Evidence of meeting #1 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Madam Clerk, when you can get that, send it out to people, please.
I'm going to let Mr. Gerretsen finish his remarks, and hopefully by that time all the documents will be in front of people. If anybody wants to speak further, we'll allow that, and then we will go to a vote.
Mr. Gerretsen.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
This is on my amendment, Mr. Chair.
I put this forward as another attempt. This is my third attempt to try to provide some clarity around what's expected and what's going to happen. I think that the committee should get to hear from public servants who did the redactions and the law clerk and parliamentary counsel. What the opposition is doing—again this is in my opinion, and I don't want to get criticized for attacking anybody personally, because that's certainly not what I'm doing—is finding officials to have breached privileges of Parliament without even providing them the due process of explaining themselves. The due process, I believe, Mr. Chair, is extremely important.
If after the committee has heard from the witnesses it is still not satisfied, then it can take whatever actions are deemed necessary. But we need to afford that due process, Mr. Chair. I think that in light of allowing that due process to occur, we should pass this motion to invite those officials. If the opposition is genuinely and truly interested in getting information in front of them and getting down to the bottom of this, why they wouldn't support bringing those officials to the committee to explain the process for themselves is a mystery to me.
If you want to talk about transparency and clarity and the need for accountability, what could be more accountable than having these individuals come to committee and address the issue and explain this?
You remember that earlier, Mr. Chair, I talked about what I perceived as the motivation. It wasn't about getting the information as much as it was about trying to sensationalize blacked out documents. You recall, Mr. Chair, that I spoke to that. There's a very easy way to prove me wrong, which is to support this motion, to let the individuals come forward, to let them speak and to let their voices be heard on this. If you don't do that, then you're leaving the question of, well, why wouldn't you want to do that? That's how I come to the conclusion that you don't want to do it, because it might make this argument of some massive conspiracy that some have been trying to build up over the last several months fall completely flat. So if people vote against this and they're basically saying, no, we don't want these officials to come forward and explain the process, in my opinion what you're basically doing is saying, no, we don't want the details; we don't want the facts; those don't matter. We want the sensational part of Mr. Poilievre waving around blacked out papers that he probably just made by taking a square and painting it black and hitting print and using that as his prop.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
On a point of order, I don't know that it's right for a member to suggest that somebody was bringing a fake document to a press release, but we do continue to argue the problem.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I would say that is out of order, Mr. Gerretsen.
Go on with your argument.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
That's a really good point. I don't want to think that either, so I'll take back that comment.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I'm trying to be as candid about this as possible and as honest about this as possible. If you want to get down to the truth and you want to really understand why those items were redacted, why wouldn't you want to bring forward the people who can explain how and why they did it?
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Point of order.
Again, we're not asking why they were done; we were supposed to help to have the same thing—
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I think that, Madam Jansen, is debate. It's not a point of order. We'll finish with Mr. Gerretsen.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We'll go onto Ms. Dzerowicz and if you want in, then we will go to you, and hopefully we'll go to a vote after that.
Mr. Gerretsen.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I get the sense, Mr. Chair, that I'm hitting a nerve. Maybe I'm on to something here because every time I bring up this point, Conservatives tend to jump all over it and try to say that I'm accusing them personally, that I'm doing this and I'm doing that.
I think I'm getting to some of the truth here, which disturbs Conservatives, and that's why they're trying to throw me off every time I'm in the middle of bringing up this topic.
You want to hear from people, you want the truth, you want accountability, then let's hear from the people who produced the documents, and let's not go down a road that provides the sensational information that people can have, because you're just showing the political motive in all of this, as opposed to one that truly gets to truth and accountability.
My comments go not just to the Conservatives, but to the NDP and to the Bloc as well. If this is really about that then I'm sure they'll find it necessary to hear from the people who did this.
I'll leave it for now, thank you.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
It's true.
Anyway, Mr. Chair, thank you.
I'm going to repeat a little of what Mr. Gerretsen had mentioned. I think if you step back and look at what Mr. Poilievre's motion is about, and really from what I've heard from Mr. Julian, and we haven't heard a lot from Mr. Ste-Marie but my understanding is that he has this worry as well, if there is a belief that the redactions within the 5,600-page WE documents that were released towards the end of August were made because the Liberal government was deliberately trying to hide something, then this motion gets directly to the point.
The other thing I've been hearing, I've been hearing from Ms. Jansen and I've been hearing from Mr. Julian today, is that we should get going on stuff that matters to Canadians.
If we're trying to get to that, and if we need as a government to be able to prove that civil servants independently redacted this, and if we could actually bring them to committee, have them respond directly to the committee, directly provide the documents relevant to the committee, actually ask those questions ourselves in the public light, then I think we should be able to clear this up and move on to the business of why it is that we exist right now.
Let's ignore the fact for a moment, because we forget that the documents were just one part of the whole looking into the concerns around the selection of WE to run the CSSG, and recall that we had almost two full months of meetings on this committee, never mind the other committees and never mind that the Ethics Commissioner is looking at it, as well as the Auditor General. We have already proven, and we can go through all the people who want to remind themselves of this, whether they are new members or old members, or new or old members of this committee, that there are actually minutes that show this wasn't corruption. There was no misuse of funds. WE was independently selected by civil servants. We didn't do a sole-sourced contract. We selected a contribution agreement for very deliberate reasons, with clear parameters, and we absolutely did this for students.
I would say to you that this is an amazing opportunity. What this motion basically says, and I hope people have had a chance to look at it at this point, is that it's suspending the original motion that Mr. Poilievre put aside and the amendment, both of those, in order for us to be able to provide the two sets of documents we've been talking about today, as well as to bring forward the relevant civil servants who are in charge of doing the redactions. That would allow the committee to hear directly from them. This would all be done in the public context.
If for some reason the opposition is really unhappy with what they are hearing or they don't think it's enough, we can come back and we can make a decision to come back to the original motion of Mr. Poilievre as well as the amendment, although I would hope that we would be able to get past this, because as my colleague Mr. Gerretsen had indicated, then we will see this is just a game and this is just a way of our opposition members being able to say, “Well, you know what? We just want in some way to make the Liberals look bad.”
Right now, we are in an unprecedented pandemic. Canadians are asking us to be our best selves. Canadians are asking us to be the government they need us to be at this moment. That means we have to get past this partisan stuff. We have to get past these games, if only for the moment, if only for this year, because we have some really important work to do.
If this is what it's going to take, that we have to bring the officials who did the redactions, if we have to spend a meeting or two on discussing it, then let's move forward and do it so we can get on as fast as possible to the important work we have ahead, and to rebuilding our economy and to supporting Canadians through this most unprecedented pandemic.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay. I don't know if there are others after this, but I have Ms. Jansen and Mr. Fragiskatos. Then we will go to a vote, hopefully.
Ms. Jansen.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
I just want to say, from what I understand, Mr. Gerretsen's motion is to be able to explain why the non-partisan public service redacted the documents as opposed to the people who were supposed to, which was the Law Clerk.
This exact same thing happened at Health. Instead of it going straight to the Law Clerk, who is just as non-partisan and is just as efficient and amazing at his job as the non-partisan public service, it would have been perfectly fine for it to have gone to him instead of being done the way it was done.
I don't understand why he now wants to make this about why it was done like that when it should be about who should be doing it. That's what the motion is about: who should have done it. The point of privilege was that the Law Clerk was supposed to do it. He didn't. This is not done just here for the WE documents; it was done at Health as well.
Just the fact that Mr. Gerretsen suggested that Mr. Poilievre brought a fake document to a press release shows you who's doing political theatrics here.
October 15th, 2020 / 6:25 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I did. I think the public knows who does the political theatrics.
Liberal
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Dzerowicz raised a number of pertinent points. I certainly agree with what she said.
I also think it's important to remind opposition colleagues exactly what the subamendment is that Mr. Gerretsen is calling for, just in case there is confusion. I would have thought by now that we would have unanimous support for something that is quite reasonable.
It says that“after the committee reviews the two different versions of documents, the committee invite each of the relevant deputy ministers or the signatories of the transmittal letters as well as the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons to give testimony regarding the redactions applied to the documents that were requested and granted in the motion adopted on July 7, 2020.”
I fail to understand, Mr. Chair, what exactly the opposition has a problem with. The Liberal members of the committee and the government.... There's no obstruction here. You can't say that we, as Liberal members, are being obstructionist. In fact, we're trying to find a compromise.
We have a pretty good subamendment here. It's a very strong one; it is reasonable and it responsible. It would allow for committee members to give public servants and the law clerk the opportunity to tell us why particular redactions were made.
What is the opposition worried about? Are they worried, perhaps, that when public servants are questioned, they might say that the personal information of individuals is not something that should be revealed in public? That much is obvious—at least it should be obvious, but opposition members continue to have a problem with that, apparently—particularly the Conservatives. Are they worried that the law clerk would agree with that perspective? Perhaps they are, Mr. Chair. Let's allow those meetings to take place.
In the meantime, let's start planning for what is our chief responsibility right now, which is to abide by Standing Order 83.1. It's absolutely paramount, Mr. Chair.
So many things can be said on that front. When we look at our responsibility as members of Parliament, we not only think about what our role is.... Ms. Jansen put it very well. I had her quote in front of me, but it has since disappeared, so I won't look for it. She made the case this morning that she was elected by her constituents to go to Parliament to serve and to fight on behalf of the people in her community. Every single member of Parliament will echo that.
I humbly suggest to my opposition colleagues that they put some water into their wine, if I can use that analogy. Mr. Chair, Victor Hugo said, “Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.” I would add to that by saying that to be just, one must be fair. One must be open. One must be open to compromise.
Here is an opportunity to recognize that Liberal members and.... I speak for all of us here. Mr. Gerretsen has put forward a really credible amendment. It would allow us to move forward. It would allow the opposition to have their concerns heard, but in a way that is absolutely fair and, therefore, just.
Opposition colleagues were smiling when I brought up Victor Hugo. It's a famous quotation, and one that is quite relevant. We can't talk about fairness without talking about justice. He, obviously, had a great deal to say on the matter of justice.
What is wrong, in the spirit of fairness and justice, to bring public servants to the committee to put on record why they did what they did? I think it's fundamentally—
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
For the benefit of the member, he might also appreciate a quote by Winston Churchill, who once said, “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.”
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
That is debate, Mr. Chair. It is not a point of order.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I think that's a matter of debate, Mr. Genuis, and not a point of order.
