Finance Committee on Oct. 28th, 2020

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

I'm sorry. Maybe I'm not close enough to the computer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mrs. Jansen, go ahead.

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

I am wondering if this is considered debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mrs. Jansen, as I told Mr. Poilievre before, if he wanted to get into economics, I would have to allow others to get into economics too. We will not let it go on for terribly long. We will try to balance it out, but I have to be fair to both sides.

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

I am strictly replying to the comments that Mr. Poilievre made moments ago in this committee meeting. He has said so many times that we are getting the worst results for the highest investment. Only Mr. Poilievre and only the Conservatives would measure results strictly by the financial impact and the financial outputs associated with this. Never mind the fact that we have one of the lowest death rates per capita. Why don't we start measuring things based on that?

Let's drill down into it a bit deeper, because Mr. Poilievre sure does like to retweet numbers from The Post Millennial and the Fraser Institute. If he's looking at the September numbers—and I really wish I could share my screen with members—Canada is at 9% unemployment and the United States is at 8.4%.

My question to Mr. Poilievre is quite simple. Does he believe that saving 0.6% in the unemployment rate is worth tripling the death rate of COVID-19? Maybe that's something Mr. Poilievre can square later on, but it's the reality of the situation. If he wants to continue to measure the success of dealing with the pandemic based on fiscal inputs and outputs, it's no wonder the Conservatives can't seem to form government. They are incredibly out of touch with the reality of Canadians and what Canadians are going through right now.

I'll jump back to this motion that we're talking about. Since the time the motion was put on the floor and discussion was going on about it, the Clerk of the Privy Council has come forward to say that he would always make himself available to the committee to provide input into how these decisions were made and how decisions are made when it comes to redacting information. I would have thought that to be a slam dunk. I thought that would have been the easiest thing for all members of this committee to accept.

There is an opportunity to have the Clerk of the Privy Council come forward to explain what some members are complaining about. I apologize if I come across as being very cynical about this, but if you're not willing to do that, it really only leaves people with one conclusion: that there is a complete lack of interest in knowing what really happened. Rather, the interest is to continue to drum up support for these conspiracy theories that are being propagated by Mr. Poilievre in hopes of character assassination to reap political gain.

The reality of this situation is that the vast majority of Canadians, in my opinion, can see right through that. Time and time again this has been the plan, but Canadians are smarter than that. Canadians accept the fact that there are many times when certain individuals have to properly redact information before it's turned over as requested.

Mr. Speaker, the decision on what to reveal is made by non-partisan public servants, for whom it has long been a tradition not to reveal cabinet confidences. That has been the case going back to all previous governments of all party stripes.

The NDP should start coming clean about the taxpayer-funded resources it has been employing to illegally finance campaigns....

You can probably figure out, Mr. Chair, that I'm quoting somebody else, and I'm sure that by this point most members of the committee know exactly who said this. It was, of course, the Hon. Pierre Poilievre when he was minister of democratic reform. He stood up in the House as a result of the following question:

Mr. Speaker, in response to an NDP access to information request to see the Minister of State for Democratic Reform's briefing books, the PCO first refused altogether. Then, after we filed a complaint, it finally disclosed the minister's 200-page briefing book.

The problem is that the PCO blacked out 99% of it. It even redacted what looks to be two thirds—

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

There is a point of order from Mr. Falk.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

The current rant that we're on has nothing to do with the subamendment. He's not even talking economics any more. He is merely engaging in a personal attack on the Hon. Pierre Poilievre, who has demonstrated his very fine ability at this committee—

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I will hear one point of order first, and then we will go to the other. Finish your point of order, Mr. Falk.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I think the personal attacks should stop. Maybe he should focus on the topic of the day or at the very least talk about the dismal shape that our economy is in, which the government has put us into.

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

I'd like to add to that point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Who was the other person who raised a point of order first?

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

I was, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Fragiskatos is next, and then we'll go to Mr. Gerretsen.

I would say, Mr. Falk, that the subamendment talks about the redaction of documents, and what Mr. Gerretsen is talking about previous precedents and responses in the House, so it is in order, I believe.

Mr. Fragiskatos has the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have had the honour of knowing Mr. Gerretsen for five-plus years now. To describe, as Mr. Falk just did, his words to committee today as a rant besmirches his reputation and the reputation of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I don't think that's a point of order, Mr. Fragiskatos.

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

I just wanted to come to the defence of a friend of mine, someone whom I admire, someone who served his community as mayor, who is now a member of Parliament—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, Mr. Fragiskatos, your point of order is over.

We'll go back to you, Mr. Gerretsen.

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

I'm pretty sure that Mr. Fragiskatos was trying to make a push—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe has a point of order.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

A point of order.

There are so many points of order that the interpreters can't keep up. We will have to proceed more slowly for the French speakers. I think I'm the only francophone here tonight.

This should be done properly and calmly so that we can follow. It's not fair to people who are following along through the interpretation.

Do you understand my point of order, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

That is a very valid point of order, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe. I understand it entirely.

We'll go back to Mr. Gerretsen.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate your ruling on that point of order. Indeed, I am just setting a precedent here, a precedent to demonstrate that this is, by far, not the first time this has happened, and if Mr. Falk has an issue with that, he'd better buckle up, because I have another 10 to 12 examples from Conservative ministers that I would like to share with them, so here we go.

I want to read that again, because I think it's really important to get that on the record, uninterrupted, from beginning to end:

Mr. Speaker, in response to an NDP access to information request to see the Minister of State for Democratic Reform's briefing books, the PCO first refused altogether. Then, after we filed a complaint, it finally disclosed the minister's 200-page briefing book.

The problem is that the PCO blacked out 99% of it. It even redacted what looks to be two thirds of the table of contents.

I have a simple question for the minister. Can he tell us what is in that table of contents that he would like to hide from Canadians?

This was a question, Mr. Chair, from an NDP member, Craig Scott, when he was in the House at the time. He was asking this question of Mr. Poilievre.

I will repeat again what Mr. Poilievre responded, which was:

Mr. Speaker, the decision on what to reveal is made by non-partisan public servants, for whom it has long been a tradition not to reveal cabinet confidences. That has been the case going back to all previous governments of all party stripes.

I find it interesting, Mr. Chair, that Mr. Poilievre quite clearly and fully understood the responsibilities of the PCO at the time when he made his point to indicate why he had to black out 99% of a document. However, for some reason now, as we are discussing this issue, Mr. Poilievre thinks that the committee can somehow circumvent the regular established process for blacking out and redacting sections of documents.

I would like at some point to jump into that document that I went through in detail last time. It bears repeating so that some members of the committee can be refreshed on it, but the reality is that what we saw is that the vast majority of redactions were with respect to telephone numbers.

They were individuals' personal cellphone numbers that Mr. Poilievre appears to be hell-bent on getting. Unfortunately, he doesn't appreciate the fact that those numbers need to be kept in confidence and private.

In other examples where there was completely unrelated information in an Excel spreadsheet that related to the request from the committee, they obviously blacked out that information because it hadn't been requested. For some reason, it made complete sense to Mr. Poilievre when he was the Minister of Democratic Reform, but now, when he's sitting in the other seat, he can't seem to be convinced of the same argument.

I [Technical difficulty—Editor] see beyond that, because I can, Mr. Chair. I can attempt to look beyond Mr. Poilievre's argument. It still doesn't explain why it is [Technical difficulty—Editor] aided and abetted by the NDP and the Bloc, refuse to let the individuals who redacted this stuff come to this committee and explain themselves. It makes absolutely no sense.

If you ask me why I'm sitting here at 12:30 on a Thursday morning fighting this, I have to be honest with you: It's not because I was particularly invited, but because I found out that this committee meeting was still going on. I just couldn't believe that this issue hadn't been dealt with yet. I figured that I have more to say on this, because clearly we have some members here who need some convincing.

I'm willing to put up this fight. I'm willing to go as far as it takes, Mr. Chair, to make sure that members of our public service—the incredible officials that we have—get all of the proper attention that they deserve and can be properly heard before this committee casts their careers in the shadow of having been part of a parliamentary privilege breach.

I want to share another quote with you, Mr. Chair. This is from Peter MacKay from April 25, 2007:

Mr. Speaker, that is patently false. These reports are received, reviewed and redacted in exactly the same fashion as they have since 2002. The previous government went through the same process. There are lawyers and officials in all departments who make these decisions independent of the political branch of government. There were no ministers and certainly the Prime Minister was not involved in any redaction and decisions made as to what information was to be redacted in the reports.

Here we have another former minister explaining to opposition members in 2007, Mr. Chair, about why they were not able to allow just any or different individuals—at the will or the request of the committee—to participate in the redaction of the documents. It is very clearly laid out who is responsible for redacting those documents.

As we can see, and as Mr. MacKay said so eloquently in that speech, there are lawyers, officials and people who understand the content of what they're reading who can properly make the right decision on what needs to be redacted and what doesn't. It goes without saying that a lawyer in a special field is going to have more information at their fingertips to be able to understand the confidentiality of certain agreements and certain correspondence that took place, much more so than the chief legal counsel of Parliament. There's no disrespect meant to those particular individuals, but it is clearly the case that people within these departments have the ability to really understand the content of the material so that they can do the redactions in a proper way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Gerretsen, I know you're not finished. I don't want to break your line of thought. You seem to have a lot more to say, but for health and safety reasons I'm suspending until tomorrow at the regular meeting time.