Evidence of meeting #24 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I'll inform the clerk that Mr. Poilievre has made a tweet indicating that the government redacted documents that this committee ordered produced in the summer. The testimony that you gave earlier is contrary to what Mr. Poilievre has asserted. Is it a better characterization—
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. Now Mr. Fraser wants to mis-characterize my tweet and ask the law clerk to comment on it, and he 's asking him to comment on documentation he has not seen.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Mr. Poilievre, that is not a point of order. I'm sorry.
Mr. Fraser has the floor. Maybe you could send us your tweet, and we would know.
Mr. Fraser.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
In any event, during this meeting, Mr. Poilievre has made the assertion, or has at least attempted to make the assertion, that the government has redacted information that the committee ordered produced in the summer on the basis that it is not relevant.
My understanding of your testimony was that the non-partisan public service redacted information on the basis of relevance because the committee did not ask for it in the first place. Is that a fair assessment?
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
What's your point of order? I'm going to Mr. Dufresne to answer this question.
Mr. Poilievre, what's your point of order?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
That is not in fact what I tweeted. He's asking the clerk to contradict something that I didn't say.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
That's not a point of order. It's a matter of debate.
Mr. Dufresne, you've heard the discussion. You've heard Mr. Fraser's question. Could you answer Mr. Fraser's question as asked?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Your description is fair, Mr. Fraser. I would agree with that characterization. The redactions were made, as it seems to me, by the public service, the non-partisan public service, on the argument that “not relevant” would not be part of the original motion.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
There's no way, shape or form, in your opinion, based on what you know, that the redaction of information on the basis of relevance would constitute a violation of the privilege of this committee, based on your interpretation.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
I'm not raising that as a concern. What I've raised is invoking grounds in the Access to Information Act that were not part of the committee's motion, and I flagged that it's for the committee to decide if it wants to accept those.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you. I think it's very clear that your concern is not related to the batch of documents marked “not relevant” but to other documents.
On the issue of relevance, Mr. Poilievre made the point earlier in this meeting that there was no explicit power to exclude the documents based on relevance, but of course, if documents are not asked for they need not be produced.
I'm curious whether you would agree with me that documents that may pertain to, say, vaccine procurement or domestic production of PPE, and that may have been redacted, are similar in kind, in your view, to the other documents that would be within the custody of the Government of Canada on other issues that did not pertain to the motion.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
I'm not sure I understand your question, but what I would say is that, to me, something that's not relevant is something that is simply beyond the scope of the motion. The motion will ask for documents about a certain topic. If it's not about that topic, then it's not relevant.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you.
I guess my concern is that, if the government were required to produce all the information that was not relevant, there would be endless reams and reams of millions of documents and it would be impossible to satisfy the motion.
I see you nodding. I take it that you agree.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Everything that's not relevant is the infinity of whatever is left. It could be significant.
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Ms. Dzerowicz, I think you had a question or two you wanted to ask.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Okay.
To wrap up, I'll give a summary of some of the things I've heard you say. At the end, Mr. Dufresne, could you confirm whether my assessment of your testimony is accurate?
You've said that the government made redactions pursuant to cabinet confidences and pursuant to relevancy, and was entitled to do so. So far as you can tell, those were made by the independent public service. You also indicated that, although you have some concerns about the access to information grounds, if the legislative standard was actually the one that was properly applied, it was done consistent with those legislative standards.
Is all of that accurate in your view?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
I would agree with that.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Just for a final piece of confirmation, when you provide the information that Mr. Julian and, I believe, Madame Gill requested, about the number of pages, I wonder if you could actually demonstrate to us, not in terms of how many pages were wholly or partially redacted, because you made the point that some of these have very small redactions.... I've seen some of the documents that the government produced. I haven't seen the unredacted versions of them, but you can tell that some of them are clearly labelled as a cellphone number and, on an entire page, that's the only piece that's been redacted.
Is it possible for you to demonstrate to us in some quantitative way how much of the document package was actually redacted, rather than having a page statement, which would obviously artificially inflate the sense of the redactions?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
We will bear that in mind and try to have information that is as useful as possible in terms of giving a sense of scale.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I would ask one additional favour of you before I finish my questioning, Mr. Dufresne.
Ms. Dzerowicz asked previously about the public interest that is served by some of the exemptions to production outlined in the access to information legislation. If you could offer a summary of the reasons those exemptions exist, I would be grateful as a committee member.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Are you asking me to do this now or to do that—