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
Liberal
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
If we wanted to give them a real challenge, I would do my best to do this in French and see if the translators can make me sound sensible. I think it will take me a few more years of practice.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to our translators. I'll do my best to speak at a pace that is perhaps easier to translate.
Picking up from the motion, I'll carry on from roughly where I thought I was:
...from senior officials prepared for or sent to any Minister regarding the design and creation of the Canada Student Service Grant, as well as any written correspondence and records of other correspondence with We Charity and Me to We from March 2020 be provided to the Committee no later than August 8, 2020; that matters of Cabinet confidence and national security be excluded from the request; and that any redactions necessary, including to protect the privacy of Canadian citizens and permanent residents whose names and personal information may be included in the documents, as well as public servants who have been providing assistance on this matter, be made by the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons.
We're going back to the deputy minister's text in his letter rather than the quote of the motion now. It reads:
Documents are also enclosed as part of this package related to the undertakings of the Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to Cabinet, Mr. Ian Shugart, further to his testimony to the Committee on July 21, 2020.
The Committee’s motion stipulates that Cabinet confidences and national security information are to be excluded from the package. No information is being withheld on the grounds of national security....
The same was true with Mr. Shugart's letter.
I will continue:
...since the information does not so pertain. With respect to Cabinet confidences, you will note that considerable information on the Canada Student Service Grant contained in Cabinet confidences is being provided to the Committee. This is in keeping with the public disclosures of information on this matter made by members of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada. A principled approach was taken with respect to this information to ensure a non-selective application of the protection afforded by Cabinet confidentiality. As a result, considerable information on the Canada Student Service Grant that would otherwise be protected as Cabinet confidence is being released. Information not related to the Canada Student Service Grant that is contained in Cabinet confidences is withheld and identified as not relevant to the request.
With respect to personal information, the department is obliged to protect such information under the Privacy Act unless the individuals to whom it relates consent to its disclosure, or disclosure is otherwise authorized in certain specified circumstances or the public interest in disclosure clearly outweighs any resulting invasion of privacy.
It comes back to the point I made at the outset of this meeting, that there is, in fact, a natural tension that exists where you have the committee demanding one thing and the public service being subjected to legislation, including the Privacy Act, where things are not as clear as we might like them to be.
In any event, the letter continues:
Reasonable efforts were made by the department to obtain consent. Where consent was not given, the department found that the public interest in sharing the information with the Committee outweighed any invasion of the individual's privacy. As such, disclosure is being made pursuant to subparagraph 8(2)(m)(i) of the Privacy Act. As required by that Act, the Privacy Commissioner was informed of our decision. In very limited cases, personal information was redacted from these records as consent was not obtained from the individuals concerned nor was the department able to conclude that the public interest in disclosure clearly outweighed the invasion of the individuals' privacy. The type of personal information that remains protected consists of the identity of unrelated third parties where their opinion or view relates to an unrelated matter to this inquiry, as well as personal e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
As I referred to earlier in the meeting as well:
With respect to pages 190 and 194-213, further to consultation with the originating stakeholder, authorization to disclose this information was not given as it constitutes personal information as defined under the Privacy Act. Furthermore, this information is considered proprietary to the third party. The contents of this information is not relevant to the funding agreement or the Student Grant Program therefore, it has been severed in its entirety.
That would explain certain redactions made at those page numbers.
For clarity, note that there were a series of e-mails between Finance officials and staff in the Minister of Finance's Office regarding next steps. Of note, an email from the Minister's Office to Michelle Kovacevic on April 18 lists a series of items for the department to follow-up on as well as some items “WE ” will address. In this instance, “WE” is a typographical error and refers to the Minister's Office, not WE Charity. Also of note, the Annex 4 dated April 19 contains an error that was corrected verbally in an April 21 briefing with the Minister of Finance. While page 6 of the note references a cost estimate of $0.8 billion for the proposal plus potential administration costs, pages 7, 8, and 9 recommend setting aside up to $1 billion ($900 million for the initiative and an additional $100 million for implementation and associated costs). The correct recommendation ($900 million) is reflected in the April 21 version of the note, also enclosed in the package. Finally, following the April 21 briefing, a draft Ministerial Decision Page (enclosed as the first page of the April 21, 2020 version of the note) was prepared and routed to the Finance Minister's Office for review and approval by the Minister of Finance. This Ministerial Decision Page was not formally approved by the Minister of Finance. A formal decision was later made by the Prime Minister and is reflected in the package. Yours sincerely, Paul Rochon, Deputy Minister of the Department of Finance.
Again, we're seeing in these letters that members of the committee are seeking to have excluded from consideration important context that actually puts into context the very specific reasons redactions would have been made. We're seeing an example of openness in divulging more information, in fact, than the committee requested when you look specifically to those items that would ordinarily be subject to cabinet confidences.
Mr. Chair, it's not just one or two departments. Several of them have included these kinds of letters.
Conservative
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
I'm just concerned that the reading into the record of the documents... Although I love Mr. Fraser's dulcet tones, and it's lovely to hear him read, if you look in House of Commons Procedure and Practice:
The Chair can curtail prolonged debate by limiting Members' speeches to points which have not already been made.... The freedom of debate enjoyed by Members does not extend to the repetition of arguments that have already been heard.
In the context of the legislative process, this...restriction applies to the Members' remarks only within the same stage of debate on a bill. Arguments advanced at one stage may [also] be legitimately be represented at another.
Finally, the rule against repetition has been used by Speakers in various other ways to assist the House in making efficient use of its time. Speakers have ruled against the tedious reading of letters even when they were used in support of an argument;
As I said, at the rate we're going I'm afraid Mr. Fraser is going to end up reading all 5,000 pages from the documents into the record. I wonder whether we could just go to a vote.
Liberal
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
—what Mr. Fraser has been reading is not repetitious. He is reading in the important parts of those letters and I think it's important for that to be on the record. If Ms. Jansen's point is that it's repetitious, it isn't.
October 15th, 2020 / 3:10 p.m.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
I think my point is that we are now reading the documents into the record. We are just saying, let's vote, let's move on, let's get it over and done with. That's what we would love, and to get back to work.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I think the point is that Mr. Fraser is putting it on the record so that we have it in the committee blues, so that it's on the record there.
Liberal
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
I was going to say that it's perfectly fine for Ms. Jansen to interject, but I don't see the relevance here. I don't think that Mr. Fraser is repeating, he is making a point. Now, he is using a number of examples—
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
On this point of order I wonder if the chair could just make a ruling.
Liberal
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
And so was I. I'm not sure who sets the precedence.
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
No, that's not a point of order.
I'll go to Ms. Jansen to see whether she wants in on her point of order—
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
I'm just wondering if you could rule on that point of order so that we can move on.