, Mr. Chair, does anybody around the table have any idea, based on appendices or anything, of how many documents we're talking about? The reason I ask is that I would like for this committee.... I would assume that this committee would like to see the documents before we commence the study. I think that would be an obvious first step. We would receive the documents, and then we would have the study, rather than call witnesses before we've seen any of the documents.

If that's the case—and we're talking about documents in the thousands, or as in my other committee, tens of thousands—I would caution that this would require a translation service that might prove to be onerous for the purpose of this study. We need to ensure that the French language is protected at all times within the House of Commons, and that bilingualism is protected as a foundation of the country.

My concern is that, if we're doing a demand for documents that includes tens of thousands of documents, in a very practical way it would be very unlikely that we would get to this study before at least mid-2024. That's what I'm dealing with at another committee.

I'm wondering if there's any light on exactly what it is that we're talking about in terms of the scale of the documents.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Frankly, Mr. Green, I just asked the clerk and there is no way of knowing this, but there are some options that we could explore. We could start by accepting the amendment as proposed by Madame Fortier to have the report. We're going to have the study. We're going to have witnesses that come, so the committee can, at any point, ask for particular documents to be requested either after or during the appearance of a witness before the committee.

We have no way of narrowing down, based on the way the motion is right now, just what the volume of the documents is going to be. If there's some way.... Maybe we start with the report—this is my suggestion as the chair—and then, of course, as you know, Mr. Green, the committee has the ability and the authority to compel witnesses for documents if we require them at a later time.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, again, on a practical notion, I haven't received...or I don't know the full extent of the report. Do you know how many pages it is? Has it already been translated into both official languages? We may find that it's voluminous. We may find that there are two or three.... I don't know how extensive the Grant Thornton audit was.

Does anybody in the room know how many pages it was? These are practical considerations that would create a tremendous delay and would be pretty cost-intensive for us to have to translate.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I don't have an answer to that question.

If anybody in this room does have an answer to the question, please help me out here.

Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.

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

Although I don't know the actual number of pages, I do think it is a more clear, concise or clean way for us to start this, as opposed to just putting out a call for a whole bunch of documents that we have no idea about.

I absolutely agree with Mr. Green. We should have a more practical approach to this. I'm more than happy to start with this report and then see where we land.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I have Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If I could have the floor, Chair, although I will cede the floor to any other members from other parties who want to go on the record and say they agree with me.... I'm happy to do that any time.

I'm looking for my Conservative and Bloc friends to do the same. We can move forward with this. I want to let everyone know where we're headed, because I know, Mr. Villemure, that the francophones around the table, Ms. Fortier and others, will not allow us to receive information that is not translated into both official languages. As New Democrats, we will continue to fight for those language rights.

At this point, I'm happy to end my time on the intervention and allow my colleagues to intervene.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay. Thank you for your intervention, Mr. Green.

I'm interested in hearing what.... I do have a list. I have Mr. Villemure, Mr. Barrett and Madame Fortier.

Look, we've made some headway here in terms of coming to an agreement on at least two of the amendments, the majority of the committee.... I suspect that the emails and all of the documents will be exhaustive. If there's some way that we can find a way to start with this report, I would strongly consider that, and then use our leverage as a committee to compel further documents if we need to at some point. This may be a good starting point for us. Maybe not. It all depends on the committee.

Go ahead, Mr. Villemure.

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

Such reports are usually complete and are rarely more than a hundred pages.

I have contributed to various reports and I think they serve as a good basis. Even if we start looking through emails, among other things, we are not even able to analyze them. To my mind, the report is sufficient. It was probably produced in both official languages, so I am happy to start with that.

I would like to propose an amendment later on.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I'm relying on Alexandra here, our analyst.

In a September 25 news article, the report was expected to be released publicly in the coming weeks. We're in the coming weeks. I'm not sure that the report has been released at this point. I suspect, as Alexandra said, that perhaps it's in translation in order to be released publicly. Just to be clear, that report is not available at this point—at least based on this.

Go ahead, Michael.

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

Chair, should I complete my hat trick and lose three votes in a row here?

To Mr. Green's point, if we request this report and it's not available because it has not been produced or the translation has not been provided for it, I wouldn't see anyone on the committee looking to take steps to order its production when it's in production. As a starting point, as you said, if the committee then has a request for individual documents that we've identified through witness testimony or through our review of this report once it's available in both official languages, then I think we could further our end of providing some answers for Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay. What I will do, with the help of the clerk and the analyst, is find out when the expected date of this report is to be released publicly, and if we can find out an answer to that. As I stated earlier, we're not going to start this study if the motion is adopted as amended in the next couple of weeks. This article appeared on September 25, and it said that it was going to happen in the coming weeks. We are in the coming weeks now. If you can just leave that with us, we'll find out if we can get some information and then I can relay that to the committee.

Michael, if you're saying this is a good starting point and that we can agree to that....

I have Mona next.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I just want to say that it is important that the document be produced in both official languages, but we have already discussed that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We know it is important to produce the report in both official languages. It will not be sent out in one language only.

On the amendment, I'm sensing we have agreement on that.

I don't need to take a roll, do I? What do you want to do?

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

Let's do it. Let's make it a hat trick.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 7; nays 3 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We have a motion as amended.

Go ahead, Mr. Villemure.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to suggest an amendment to the motion in order to include the evaluation of the degree of ministerial interference or potential ministerial conflicts of interest in this situation. Ideally, I would like to motion to be worded that way.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Just to be clear, which minister are you referring to?