Finance Committee on Oct. 8th, 2020

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Just give it to the law clerk.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

—because he will not allow them to come here and do that.

I still have a lot to go. I am on page 68 of 151 pages, Mr. Chair. I still have more to enter in here that I think is entirely appropriate, so I am going to continue to do that now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Go ahead. You still have the floor.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you.

I'm sorry, Mr. Poilievre, if I got under your skin there a little bit, but you will have an opportunity to respond in good time.

We have more emails here. I am now on the email that is on page 458, again looking at public servants involved in the Canada student service grant file. The content is all visible.

Mr. Poilievre, do you want to guess what's missing?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

The law clerk.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

No, it's the nine-digit phone number that you're obsessed with getting.

The only thing—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I just want to call the public servant and ask for the documents to be handed over in accordance with the motion. That's why I need the number. The politicians won't do it, and I know the public servants will. They have the integrity that the politicians don't have.

Maybe what we need is a phone number around here, Mr. Chair.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That's fair, but it's up to that public servant to provide him with the phone number, and that's the problem here. The public servant does not want you to have the phone number, Mr. Poilievre. I'm sorry to have to let you down on this, but it's the reality of the situation. Until you can get that phone number on your own, I'll just continue reading on this.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I'm sure he's a wonderful guy, whoever he is, a terrific guy, and I'm sure he'd love to hear from me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'm sure you are having a wonderful debate, guys, but it would be better to go through the chair.

You have the floor, Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

The only thing on this email from June 11 to Tara Shannon, as requested here, are the responses to the technical questions on the contribution agreement. The third party has indicated they require a signed agreement by tomorrow to launch for Monday and there are more details about it. The only thing missing is the nine-digit phone number that Mr. Poilievre is so obsessed with getting.

Next I'll go to page 481. This is where we get to the Canada student service grant. These are questions, responses and background on contribution agreements. There are all the details. Contribution agreements are used by the government to further policy objectives. Under a contribution agreement the recipient is responsible to design project activities to meet objectives and outcomes. There are some questions in there. There is question one and then there are responses. Question two is about the relevance of the May 5 date. On page two, they get into all the details. It's great stuff. It's having an opportunity to pull back the curtain, see what's going on behind the scenes and make sure everything is out in the open—and it is.

In this particular document, we have page one, which is page 481, and then it goes to page 482, 483, 484 and 485 and absolutely nothing was redacted. This particular document would not have served Mr. Poilievre's purpose of grandstanding in front of a podium because nothing is redacted here because they did use a page break at the end of this one. Actually, this one ends with a paragraph and then there is a page break.

At the bottom of 485, had there been another topic introduced here with other information that was completely unrelated—even though we see that this is the end of this particular set of questions on the CSSG—they would have had to redact that and there would have been a big, blacked out part because it wouldn't have been germane to the motion that this committee had passed. Luckily, somebody put a page break there and started on a new page, so they didn't have to redact anything that was unrelated.

Going to page 486, we have an email from Craig Kielburger to Ms. Fox at the PCO. It's on pages 491 to 495 of the PCO release. The entire content and attached information from Mr. Kielburger is included. There is no redaction of content other than the names of private citizens and personal contact information, which is all relevant.

We are seeing the recurring theme, Mr. Chair, of redactions of an email address and a telephone number. In some rare cases it is a first or last name of somebody. I've only seen that once in all the documents I have read so far. This goes into the details. This is from Mr. Kielburger. He goes into the details of what's going on with the particular agreement. The redacted parts are only about that personal information.

When you get to the next page they start to talk about some of the programs they're doing and some of the things they're advocating for. It's nothing that intrigues Mr. Poilievre, but's still very important information about what's being done for young folks in our country. It goes on to talk about their global development commitment, the WE board of directors, HR recruitment, transparency, human resources and diversity and inclusion training.

Mr. Chair, these are all great things. A hundred per cent of this is intact and has not had a single letter redacted. Everything is here for scrutiny for the Conservatives to fall over and dig deeply into the details. Of course, they didn't find anything because there was nothing to find. Yet they want to suggest that somehow we can find officers of Parliament to have contributed to the breach of parliamentary privilege, which again is so unfortunate.

I turn your attention now, Mr. Chair, to some of the documents.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I just realized that I've been talking for a really long time. Somebody else might want to get in here. I have a page break, and maybe I will pause right now, because I was about to get into the documents from the finance committee. I'm about halfway through, so why don't I take a break right now. Then, if necessary, I will come back to start talking about them afterwards.

I don't want to leave you with any cliffhangers, but I have a feeling that we're going to see more redacted phone numbers. When we get to that point, I want you to remember that I warned you of this in advance and that this was a recurring theme.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, Ms. Jansen.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

We talked about repetition. I'm wondering if it's possible to stop being repetitious.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

On that point of order, I have not repeated anything. These are individual emails that are not related. I've been referencing the page numbers so everybody can follow along and they know exactly the emails I'm discussing.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I thought I would try, because it is really repetitious, but by all means—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

He is going through the pages, so if anyone wants to follow along, pull up the documents and they'll have the pages.

I have on my list Mr. Fraser next and Mr. Vaughan. Mr. Fragiskatos, did I see your hand go up?

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I'm glad to go in that order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I think I have Mr. Fraser first, so we'll go there, and Mr. Badawey is up as well.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have remarks ready to go. I think we have been carrying on for quite some time, so perhaps I'll give the committee an opportunity to wrap things up before I get into my remarks.

Mr. Chair, I move that we adjourn now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay. You've moved that we adjourn. We'll see if we have the will of the committee to adjourn.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Chair, I believe that the motion to adjourn is a debatable motion. At least I'd like to have a word before—

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Chair, let's call the question.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

No, you can't just shut the thing down.

[A voice]

It is not debatable, Mr. Chair.