Mr. Chair, with a friendly amendment—
Evidence of meeting #2 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 video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #2 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 video is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I'm seeking unanimous consent. I'm wondering, before we deal with amendments, if we have such consent.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
You can't figure out if you have consent until you look at the amendment.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Mr. Chair, sorry. I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. I have a point of order, a point of order.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
I'm offering a friendly amendment that can get us onto the pre-budget consultation motion.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
If you're going to violate the process here, then no, you can't get unanimous consent.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Mr. Poilievre, I am not violating the process. You were being disruptive—
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
—and Mr. Fraser asked if there was unanimous consent. It's a fair question.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Now that consent has been denied to move immediately to pre-budget consultations, I'm happy to get on with the debate on the subamendment to the amendment to the main motion of privilege that was put forward before this committee.
I think it would be helpful to understand where the procedural dispute comes from. Of course, the pre-budget consultation motion that I just referred to moments ago was put on the floor by my colleague Ms. Dzerowicz in a previous meeting. The motion would have sought to have this committee conduct pre-budget consultations as we typically do, although this year has been different, given the pandemic.
I've been hearing from dozens of local organizations and national organizations that want to come before this committee specifically to offer their testimony in support of different requests in advance of the next federal budget. Many of them had previously put forward suggestions in a pre-pandemic context, and Ms. Dzerowicz's motion, I think quite appropriately, would have been designed to allow those same groups to make amendments to their testimony or evidence to reflect the changing world we live in.
Frankly, I find it odd, given the complaints we've heard from members of the opposition, specifically the Conservatives, Mr. Chair, about the government moving forward with measures to help Canadians during a pandemic, when I understand the House of Commons was shut down for good reason: to protect the health of Canadians. Now, when given the opportunity to have multi-partisan oversight of suggestions from the public in advance of the government implementing an agenda on budgetary measures, I find a cognitive dissonance between the two positions the Conservatives seem to hold simultaneously. If they don't wish to take part in the pre-budget consultation, then the government will continue to engage with stakeholders on its own and move forward with the budget recommendations.
In any event, to go back to the matter at hand, that was the issue on the floor of the House of Commons. Mr. Poilievre interjected with the point of privilege that accuses the government and the public service of violating his privilege. He would have this committee find that and report it to the House. There was an error in the original motion that would have made it impossible for a technical reason. That had to do with the timing of the disclosure of documents the government provided to the finance committee in the first session of the 43rd Parliament. That, of course, was the subject of a ruling; you ruled it out of order because of that fatal mistake. The majority of members of this committee took a different view and chose to move ahead in any event.
The proposed amendment sought to remedy that defect by incorporating the evidence before this committee in the previous session of this Parliament into the evidentiary record in the present session of this Parliament. The subamendment sought to cure that defect. The subamendment specifically sought to address the problem, because we realized during the previous meeting of this committee that the evidentiary record dealt with two different sets of documents. One of them, very importantly, included the transmittal letters that came from each of the various departments that made disclosures to this committee and explained in detail why certain redactions were made to those documents. The efforts of the opposition in the previous meeting were to ensure that the evidentiary record this committee could consider did not include the transmittal letters that explained why the redactions had been made.
We had a few proposed subamendments. The first had to do with getting the clerk to compare the two sets of documents for their accuracy and, after a debate, that failed. The second proposed subamendment sought to deal with adding page annotations, I believe, so that there could be an easy comparison and the transmittal letters that provide important context could be on the record.
The third subamendment, which is the one that we are on now, has to do with the preparation of two complete sets of documents, both of which would be on the evidentiary record before this committee. This subamendment specifically would have allowed the transmittal letters to be on the record. That brings us to the present subamendment, which Mr. Gerretsen put forward. He moved:
That the committee requests the complete package of documents provided to the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons by relevant Deputy Ministers or the signatories of the transmittal letters, as well as the final package of documents that the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons approved for release, that both of the document packages be provided to the Committee no later than October 19, 2020—
—I think that ship has sailed—
—and 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, and that until such a time as this testimony is complete, debate on the main motion and amendment from Pierre Poilievre be suspended and that the Chair be authorized to schedule these witnesses, and convene a meeting to resume debate on Pierre Poilievre's motion once these meetings have taken place.
It seems there are two problems with the refusal to support this subamendment. One is that it would have the evidentiary record remaining deficient and it would prevent folks from giving testimony to provide clarity specifically on why certain redactions were made, which is in accordance with ordinary practices of the public service. Second, it would allow us to avoid having this committee, or members of it, hold the committee hostage in its ability to conduct pre-budget consultations.
Effectively, the opposition is trying to have their cake and eat it too. They will say, “Give us everything we want, and then we'll allow you to do your work.” That simply cannot reasonably be construed as letting the committee do its work.
I think it would be quite reasonable for us—
October 21st, 2020 / 5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
On a point of order, I have just a quick question. He is suggesting that—
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
On a point of order, is he saying that Conservatives are saying that they're the only ones suggesting that the documents be given to the law clerk unredacted? I believe that was a committee motion that was agreed to.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Mr. Chair, I don't mean to prejudge your ruling. I'm not sure that it's a point of order and I didn't mean to necessarily make that suggestion in any event.
I think my point here, which I made at the end of my remarks, was more to do with putting the cart before the horse in terms of not letting pre-budget consultations proceed until documents had been provided.
If we want to revisit a previous order of this committee, I'm happy to do that. In fact, I expect we may, over the course of this meeting.
I don't know if you—
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
No, go ahead. It's not really a point of order. It's more a request for information, but thank you for that point, Ms. Jansen.
Because it's confusing, I might remind Mr. Poilievre and Mr. Julian to take those raised hands down for another time if they're not still on the speakers list.
Go ahead, Mr. Fraser.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Certainly.
The problem we're dealing with right now, which the subamendment seeks to cure, is the fact that, as I mentioned, there would be incomplete disclosure to the committee if the main motion and/or amendment passed without the subamendment. Second is obviously the pre-budget consultation point that I made.
One of the things I don't believe to be appropriate is that the individuals who are being accused of violating the privileges held by members of this committee haven't been given an opportunity to defend themselves. They've made redactions in accordance with their legislative obligations.
I appreciate, and perhaps if I was mistaken earlier in understanding Ms. Jansen's point.... I don't deny what the initial motion said back in July, I think it was, but the civil service has difficulty disclosing documents even to the law clerk when the legislative obligations upon them prohibit the disclosure of certain kinds of information.
I spoke a bit about this natural tension that exists between legislation on the books in Canada and the previous order of this committee. These kinds of things do happen by times. Before we determine that they—
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, the member said that there are legislative obligations that restrict the committee's ability to acquire governmental documents. There are no such legislative restrictions. Parliament is supreme and has access to all of the information it seeks from government departments—
5:20 p.m.
An hon. member
Mr. Chair, I don't believe that's a point of order.