A point of order, Mr. Chair.
Evidence of meeting #4 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.
Evidence of meeting #4 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.
9:25 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Mr. Chair, I raise a point of order just to make sure that the clerk is aware that Mr. Boulerice is taking my place. He has all the information, and can intervene and participate in this magnificent filibuster that we are witnessing tonight.
I will leave you and come back in six hours, if all goes well.
9:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you, Mr. Julian. I don't believe that was a point of order, but more a point of information.
I believe the clerk has shaken her head yes, so Mr. Boulerice has signed in.
Welcome, Mr. Boulerice.
Mr. Fraser.
9:25 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you, Mr. Julian.
Welcome, Mr. Boulerice. I'm glad you're here tonight.
I will switch back to English, because the analysis will be difficult for me to conduct in what I hesitate to even call a “second language”, because I only have a small part of it—but I am working on it, I promise you.
In any event, I was in the middle of reading the motion that was adopted in July. I will spare you starting from the beginning, despite the small interruption. Largely, it asked for the documents relating to the WE Charity controversy. I believe I picked up where it said:
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. .
So far, it's not controversial. The next phrase, after a semicolon, is:
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.
Again, the key part of this, for this portion of my analysis, is the fact that after we listed all the documents that this committee had asked for, we specifically said that “matters of Cabinet confidence and national security be excluded from the request” This was the key part of the motion that garnered the support of members of the governing party who happen to sit on this committee.
The reality is that this committee asked for a whole bunch of documents. We specifically said to the government that we are not requesting documents that are subject to cabinet confidence. We subsequently said that, of the documents that you produced that we have requested, the redaction should be done by the law clerk to protect privacy and personal information.
I think there is room for us to find a way forward on documents that may relate to personal information or privacy. The reason that some of those redactions were made by civil servants was that they are subject to legislative obligations, and we understand that there is a bit of a conflict between what the motion asks for and what the legislation that binds the civil servants says.
What cannot be reasonably disputed, however, is that this committee specifically told the government that we did not want them to turn over cabinet confidence documents. The documents that were largely redacted, as I made clear when I sampled some of them, are subject to cabinet confidence. The government produced them, despite the fact that they had never been requested, in order to shed light on issues that may have been useful for this committee during its consideration of the WE Charity issue that consumed the committee's work for much of the summer.
Mr. Chair, the point on this particular issue is that it's hard to imagine a right-thinking person concluding that privilege has been violated by virtue of the government's producing documents in a redacted form that the committee never asked for in the first place. It's really that simple. I don't understand how we can now be alleging that the government has breached the privileges of members of this committee on the basis that it didn't produce information we didn't ask for.
It's as straightforward and clear as day. There is no way that somebody can reasonably interpret that motion to suggest that the committee wanted the law clerk to redact cabinet confidences. We specifically said we are not requesting them, and I think that has to be driven home for members to understand.
If there is an opposition member here who would like to explain to me an interpretation of this motion that would actually have had the government produce government documents, you should start selling the Brooklyn Bridge, because realistically it says one thing, and the allegation is that it says another. It's that simple.
In any event, one item I want to delve into is that even if the government had been made the subject of a request to produce documents that are subject to cabinet confidence, it's pretty clear that in Canada they would not have been compelled to produce those documents. Cabinet confidences exist for very good reasons. They are the subject of court cases and literature that we could delve into—and may, before the night is done.
In any event, the purpose of cabinet confidence, to summarize it, is to ensure that members of the executive who are sitting around the cabinet table are able to have free, frank and open discussions, knowing there is absolute privacy that attaches to those conversations in order to foster a conversation that will help improve our democracy and hopefully improve the lives of Canadians as well. Sometimes the issues that can be discussed around a cabinet table will be sensitive for reasons of national security, or perhaps to protect the public's health. Perhaps they involve issues that are commercially sensitive that should be protected for good reason. However, in the present instance, the opposition, despite the fact that we've not requested the documents in the first place, is nevertheless insisting that the government should have been producing those documents, even though they would be subject to cabinet confidences.
The other issue at play is the fact that redactions were made by civil servants. Those redactions largely touched on the personal information of civil servants and information that was simply not relevant to the committee. However, as for the pages Mr. Poilievre was waving around at his press conference, which were heavily redacted, when we actually delve into those documents, from what I can tell they are ones we didn't ask to have produced in the first place.
I started, during the last meeting, going over some of the document production that came through the Clerk of the Privy Council. When I was talking previously about the transmittal letters, these are precisely the documents that explain why the redactions took place.
If you give me a moment, Mr. Chair, I'm bringing up the transmittal letter. Again, this is a document that members of the opposition are suppressing and won't have brought into the evidentiary record before this committee. I think it's important that they allow this information to be admitted into evidence before this committee and, frankly, that we give the Clerk of the Privy Council an opportunity to further explain why these redactions were made.
The Clerk of the Privy Council, Ian Shugart, wrote a letter to David Gagnon on August 7, the day before the committee insisted the government produce the documents. In it, he wrote:
Dear Mr. Gagnon,
I am pleased to provide records from the Privy Council Office (PCO) that were requested under the motion adopted by the Standing Committee on Finance...on July 7, 2020 in relation to the committee's study on the WE Charity and the Canada Student Services Grant....
I am also pleased to provide information related to the undertakings that I agreed to at my appearance before the committee on July 21, 2020 which were as follows:
1. A detailed timeline of events.
Surely that would be relevant. That document was attached as an annex. It was a timeline describing the Privy Council Office's knowledge of and involvement with the file the committee had been studying.
The second undertaking was to provide, “A full list of organizations that were consulted on program development.” Again, that is certainly relevant. In answer, the letter goes on:
On Friday, July 24, 2020, the Department of Employment and Social Development (ESDC) provided the Committee with a list of the national coalition member organizations of the Canada Services Corps...who ESDC spoke with in March and April of 2020.
I am told that on April 9, 2020, Department of Finance officials were provided with a report on stakeholder outreach regarding support for students during the COVID-19 context.
Annex 3 includes a list of those organizations.
The third undertaking says, “PCO media monitoring from the dates when Margaret and Alexandre Trudeau had speaking engagements for WE Charity.” To answer that undertaking, Mr. Shugart confirmed:
...PCO Media Monitoring does not have any media content of the public appearances for either Margaret Trudeau or Alexandre Trudeau.
The PCO media centre monitors coverage of the Government of Canada priorities, programs and services and does not monitor media coverage related to the relatives of the Prime Minister or their public appearances.
The fourth undertaking Mr. Shugart provided during his committee appearance was, “All communications between PMO staff and PCO staff; the Finance Minister's Office and PCO; and the Finance Minister's Office and the Finance Department relating to WE charity contribution agreement and the CSSG.” Those communications were included in the first annex to the letter and in the package that was submitted to the committee from the Department of Finance.
The fifth undertaking was, “Names of participants, notes, and recording of mid-April meeting between Rachel Wernick, Michelle Kovacevic (and whether PCO personnel were aware of the meeting taking place and participated).”
The answer to that undertaking is:
I am told that a teleconference between officials with the Department of Finance and the Department of Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) was held on the evening of April 18, 2020.
It lists a series of the participants, civil servants, who took part in that teleconference. Of course, many of them testified here. I will spare you the details of going over the names of the individuals. I think we've dealt with them enough over the past few months.
The undertaking response goes on to say that:
No officials from PCO participated in the call or were aware of the meeting. There is no recording of the meeting. Meeting notes that were taken by Rachel Wernick and an e-mail thread about setting up the call are attached at Annex 4.
The sixth undertaking that Mr. Shugart provided to the committee was a due diligence analysis of any financial scrutiny undertaken with regard to the WE Charity during this process, with an answer:
Attached at Annex 5, you will find the detailed explanation prepared by ESDC of the controls embedded in the contribution agreement to ensure stewardship and appropriate use of funds, as well as a brief overview of the typical process used to evaluate projects and recipients. Further information relating to due diligence that was done by officials in relation to the Canada Student Service Grant is provided in Annex 1 and in the packages that other relevant departments are providing to this committee.
Undertaking number seven was to produce the full text of the contribution agreement. He states:
This document was provided to the Committee by ESDC on Friday, July 24, 2020.
The letter goes on, after he deals with those undertakings which I read out, to say:
As I noted when I appeared at committee on July 21, 2020, my intent has been to be as expansive as possible in relation to the information that I provide. The committee's motion stipulates that Cabinet confidences and national security information are to be excluded from the package.
That mirrors the language in the motion this committee adopted. The letter goes on to state:
No information is being withheld on the grounds of national security, since the information does not so pertain.
There was no need for the government to pull out from what it produced documents that touched on national security.
Now, next, this is a key part of the transmittal letter, because it relates to the key part of the motion that I read out:.
With respect to Cabinet confidences, you will note that considerable information on the Canada Student Service Grant that were 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 adopted 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 constitute Cabinet confidences is being released. Information not related to the Canada Student Service Grant that constitute Cabinet confidences is withheld and identified as not relevant to the request.
In fact, Mr. Chair, before I continue with Mr. Shugart's letter, this response makes it very clear to me that for the documents that were subject to heavy redactions, not only would they have been subject to cabinet confidences, but if the opposition would actually allow Mr. Shugart's letter to form part of the evidentiary record, it would see that the items redacted relate to matters other than the Canada student service grant and are therefore not relevant to what the committee has actually asked for. In any event, they were never requested by this committee, and the government made the decision to nevertheless produce those matters that pertained to the Canada student service grant.
The letter goes on:
ln this package, 1 have also chosen to disclose certain personal information contained in the Privy Council records relating to individuals working in ministers' offices as well as personal information of individuals who work for WE. 1 have decided to disclose this information because in my view the public interest in disclosure clearly outweighs any invasion of privacy. 1 have notified the Privacy Commissioner of my intention to disclose this personal information, as I am required to do under the Privacy Act. 1 have decided to protect the phone number and email addresses of WE employees other than Craig and Mark Kielburger. ln addition, there are a few references to the family members of a public servant and I have chosen to protect that information. ln my opinion, the public interest in disclosing this type of personal information does not clearly outweigh the invasion of privacy. Similarly, because I believe that it is in the public interest to do so, 1 am prepared to issue a limited waiver of solicitor client privilege as it relates to the information that is being provided by departments in response to this motion and my undertakings. Lastly, I wish to draw the committee's attention to a Note to File, prepared by Christiane Fox, the Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs at the Privy Council Office. In that Note to File, Ms. Fox provides a clarification regarding references in two email exchanges (Annex 6). I trust that the Committee will find the above explanations helpful in its consideration of the enclosed materials.
It seems as though certain members of this committee not only failed to find this information helpful but also are intent on burying it to ensure that the explanation provided as to why the redactions took place, and how the disclosure was organized, never sees the light of day. They now appear to be going the additional length of ensuring ensure the author of that letter, who happens to be the Clerk of the Privy Council, who maintains responsibility for the operations of the civil service, who has made known his willingness to come to testify before this committee to answer whatever questions we may have about the redactions that were made, will not actually come before this committee.
Mr. Chair, one of the reasons I think this is useful, and I turn your attention back to the package of documents I was going through at our previous meeting, is that the kinds of redactions that were made were clearly either of a category that the committee had never requested in the first place, or they were clearly within the kinds of information that would ordinarily be redacted.
As I mentioned, the real question is whether the personal information should have been redacted by the Clerk of the Privy Council or the law clerk. We might be able to find common ground going forward, but if we're going to have members of the committee seek to revise history and insist that the committee had actually requested documents that were subject to cabinet confidence, when that frankly was not the case, then this is going to be a difficult hurdle for us to overcome.
In any event, I was at page 480 of the Privy Council Office's disclosure. That document is an email. It's an email among public servants who were involved with the Canada student service grant file. The content of the email is almost entirely visible. The only redaction at the end of the email is the cellphone number of a public servant. For all those folks who I know are tuned in at home, it seems that the kind of dispute that we're having is not just over the production of a civil servant's personal cellphone number, but over who the right party was who should have made that redaction.
It's quite clear there's no public interest being served by the disclosure of the personal cellphone number of a civil servant, and the privacy interest certainly would lead to the redaction whether made by the law clerk or the Clerk of the Privy Council.
The following document is at page 481 of the Privy Council Office's disclosure package, and it included responses to questions on the Canada student service grant. The first section provides a background on the contribution agreements and information provided without redaction on contribution agreements more generally. The first question asked whether force majeure includes a pandemic. It provides an unredacted explanation of the answers to those questions.
On questions about the relevance of the May 5 date, referred to on page 2 of the document this was attached to, a full answer is given. It's the project start date. The next item says that up to $5 million would be provided for partner non-profit organizations. If they have 50, that means $100,000 would be given to each in the first cohort. These answers were provided to them.
The documents go on with a series of questions about the Canada student service grant program. The entire second page is fully unredacted. The third entire page is fully unredacted. The next page is fully unredacted. This is a document from start to finish that includes no redactions, and provides substantive information relating to the matters that were very much requested by this committee, and it was all produced in full.
If we look at the following document, we're now at page 491 in the Privy Council Office's disclosure package, it's an email from Craig Kielburger to Ms. Fox at PCO. This exchange is from pages 491 through 495 of the Privy Council Office release. The entire content, with attached information from Mr. Kielburger, is produced in full. There are no redactions on substantive content other than the names of private citizens and personal contact information, none of which are relevant to the items the committee was looking for.
It starts with a hi to Chris, and then, “I hope you,”—small redaction—“are well”. Presumably it's another person's name. Indeed, that's the explanation. It goes on to talk about other things, some of which relate to the WE Charity Canada student service grant matter. Others do not. The attachment is correspondence from the WE Charity or a press release that appears to be, again, fully unredacted. As to whether this document needed to in fact be produced in the first place, I would suggest it probably wouldn't have, because most of it is not relevant. However, a decision was made to turn it over nevertheless, because it touched on the conversations that were taking place between WE Charity and the Government of Canada.
At the very, very end of the email exchange, in the signature line, we have Lauren Martin, executive assistant to Craig Kielburger. It appears that her office telephone number is included. The personal contact information that follows has been redacted. It's one very, very short line. For those who are interested and tuning in at home, that's page 495 of the Privy Council Office's disclosure.
Mr. Chair, it wasn't just the Privy Council Office that went through the trouble of walking this committee through the reasons for any redactions that existed within their package. You can turn your attention to the letter that was provided from the deputy minister of finance. This is one of the remittal letters I was speaking about previously that the opposition is seeking to have excluded from the evidentiary record that this committee can consider. It provides important and essential context as to why the disclosure was made in the fashion it was.
It's a letter to Mr. Gagnon, then clerk of the Standing Committee on Finance. It reads as follows:
Dear Mr. Gagnon: On behalf of the Department of Finance, I am transmitting the attached documents to you in response to the motion adopted by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance on July 7, 2020 (Standing Order 108(1)(a)):
“That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), the Committee order that any contracts concluded with We Charity and Me to We, all briefing notes, memos and emails, including the contribution agreement between the department and WE Charity, 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;
Again, this is the key part:
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.”
Although that motion was included in a quote in the letter, I feel compelled to drive home the point that from the deputy minister of finance's perspective, he felt it essential to include the language from the motion that made it clear that this committee did not request documents that were subject to cabinet confidence in the first instance.
The letter continues:
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.
Indeed, I went through those undertakings and Mr. Shugart's response to them during the letter I read into the record from the Clerk of the Privy Council dated August 7, 2020, the day before documents were required to be delivered by this committee, when they in fact came through and were delivered, at least in part, through USB keys to opposition critics and of course were uploaded, subject to certain technical difficulties, at the same time.
The letter from Deputy Minister Rochon continues:
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, since the information does not so pertain.
It's familiar language, it mirrors that which we saw in the letter from the Clerk of the Privy Council. It's clear that from the perspective of the deputy minister, as outlined in this remittal letter, that it's his view that the committee, in fact, never requested.... It's not that we didn't request cabinet confidences; it's that we specifically asked the government to exclude them from the disclosure package. This is not a unique perspective that's been taken. This is copying, in some instances verbatim, from the motion.
The letter continues:
With respect to Cabinet confidences, you will note that considerable information on the Canada Student Service Grant that were Cabinet confidences is being provided to the Committee.
The government clearly viewed that the government had not been asked to produce this information but nevertheless chose to. The explanation given in this remittal letter is that:
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.
Before I get into the next section of this letter, I think it is important to understand what is meant by the sentence: A principled approach was taken with respect to this information to ensure a non-selective application of the protection afforded by Cabinet confidentiality.
This is an absolutely key point. In my career before politics, I would routinely become involved in pieces of litigation involving controversial cases that would go before the court relating to document production. In fact, on occasion, they would deal with documents that were subject to Crown privilege or some kind of public interest immunity, which we often refer to as “Cabinet confidence.”
One of the key things that we would do when we were dealing with volumes of documents that sometimes exceeded 400,000, or some astronomical number, was to say that if you were going to get into a review of documents that are so great in number that it makes it very difficult to go through, why don't we agree on a process that you can employ to ensure that the document production is non-selective? You didn't pull out documents and attribute a protection to them because they were sensitive.
One of the things that I think this committee would benefit greatly from is actually hearing from the people who are responsible for those redactions. One of them, in fact the main person, the Clerk of the Privy Council, has put his hand up and asked this committee to invite him to appear so he can walk us through the process that was employed. He's indicated that in his letter, but that letter is not in the record the committee is considering because opposition members are trying to ensure that it does not form part of the evidentiary record. He's given one explanation. He now wants to walk us through that explanation in greater detail so we have confidence that the process that was employed in redacting these documents was non-selective, i.e., fair and reasonable, based on principles, not interests.
Nevertheless, it seems that there is no appetite among opposition members to hear him. In fact, they are not just refusing to hear him, but are actively trying to exclude the letter he sent to us, which the government disclosed, from the evidentiary record before this committee.
The letter continues on the issue of personal information and privacy:
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. 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.
Before I get into the next paragraph of this letter, just to reflect on the importance of the paragraph that I've just read, the only controversial piece that I think we should be able to sort out among us relates to the redactions that were made by the Clerk of the Privy Council from documents not subject to cabinet confidences, i.e., those documents that were subject to redactions that pertain to personal information that ought to have been kept private.
It's the opposition's view, and in fact the motion does say, that the law clerk should have been the one to make those redactions. The motion makes no similar suggestion that it should have been the law clerk doing the redactions of cabinet confidences because we specifically asked the government to exclude those from consideration.
The dispute is really about who should have made the redactions of personal information of parties, many of whom had nothing to do with this. That's a difficult thing to understand and, surely, is something we could sort out, but I expect there is another interest at play here.
Mr. Chair, the letter goes on:
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 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's important context, Mr. Chair, because when you review pages 190 and 194 through 213, you will understand why those redactions were made if we allowed the explanation that was provided to members of this committee to form part of the evidentiary record.
The letter continues:
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.
This is me reading the middle letter from the deputy minister of Finance: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
The explanations given by the deputy minister of Finance make clear why particular redactions were made, both in general terms and, in several instances, on specific pages of the document package produced by the Department of Finance.
Largely speaking, the rationale behind the redactions on the documents that were disclosed reflect those reasons that were given by the Clerk of the Privy Council, chiefly that the committee's motion made it clear in no uncertain terms that cabinet confidences were excluded from the request this committee made to the government and that redactions should have been made on issues of privacy and personal information, albeit by the law clerk. Again, the reason that the civil servants and not the law clerk made those redactions notwithstanding the language of the committee relate to the fact that they are bound by certain legislative obligations.
I know the NDP has previously made the case, when Mr. MacGregor joined us for an evening, that the law clerk has written us indicating the supremacy of the committee from a point of law in terms of document production. The Clerk of the Privy Council and deputy ministers who have sent us letters have explained that they view themselves to be bound by legislation that pertains to privacy. They went through the processes outlined in applicable privacy legislation, as the remittal letter so eloquently described, to ensure that they sought to obtain the consent of the people whose personal information was the subject of documents that were being produced, and if consent was not to be obtained, they would apply a public interest test to determine whether in fact the protection of privacy outweighed the interest the public may have in the disclosure.
Clearly, when the bulk of this information is the private cellphone numbers or email addresses of individuals who are not connected to the file, I see no need for the committee to have them. In any event, I see no need for the committee to dispute who should have made the redactions, but if it's the will of members of the opposition to insist that the law clerk make the redactions of that personal information, I expect we would be able to find a path forward. Instead, they seem to dig their heels in and insist that the original motion adopted by the previous iteration of this committee in the last session of this Parliament declares something when it in fact says the precise opposite. Matters of cabinet confidence were specifically excluded from the request before the committee.
With the context of this remittal letter from the deputy minister of finance, we can turn to the Department of Finance's disclosure package. If we look at the Department of Finance's first page, its heading is “April 2020—Student Support during COVID Emergency: What we heard from stakeholders”.
Before we get into what the documents that were released by the Department of Finance actually say, I remember working with those officials on many different files at the time. They really dug in, working extraordinarily long hours to get folks through this pandemic, and nevertheless were pulled off some of the emergency program development work they were doing in order to deal with the document production work that this committee requested.
Pages 1 through 3 of their release are what I'm looking at. Once again, all the content related to the Canada student service grant is present. The only redactions made relate to third parties that had no association with the program. Again, the document was headed, “April 2020—Student Support during COVID Emergency: What we heard from stakeholders”.
The document goes over the feedback that was received from stakeholders. The first group was the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, and if you will allow me a short use of the Peter Julian rule of 20 seconds of irrelevance, I do have to give a shout-out to CASA, as a former member when I was a student president of StFX University. It's a tremendous organization that goes to bat for students. I will leave my admittedly off-topic comment there and return to the relevant document before us.
CASA talked a lot about eligibility for CERB and said that the bulk of Canadian undergraduates already meet the income threshold. The most recent figure they had was that 60% meet the income threshold but that doing so may not be in their best interest. Anyway, I'll spare you the details of what they all said.
Noted Canadian expert on higher education Alex Usher provided feedback and was captured in this document. The Assembly of First Nations was consulted on support for students and had a short blurb included about their feedback. Colleges and universities were consulted, with all of the information on those particular stakeholders included in full. With the WE organization as well, there's a short paragraph talking about support for students.
There were consultations with Andrew Agopsowicz, the senior economist with RBC, who included feedback on support for students, and there were consultations with Polytechnics Canada,whose feedback was included as well.
There are some short redactions from an organization called BHER, represented by Val Walker. If you read the context in the surrounding paragraphs, the small amount of information redacted does not appear to relate in any way, shape or form to the Canada student service grant. It talked about someone living with hearing loss and the potential expansion of the CERB, or the use of the Canada summer jobs program to hire more students and whether there should be a student-specific CERB, and of course you will recall, Mr. Chair, the development of the Canada emergency student benefit to provide support to those students who were not working and didn't lose hours and were therefore ineligible for CERB, but who still needed financial support because of a depressed job market.
In any event, in the case of the short blurbs that were redacted, if you actually consider what the remittal letter said, you will understand that the only redactions were related to third parties that had no association with the Canada student service grant program.
They went on to look at other organizations that have been consulted, including U15, Palette and Universities Canada, two of which had very, very short redactions included in their portion. I did miss one organization, Actua, and some of what we heard when consulting them has been redacted. If you read the explanations I included in the remittal letters, you will see again that it relates to matters that were not relevant or were subject to proprietary information that does not touch on the matters that this committee has requested.
Again, if we're looking at things like proprietary information, personal information and contact details for civil servants and we can find some compromise to allow a conversation to take place between the law clerk and the Clerk of the Privy Council, that's one thing, but no amount of jockeying will change what the original motion said, which clearly excluded cabinet confidences. Again, if the issue really is the redactions that relate to other matters, as the original motion stated, then I think we would be able to find a compromise and a path forward.
In continuing, Mr. Chair, my attention is still within the documents that were produced by the Department of Finance. I'm now looking at pages 51 through 54 of the Department of Finance release. Here it's an email between Ms. Kovacevic and members of the minister's staff. All the content is there. It is all visible for public and for parliamentary scrutiny, for anybody who is interested in this information. Almost all of it was produced unredacted. The only redaction is for cellphone numbers. It's not relevant and it should not be in the public realm in any event, because I don't think it serves the public interest and I do think that there is interest in having the privacy of Canadians protected when we're dealing with their personal information.
The email talks about an overview of volunteering proposals. It includes attachments, including an overview of the “I want to help” and the WE social entrepreneurship concept. The first redaction is literally a cellphone number, and we know that because only the number itself was redacted, and beside it we have portable —and I apologize to my francophone colleagues—next to it. We have the full phone number for the office included unredacted below that.
Again, in the email below on the same document, we're dealing with an email from Rachel Wernick on the same subject as the one before. The entire content about how to implement the various options and a conversation that took place between Craig Kielburger—or I should say, “Craig K”, as it says in the email—and Rachel Wernick is referenced in this email.
It's produced in full. Again, the only redaction in that email is the mobile number for Ms. Wernick. I know it's her mobile number, even though it's blacked out, because the word “mobile”—
10:10 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
I just want to do a quick quorum check. I want to make sure everybody is awake.
10:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay, Madam Clerk.
Yes, we do have quorum. I see all the faces, and I see Mr. Ste-Marie in the committee room.
10:10 p.m.
Liberal
10:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
He's holding his hands to his chest. He's pretty proud of that.
Mr. Fraser, go ahead.
10:10 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you.
As to the documents, I've gone through the remittal letter from the deputy minister to the Department of Finance and I am now taking a look at the documents they've produced. I have to say, Mr. Chair, that the redactions included in this document package follow to the letter the explanation that was given but that opposition members refused to allow to form part of the evidentiary body before this committee.
I now am looking at the Department of Finance's production 52. It relates to the email exchange that I've just gone through. It includes a summary of the “I want to help” document referring to student volunteers. The document scopes out the proposed approach to request options to support students volunteering over, it says, “the next few months”, obviously at a particular point of time, and it goes into significant detail about some of the considerations that could be included. It outlines a proposal—
10:10 p.m.
Conservative
10:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We have a point of order from Mr. Poilievre.
Go ahead, Mr. Poilievre.
10:10 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
I was just going to get up to get a drink and wondered if anybody wanted anything while I'm up.
10:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
What are you drinking, Pierre? It depends. I might take that offer, but it'll take a long while to get it here.
10:10 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
How about some Crown Royal? Nothing more Canadian than that good Canadian rye.
10:10 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
You might get us to a quicker resolution here at the committee.
10:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Well, Mr. Fraser made an offer that if the redactions were based on the original motion, we may be able to find a way forward. I think that's a pretty decent offer and something for people to think about.
You think about that with that drink of Crown Royal, Mr. Poilievre.
Go ahead, Mr. Fraser.
10:10 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Although it was in a collegial tone, I am very disappointed to have been interrupted when I was right in the middle of a key point.
To continue, Mr. Chair, I know that the comment was made in jest, but the point here is that this is a key document that we got into during some of the witness testimony. It outlines the proposals that have been made to Minister Ng. It's been produced in full.
These are the kinds of documents.... You'll see a pattern. Where there is any substantive matter that relates to the issues around the Canada student service grant—its design, its implementation, whatever—it's all there. The redactions that have been made largely pertain to the kinds of things that would properly be redacted. More importantly, they pertain to precisely the terms outlined in the committee's original motion in July, which were specifically explained in a level of detail by the various remittal letters that pertain to each batch of documents.
Around page 189 of the Department of Finance's production are some of my favourite ones that seem to be so controversial. The redaction on this page relates to a teleconference that took place on April 24. It includes all of the participants, including those involved with the Department of Finance, with Mr. Craig Kielburger as an optional attendee. It outlines what time the meeting took place. The only portion that's redacted—it's a major scandal, Mr. Chair—is the passcode for a teleconference line that is used by the Department of Finance.
Although I highly doubt it's relevant, I can fully understand why a government conference line password would perhaps not be appropriate to disclose. That way, members of the public would not able to dial in to what should properly be a private and confidential conversation.
Mr. Chair, in any event, the dispute is not even over whether that information should be redacted, but who should have made that redaction. It seems so small. If this is the central point in the dispute, it seems unbelievable that we can't reach agreement on how to get past it.
I'd suggest to you that the real reason we can't get past it is that opposition members continue to insist that the motion, which specifically says that it excluded cabinet confidences from the request, should be read to mean that it included cabinet confidences in the request. Both things cannot be true. In fact, you cannot read the words and assume it means the opposite. This is a basic interpretation, Mr. Chair.
I'll continue, still on the Department of Finance disclosure. At page 190 is the same email from Craig Kielburger to then-minister Morneau. It was also a part of the WE Charity document submission that was received by this committee. In that email, we see this same email with all the information present. As we see there, the information had nothing at all to do with the Canada student service grant, and thus had no relevance to the motion before this committee. The subject was “Thank You & Links”. It said:
Hello Bill,
It was incredibly thoughtful of you to call. Thank you very much.
I realize that your team provides you access to extraordinary data. If helpful, attached are two documents. The attached email is from two days...
It goes on. Again, a phone number of the executive assistant is redacted. In any event, the email seems largely to be unrelated to the Canada student service grant.
Another email is on page 216 of the Department of Finance's disclosure package, for those who are interested. It's another email from Ms. Marquez at the WE organization to officials in the public service who were responsible for the Canada student service grant. In this particular release, you'll see all of the content of the email is present. The only information missing, if you go over it, is Ms. Marquez' email address and her personal phone number.
I assume it's her personal phone number that's been excluded, because there is an additional phone number that has been included.
Again, if you actually look at the remittal letters, they explain specifically when and why redactions were made among employees of the WE organization. If we included those remittal letters, you would understand that this is precisely the kind of redaction that was made in order to satisfy the terms of the committee's motion.
If we look now at pages 222 and 223 of the Finance release, you'll see that all of the content of the email between Ms. Marquez and the relevant department officials is completely visible. The redactions that seem to be the source of such consternation include, once again, an email address and personal contact information for Ms. Marquez. This is no big shock.
The first exchange in the email talks about the fact that there was a prompt response and that they copied someone from WE Charity to help coordinate on next steps. The substantive portion of that email produced the personal contact details of the individual and were redacted. Again, the motion would have the law clerk make that redaction. The relevant departments made the redactions in accordance with the legislation that they have indicated they are bound by; however, this seems very much like the kind of thing for which we can find a solution.
It continues on in an email in the same exchange, and precisely the same information is redacted. The body of the email—much of which, by the way, touches on personal exchanges about reconnecting with loved ones over the weekend—was nevertheless included, but the email itself merely mentions that there was a connection made with Craig, who I assume is Craig Kielburger, and Ms. Marquez the week prior.
They mentioned that they had a phone discussion—obviously, that would be appropriate to disclose to this committee, and was—so that they could know what the appropriate next steps would be for them to continue the conversation.
This material involving conversations between employees at the WE organization and civil servants within the Department of Finance is clearly relevant. It is not really all that interesting, not that significant, but it is relevant and it was produced. The only information that was redacted were the personal contact details of an employee at the WE organization. I don't know precisely which branch she was associated with.
In any event, if you look at the redactions and the portions of the correspondence that were not redacted, you will find that they accord specifically with the remittal letter that the deputy minister, Paul Rochon, sent to this committee and which members of this committee are now seeking to have excluded.
I think that it would be helpful not only to have the context of the letters, but also, if we have questions about the redactions that were made, to have those individuals here. Perhaps we could even get them to appear before the committee with the law clerk to discuss their redactions. Indeed, the subamendment goes in that direction. It would be very helpful for members of this committee to understand why they made redactions.
In fact, some members have made this point previously. If you compare the sets of documents that were disclosed by the government House leader to members of this committee with the documents that were redacted by the law clerk, on emails such as this—not this one specifically, however, but many of the short exchanges—there was a simple mobile phone number or email redacted by the Clerk of the Privy Council. The law clerk went much further and excluded more information, presumably because it engaged either privacy concerns or, more likely in many instances, it simply wasn't relevant to the Canada student service grant, when you're dealing with things like wishing someone well in connection with loved ones over the weekend, as this email did at its outset.
In any event, let's go to the bottom of the email. The only exclusion that appears seems to relate to the personal contact information. While the professional contact details are still very much there, should anybody wish to call Madam Marquez going forward. Well, perhaps that would have been in the past, given the fate WE Charity has suffered in Canada in recent months.
The next document is on page 224 of the Department of Finance's disclosure package. This is very important information. We have here a meeting invitation. It's from Ms. Kovacevic to a MINO, or minister's office, staff member. All the contents are present. The redactions that opposition members are taking issue with are for the conference ID and Ms. Kovacevic's cellphone number.
I will just remind Canadians that the focus of the government has been and remains on the pandemic and the second wave. Now we find ourselves at the finance committee having a dispute over the appropriateness of the redaction, but more specifically the person who ought to have redacted the personal phone number of this civil servant and the conference ID number.
Mr. Chair, much like on the previous page, if you look at page 226 of the Finance release, you'll see that the only redaction present is for a conference ID. All of the names of the relevant officials are there in the emails for Canadians and for opposition members to see. These things can be relevant, without question, but certain information, for good reason, ought to be protected. I've made the case before on a previous document that dealt with a passcode for a government conference line. Certainly I don't think it would be appropriate to share personal emails either.
The portions that actually touch on the facts of who attended meetings, when they took place, and the organizations to which they are attached are all relevant. All are properly within the scope of the motion the finance committee adopted in the previous session of Parliament, and is explained beautifully in the remittal letter by the appropriate deputy minister in this instance.
If we continue on with the package, I'm now looking at the document on page 227, marked “Page 1 of 1”. This document is labelled “Secret” and “Confidence of the Queen's Privy Council”. It has nevertheless been produced. All of the contents for this agenda and notes from a “four Cs” meeting are included. This is a cabinet confidence document. It's been released for review with all of the information as it relates to the Canada student service grant, with that information visible. The only redaction we have here is a conference call ID number. I'm not making a joke about this. It is actually the kind of information that has been redacted.
To go back to the original motion that was passed in July, it's clear that the motion said that we don't want cabinet confidences. The response from both the deputy minister of finance and the Clerk of the Privy Council made it adamantly clear that they did not consider the committee to have asked for documents that were subject to cabinet confidence. The basis on which they found that conclusion was that the committee told them to exclude cabinet confidences from the request. Nevertheless, as was explained in the remittal letter, where documents actually were relevant or perhaps helpful to the committee in its deliberations and consideration of the Canada student service grant program, they produced those documents.
This one, again marked “Secret” and “Confidence of the Queen's Privy Council”, is labelled “Canada Student Service Grant”. It is dated Thursday, April 30, 2020. It gives the time of the meeting. It was an hour-long meeting beginning at 11:15 that day. It even provides the dial-in information for the particular conference line at issue. It simply deleted the conference ID to protect the password and keep other people from potentially logging into that conference line in the future.
It talks about the participants who were there from the Privy Council Office, including Lisa Setlakwe, Tara Shannon, Heather Moriarty, Louise Baird, Ken MacKillop and Alain Beaudoin; from the PMO, Rick Theis and Laura Lebel; from ESDC, Rachel Wernick and Ritu Banerjee; and from the Department of Finance, Alexandrea Howard, Michelle Kovacevic and Suzy McDonald.
The agenda items are included. They are “Welcome and Opening Remarks”, “Discussion on Canada Student Service Grant Options”, “Program Delivery & Policy Authority”, and “Wrap-up & Next Steps”.
This document, Mr. Chair, obviously would ordinarily be subject to cabinet confidences, but the government nevertheless made the decision to produce it even though we didn't ask for it and even though, had we asked for it, they may have been within their rights to refuse to produce it on the basis of cabinet confidences. They've given us nearly the whole thing. The only portion that's redacted is the password to the teleconference that was hosted that day. This is the kind of information that's been excluded from document production.
If we can continue on here, Mr. Chair, I direct your attention to page 228 of the Department of Finance's production. This is talking about key issues for discussion on service and volunteering initiatives. The heading beneath that title is the “Canada Emergency Service Grant”. It's then labelled “(CSSG)”. Presumably that was during a time when a program was being considered but a name had not been landed upon.
The first heading is “Eligible individuals”.
Should the grant be limited to youth registered in PSE studies or more broadly to any youth eligible for PSE studies? Should youth in receipt of stipend under CSC microgrant program be eligible for the CSSG
You can tell here the CSC, if you read again the remittal letter. Actually, I'm second-guessing myself about which document it was in, but there was one document that used that specific acronym to describe the Canada Service Corps.
We heard testimony at this committee—again, I should say the previous version of this committee in the prior session of this Parliament—that indicated specifically that the Canada Service Corps was actually being considered to administer this program. We heard testimony when the Prime Minister was before this committee, along with his chief of staff, Ms. Telford, that in fact when that idea was pitched, they learned CSC didn't have the capacity, and the recommendation of the civil service was that if this program were to be administered this year, it would be by the WE organization or not at all for this year.
This is a document that speaks to that very issue in some ways, and it includes recommendations that were made. All of it is fully produced. There are no redactions on this particular page.
It doesn't just deal with the recommendations; it also deals with the considerations if they limit the program specifically to students. It talks about the eligible service opportunities that could be part of a program of this nature. It includes recommendations, including the following:
establishing minimum criteria for eligible volunteer opportunities
proactive outreach and contribution agreements with third party organizations to encourage the development of COVID19 related opportunities across all regions of the country
funding WE proposal to create 10 week service opportunity for 20,000 youth to ensure early offerings
That was under the heading “Recommend”. Under “Considerations”, they list a few additional ones as well.
They go on to talk about the “I Want to Help” portal and then about “The Grant Amounts and Payments” and recommendations and considerations regarding those.
This is an important document in terms of what the committee was looking for. If you're looking for information about how the program was developed, how it was implemented, how it evolved over time, it's squarely within what the committee had asked for. The government decided to produce this document in full, without redaction.
On page 230 of the Department of Finance's disclosure package, you see “Canada Service Corps: Canada Student Service Grant”. Again, this reflects the testimony we heard that the Canada Service Corps was, in fact, being considered for the administration of this program.
It's a draft dated April 29, which actually coincides perfectly with the timeline that was provided to this committee, and on which committee members had the opportunity to question senior members of the government, including the Prime Minister, because this predates the first cabinet meeting, which I believe was May 5 or May 8. My memory escapes me at the moment, Mr. Chair.
In any event, the document relates to the development and implementation of the program, so it's clearly within the realm of what this committee asked for. This particular document is marked “draft”; it's not specifically marked “subject to cabinet confidence”, but it does follow the agenda document with the redacted conference ID that I mentioned, and cabinet confidence did attach to that document. In any event, it was produced in its entirety.
It talks about the context around COVID-19 and the need for the development of a program like this. It outlines the proposed approach to the program by ESDC. It talks about the youth eligibility requirements and the eligible service placements. This is the kind of document you want in order to figure out what the government was thinking at the time this program was being developed. It describes what considerations they had in mind and what recommendations they received, including the cost. Here the total anticipated cost is estimated at $862.5 million.
Frankly, Mr. Chair, this is a document, along with a contribution agreement, that I would have great interest in going through if I wanted to learn about what the government was thinking at the time. The great thing is that if we want to know what they were thinking at the time, what considerations they had made, what recommendations they had received, thankfully it's all been written down and it's all been produced for this committee. Again this document doesn't have redactions, aside from the conference ID that all of this information pertained to. I don't see how that particular information would move the needle one iota for members of this committee who are interested in learning more. The substantive material is all there.
10:35 p.m.
Liberal
10:35 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I was referring to the document package from the Department of Finance, ending at page 240. I think it began around page 220; page 227 was the first page, which was the agenda. It was subject to cabinet confidence and marked “Secret”, yet all the attachments to it seemingly were produced, with significant detail about everything from the anticipated cost to the eligibility requirements for potential students to take part to the eligible placements that could be considered. It's all there, with the limited exception of the conference ID for the teleconference that took place that day.