In any event, Mr. Chair, you were correct to point to page 254 of the PCO disclosure, which was accompanied by the remittal letter that, again, is not part of the series of documents that the opposition would have come before this committee in this session of Parliament. It's an email from Tara Shannon, with PCO, to Shannon Nix.
The page is not redacted at all. It talks about the Canada Service Corps partners and the fact that they're already struggling to deliver their existing programs and don't have capacity to take on more placements. Now, this would have followed the May 8 cabinet meeting, during which, as the Prime Minister testified, in fact the civil service was sent back to consider what alternatives there were to WE Charity in terms of delivering some of the program.
It goes on to talk about the fact that “[Canada Service Corps] programming is not focussed on volunteering to help respond to the COVID-19 needs in communities”. I think that would be relevant. Although it's maybe not at the very crux of the issues we're looking for, it does provide helpful context. Again, none of it has been redacted. If we continue to scroll down, after it talks about an overview of the program, you'll see that at the very end of the correspondence the only redactions on this page are the phone numbers of the director of policy and cabinet affairs in the office of the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, and then again the same phone number is redacted when the email signature appears in French.
This is the kind of controversial information that the opposition is trying to have produced. I find it ironic, in fact, that the phone number has been redacted twice. I assume it is the same in both English and French. Nevertheless, that is the totality of the redaction in that correspondence.
If we look to page 268 of the PCO disclosure, it's an email exchange between Ms. Wernick and Mr. Philip Jennings from PCO. They are looking at an attachment that Ms. Wernick forwarded to the Privy Council Office. It seems odd here, but believe it or not, the only thing that remains is Ms. Wernick's phone number. The lengths to which the opposition has gone are nonsensical, when its dispute is presumably not even over whether that information should have been redacted but who should have done the redaction.
I think we can all agree that it's absolutely inappropriate to disclose that kind of personal information. Honestly, I don't think the opposition wants to have that information. I think they want to keep up the illusion that the government was not forthcoming with the documents. When they actually go through them, they will see that the kinds of things that have been redacted are entirely appropriate.
If we look at PCO document disclosure number 348, we see that, similar to the previous cabinet scenario document, it's labelled “secret”. Again, it's labelled “Confidence of the Queen's Privy Council” and dated May 22. We heard about that cabinet meeting in detail as well during testimony—unprecedented testimony in a lot of ways—before this very committee. Under the heading “Synopsis of the Meeting”, the material is blacked out. I suspect the reason why that information was blacked out was that, one, it's subject to cabinet confidence, for the same reasons I explained earlier—that cabinet ministers need to be able to have full and frank conversations—and two, again, we didn't ask for it. But we know that conversations relevant to what we've been exploring on this committee took place during that meeting, so even though we didn't ask for the document, and even though had we asked for it the government would have been within its rights to refuse it, the government produced it. They included, presumably, a portion of this page only to demonstrate that it came from a cabinet scenario.
The next page is just labelled as not being relevant and appears blank. Perhaps that is why, in fact, it wasn't produced, rather than some secret, malicious intent.
If you scroll down, you'll see that about half of the document.... I'm looking at PCO disclosure 350. The first half of that page is redacted. It's continuing from the synopsis of the meeting, but near the bottom of the page or about halfway down the page you'll see that the document is no longer redacted because it relates to the Canada student service grant.
We didn't ask for it. The government would not be obligated to produce it, yet in any event the government chose to release it in the interest of transparency so we could actually see the nature of the discussion that took place at the cabinet meeting on May 22 about the Canada student service grant. We didn't ask for it, and there was no obligation to produce it, but nevertheless the government produced it in an effort to be as transparent as possible.
After the synopsis of the meeting that took place on the Canada student service grant program, we have a short PCO comment that relates to the discussion that took place, and again the balance of the document is redacted as not being relevant to the Canada student service grant program.
Mr. Chair, there is a series of other documents here. I find it interesting—and I believe that Mr. Gerretsen made this point during our last meeting—that one of the very key documents in the document disclosure is the funding agreement between Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, as represented by the Minister of Employment and Social Development, and the WE Charity foundation. This is the agreement that was put forward between the parties.
When I scroll down throughout this document, what I find interesting about it—I am through several pages—is that the first page has absolutely no redactions. The second page has no redactions. It goes on. I'm looking through this entire document. This is really the foundational document of the relationship between the government and the WE Charity organization with respect to the Canada student service grant program, and there are no redactions, Mr. Chair. It was turned over in full.
One of the first things you're taught when you're jumping on a document disclosure program is to look, as a starting point, to the agreement behind whatever is in dispute and we have it in full. There are no redactions. It's clear that perhaps the most important document in the entire package is completely available to the committee.
If we look at schedule A to the agreement—and this is document number 376 in PCO's disclosure bundle—there are some redactions; in fact, there are four. They involve the telephone numbers and email addresses for two individuals. One is Dalal Al-Waheidi and the second is Scott Baker. The only redactions I see are of the telephone numbers and email addresses of these individuals. I don't think it would be appropriate to disclose them.
In any event, it seems bizarre that the point in dispute here is not even whether the information ought to be disclosed. Again, I know that one of my colleagues did have some fun on this point during our last meeting. The only dispute was as to whether the person who should have redacted these phone numbers was the law clerk or the civil servant who has legislation saying that they shouldn't disclose this information, even to the law clerk.
I realize there is a real tension between what the law clerk has said and what the Clerk of the Privy Council has said. I actually think that it might be appropriate to get them before us to talk about who should do which redaction and why the Clerk of the Privy Council felt compelled not to share the personal cellphone number of private individuals or civil servants. If we have to bring them here, because the remittal letters, including that context, don't form part of the evidentiary record, maybe that will be appropriate.
If you continue through the annex, after those specific phone numbers and email addresses had been excluded, you'll see there are no further redactions. It's really extraordinary when you see the level of disclosure on some of these things. It seems that the two buckets of documents, as all the remittal letters have pointed out, that have not been produced relate either to cabinet confidences, as I've been demonstrating, which have not been asked for by this committee, or to private personal information of individuals.
Again, what the opposition is digging their heels in on is not even that the phone numbers should be produced. I don't think they believe that. I find it odd that this has become such a big deal when the dispute is only over who should have made the redaction of those private phone numbers.
The document entitled “finance proposal” is the implementation of the Canada student service grant. This is PCO document 394, all of which, by the way, still relates to the documents that were described in detail in the remittal letter of the Clerk of the Privy Council. The document “Finance Proposal: Implementation of the Canada Student Service Program” is between pages 394 and 401 of the PCO release. It gets into the implementation plan for the Canada student service grant in full detail, unredacted. If we go through the document, you'll see the section entitled “Overview” is not redacted.
The next section, “Proposal Description”, is completely unredacted. If you go to the costing of the program, you see it is completely unredacted. They talk under that heading about the first 20,000 placements and the anticipated cost of those placements. They look at the second cohort of 20,000 placement opportunities and the total programming cost there. If you continue, you see they have details about the initial processing and administrative capacity for the Canada student service grant, which is there in full detail, including an estimated cost.
If you continue to scroll down, they have the initial funding envelope for the grant, with the costing available, and the contingency fund for additional grants is present, with the projected costing.