Finance Committee on Oct. 8th, 2020

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I'm saying that both the Speaker and the law clerk indicated it is within the power of the committee to deal with this issue. I'm saying that Bosc and Gagnon says that what is within the—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

No. To be clear on that, though, are you saying that the Speaker indicated that, because it's with the committee, it should not be reported back to the House? I'm just clarifying.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

No, I don't believe the Speaker made that ruling.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

The Speaker is all right with us reporting the matter back to the House, then.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Chair, I don't think they've specifically made that...either. I think they've—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Actually, they have. I'm quoting the Speaker now: ““If it believes that its privileges have been breached or has any other concern with respect to the situation, it can report to the House.”

I'm quoting from the Speaker. You're quite wrong. The Speaker did rule on that matter, and I am acting in accordance with his ruling.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We're going to go back to the list.

I believe that Mr. Fraser is right. I don't have the right to rule on the question of privilege, and I don't intend to, but we do have the right to debate the motion and report back to the House.

I'll go back to you, Mr. Fraser, unless you're complete. Did you not make another amendment at the end of your remarks?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I proposed an amendment to the motion as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

If we didn't overrule the privilege point....

Go ahead. What's the amendment, so that we have that, and we'll see where that goes?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Certainly, Mr. Chair. Let me just bring up the simple language again.

I've already moved the amendment to Mr. Poilievre's motion, that it simply add the language “and that pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests a government response to the committee's report.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay. Would that be a friendly amendment, by chance, Mr. Poilievre?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It would not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We are on the amendment, and I see that Mr. McLeod's hand is up to speak.

I'll go back to my list and then come to the amendment.

Ms. Koutrakis.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Where do I begin? At the risk of repeating what many of my colleagues have already said, as per the Speaker's ruling and as of today, it is not possible to know whether the committee is satisfied with the documents it was provided. The new session is now under way. The committee, which has control over the interpretation of its order, has an opportunity to examine the documents and decide what to do with them.

On September 23, the House adopted an order setting out a specific procedure to re-establish committees, including the Standing Committee on Finance. Given these facts and circumstances, it is my view that this is a matter for the committee to consider. If it believes its privileges have been breached or has any other concern with respect to the situation, it can report it back to the House.

For these reasons the chair cannot find there is a prima facie question of privilege. We have not received the documents. The documents were released on August 18, which was the same day Parliament was prorogued. As a consequence, the committee could not sit, could not review the documents nor report to the House, so the documents have not been reviewed by the committee.

All Canadians are watching us. We're in the second wave of COVID. They're concerned about their families. They're concerned about their health. The finance committee has very important work to do. As my colleague, Ms. Dzerowicz, mentioned earlier, we've received just south of 800 requests to appear before our committee. There is a deadline to report to the House.

I can't believe, and I'm disappointed actually, to see that parliamentarians who were so hard at work throughout the whole summer.... In the previous session, this finance committee did very important work, and we received a lot of relevant comments. It's time to start working on the very important work we have before us, without getting caught up in points of privilege and technical issues.

The average Canadian is looking to us for leadership. They're looking to us for solutions. They're looking to us to help them through this difficult time. They're looking to us to come up with recommendations on how we're going to recover from this terrible time.

I respectfully request that everybody around this table, including colleagues on my side of the aisle and all my colleagues around the table, do the important work Canadians have asked of us. It's time to move on. It's time to stop trying to trip each other up over technicalities and get to the real work that Canadians are expecting from us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

In order for me to be proper on this, we really need to debate the amendment before we come back and make a decision on the proposed amendment.

If I could have Mr. Fraser read the amendment again, I'll take a speakers list on that, or we'll go to a vote on the amendment and then come back on the motion as amended.

It was basically that the government report back to the committee. Is that right?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

It was, yes. That's effectively the proposed amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Is there any discussion on that, or are we going to a vote on the amendment?

Mr. Poilievre wouldn't take it as a friendly amendment, so we're going to have to debate it.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

The reason for the proposed amendment is with regard to the accusation that the government's conduct violated members' privileges. It would be appropriate, in our parliamentary democracy, to give the government an opportunity to respond to those allegations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, we'll vote on the amendment.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Going back to the list on the original motion, we have Mr. Poilievre, followed by Mr. Ste-Marie, Mr. Falk and Mr. McLeod.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It feels like we're back in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Let's start with the circular logic. The Speaker of the House received a point of privilege about the cover-up of these documents. He said he couldn't deal with this and that it should be sent to the committee. Here we are at committee, and now Liberal members are arguing that the committee can't deal with this and to leave that with the Speaker.

In Orwell's great work, these loudspeakers used to yell out to get people into the rhythm of circular thought and confuse them. The poem they would repeat over again was:

Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree.

Here we are, under the spreading chestnut tree, listening to the circular logic of Liberal members who try to bounce this issue back and forth, keep it out of everyone's hands so that it's nowhere and nothing. We want the truth, and we're going to pursue the truth.

Speaking of the truth, the second argument of our Liberal colleagues here is that the truth no longer exists because of prorogation. Not only did prorogation shut down the debate, but it erased history. Now they are telling us there never were any documents, they didn't exist, the committee never received a thing, and what are you talking about? That page of history has been erased by the ministry of truth. The officials there went through and erased that out of existence. There have been no documents. There is no WE. The Kielburgers, we don't have any record of their existence. “Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.”

That's what we have before us right now.

Mr. Chair, if you are still with me here in the real world, I think you will agree that we did receive documents, they were covered in ink, they did not respect the will of this committee, and a breach of our privilege has occurred. It is now only up to us to report it to the House, where it can be voted upon by members and ruled upon by the Speaker. Let us go forth and do our job. Let us put an end to the circular logic, the erasure of history and the silly games played by the members of the governing party.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Next is Mr. Ste-Marie, followed by Mr. Falk.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Chair, these are a critical times.

The pandemic is having unprecedented health and economic consequences.

Millions of people and hundreds of thousands of businesses are experiencing great difficulties and we have a duty to listen to them and ask the government to better adapt its programs.

All the members of this committee are convinced of that. This is our raison d'être and this is what we do.

It's not just the job of Liberal MPs to do that.

At the same time, because the government is managing programs of unprecedented magnitude, it must be trustworthy.

Did the government act ethically, beyond all suspicion, to avoid creating doubt in the population?

This is another issue that is crucial and essential. It is our duty as committee members to address it. We have asked the government to provide us with documents, and they have provided us with documents that have been redacted and censored. Hence the motion of privilege that has been moved by our colleague Mr. Poilievre, which is entirely appropriate and which I will be supporting.

Will the committee suggest, as Mr. Julian asked earlier, that the House be asked to create a special committee to continue to shed light on the We Charity scandal?

I would like us to move and adopt this motion so that we can look at the pre-budget consultations and continue to hear from stakeholders on the economic impact of COVID-19.

All of this is essential, but we must not forget—this is really important—that the government must be trustworthy and beyond suspicion. This includes the documents we ask for. We want it to provide them to us, not redacted or censored.

That is why I fully support the motion presented here by our colleague Mr. Poilievre.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Ste-Marie.

We'll hear from Mr. Falk, Mr. McLeod, Ms. Dzerowicz and then Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I, too, want to draw attention to the fact that we are in a time of COVID and that this committee was seized with very important work. It's certainly part of the mandate of this committee to explore whether government monies, whether the funds allocated for specific projects, were properly dispatched and whether there was any corruption involved in the dispatch of those funds.

The committee made a request of the government to provide documentation. The government didn't respond in good faith. In fact, the government tried to hide the truth. It's incumbent upon this committee to get to the truth.

A point of privilege was raised in the House. On October 1, the Speaker made a ruling that this committee needed to deal with the point of privilege. A point of privilege was made. Mr. Chair, I think you've recognized that. A subsequent motion was made that this committee continue on its quest for truth and ask to see a copy of those unredacted documents presented to the committee in the time frame of one day.

I am going to be supporting the motion. I think it's the right thing for this committee to do.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.