Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 27th, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

The amendment from Mr. Kurek to the motion moved by Ms. Khalid is to remove paragraph (c).

Is there any discussion on the amendment? Please keep in mind that we have until 5:45.

Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.

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

Mr. Chair, I guess it would be helpful to know the number of witnesses who have declined to appear. That would be important information. If you could provide that information, then I would like to speak further to the amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I'm just going to go back to last week. I believe the clerk sent out a list of where we were with the witnesses.

Was that sent to all members of the committee?

[The Clerk]

It was requested by Ms. Fortier, but it was not sent to everybody.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

It was requested by Ms. Fortier.

[The Clerk]

I can send it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We can certainly send that out to you, if you're looking for information on that now. Would you prefer that we send that out to you, Mr. Barrett, or...?

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

It would be well received, but the number of witnesses, if you could....

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

If we can do rough math here....

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

That would be great.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay, Madam Clerk, if you want to....

[The Clerk]

You would like to know, approximately, how many people have declined.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Yes. How many people have declined?

[The Clerk]

Nine have declined, but some of them are double, because some of them were suggested by both the Conservatives and the Liberals.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Nine in total have declined of those who were asked. Some of them were on multiple parties' lists.

Can you just clarify what that yellow line is there?

[The Clerk]

Those are the people we've not been able to get in touch with.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay, we are waiting for an answer.

We have roughly, by my count, about five or six from whom we haven't heard back at this point. Nine have refused, have said “no”, and we're still waiting for a response from, roughly, five.

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

I'll just clarify. Some of those nine are listed in my motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

The clerk just reminded me that some of them were not invited at this point because they were not part of the work plan that was approved by the committee.

I'll just remind members, as well, that the reason the RCMP commissioner is coming on December 11 is that he made himself available to appear on that date. We had agreed to start the SNC study after the social media study, but the RCMP commissioner said that he was available on December 11, so that's why we agreed to have him come on that day. Obviously, we have to accommodate his schedule, too.

Mr. Barrett.

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

Being mindful of the time, Mr. Chair, I would be interested to know if you sought, from committee, consensus to action item (a) of Ms. Khalid's motion—just on consensus—and to fit those folks in based on the work plan that was approved by the subcommittee. If you have time to do that in the remaining three minutes that we have before we run out of resources, then we can deal with Mr. Kurek's amendment and the main motion.

Instructing the chair to just send invitations to everyone on the witness list does not, I think, require a motion. It can be done on consensus.

[An hon. member]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We were going to get to that point anyway.

The problem we have right now is that we have an amendment we need to dispose of or deal with.

If it's the consensus of the committee for us to send—

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

No, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

It's not. Okay, there goes that idea.

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

Okay.