Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's good to see colleagues.
Mr. Chair, I won't take too much of the committee's time. I just wanted to take a few moments, if I could, to recap where we are. For those back at home, after weeks of watching it could be easy to be confused as to why we're here.
We have our initial motion, which pertains to Mr. Poilievre's matter of privilege in relation to redacted documents. These documents were received by this committee in accordance with a motion that was passed by committee members. The documents were in the format as requested in the motion and were provided on time. The redactions that Mr. Poilievre seems to be taking issue with, it would appear, are directly related to the work done by the parliamentary law clerk. I can appreciate that Mr. Poilievre is not happy with the results of the motion. However, it was his party that drafted the original motion.
Subsequently, we have an amendment and a subamendment on the table related to the production of documents, on which version of documents should be disclosed, how they are compared and whatnot. I won't waste time going into detail on that. What is key to the subamendment is the appearance of the Clerk of the Privy Council. As my colleagues have noted previously, and as my opposition colleagues are fully aware, we are in possession of a letter from the most senior civil servant in the country. The Clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to cabinet is the head of our civil service, the head of the Privy Council Office, which coordinates the functioning of the government in Canada. As secretary to cabinet, they are the chief adviser to cabinet and are responsible for the accurate recording of meetings and decisions. Clearly, the clerk is in a position to be an expert witness on any number of matters, particularly because it was the clerk who pre-emptively ordered the release of documents, including cabinet confidences and the names of relevant public servants, prior to this committee making its motion.
It's important that we focus for a moment on the matters at hand. As I noted, the clerk is the secretary to cabinet and is responsible for keeping information related to cabinet. As a result, he is the keeper of cabinet confidences. He can choose whether they're waived in a particular circumstance, as he did in the matter of the Canada student service grant. He did choose to waive confidence and provide all documentation that flowed through the cabinet papers system. The clerk committed to doing this before we even voted on requests for these documents.
Further to his responsibility to keep cabinet confidences, the clerk did take the position that matters unrelated to the student service grant should not be disclosed. Is this an unreasonable position? I think not. Is this position by the clerk to redact unrelated cabinet confidences outside the normal scope of practice? No, it is not. Is it outside the normal scope of practice for department officials, non-partisan public servants, to redact said documentation at point of source? No. Is it outside the normal scope of practice for the public service to provide completely unredacted cabinet documents to the parliamentary law clerk and for him, and him alone, to choose what should be redacted as a cabinet confidence? Absolutely, 100%.
This is exactly what Mr. Poilievre and my opposition colleagues are calling for here. The opposition majority is calling on this committee to take a position regarding document requests that is very far outside the normal practice. It's happening not just here. We see this happening at other committees as well. We also see it with the structure of the motion the Conservatives made in regard to their opposition motion the other week, again, requesting documents unredacted and calling on the law clerk to make those redactions for cabinet confidences. The parliamentary law clerk has never had powers to review cabinet confidences. There are legal precedents and reasons for this—very good reasons.
For the information of colleagues, I am on point in relation to our subamendment. I believe setting the proper context is important. You will fully understand my point momentarily.
As I have explained, the way in which the majority opposition has requested documents is rather unorthodox and out of the ordinary. To make it even more interesting, the original motion drafted and passed by the opposition recognized that unrelated cabinet confidences would be redacted at source and then forwarded to the law clerk for a personal privacy check.
The motion was structured and passed in that way and no one from the opposition said otherwise. Imagine our surprise when Mr. Poilievre appeared post-document release dramatically throwing blacked out papers around at the press briefing, papers he received from the law clerk and conforming to the exact specifications of a motion that he proposed.
Now this brings me to the Clerk of the Privy Council. In mid-August the government House leader released documents, the exact documents that the clerk had promised and that the clerk had requested in the motion, minus the redactions by the law clerk. This was an extraordinary release of Crown secrets. As has been said in this committee in the past, this release of documents this was unlike any that had occurred in the past. Included in the information was reference to specific public servants, which the clerk took the extreme step of leaving unredacted. This required the clerk to file a notice with the Privacy Commissioner advising him of his move.
I think colleagues need to let the gravity of that decision sink in. We now have two sets of documents, the lightly redacted information from the government House leader, which saw the complete release of information as it relates to the CSSG, or the Canada student service grant, minus unrelated cabinet confidences, which included the names of public servants. We also have the documents from the law clerk, which are a bit more heavily redacted, removing the names of public servants, phone numbers and emails, among some other items.
Now the opposition has taken issue with the preredactions made by the public servants in relation to unrelated cabinet confidences, which again I find strange considering that this was in the motion from the committee. It's the regular practice when documents are sent to the committee as well, though clearly this doesn't fit the partisan narrative of the majority opposition. Mr. Poilievre, Mr. Julian and others have concerns about these preredactions. We can debate all day about how this was to be expected because of the motion that was passed. However, let's set that argument aside for a moment.
As I've said, the Clerk of the Privy Council is the keeper of cabinet confidences and is an expert witness when it comes to their release. He has offered to come before this committee. That letter sent by him states clearly that he and his relevant deputy ministers would gladly come before the committee to explain how they went about reviewing the motion from the committee, compiling documents and complying the best they could with our request.
I know this has been reported in the press as well, so Canadians across the country will be aware of this fact too. Personally I'm not sure why the opposition has questions about why there were redactions for unrelated cabinet confidences. I get that they have their political game to play so I'm willing to play ball on some level. That's why I think it's completely reasonable to have the clerk and his fellow deputies here to explain themselves. What is important for us to remember is that, like us, the amazing public servants who work for the Government of Canada swear an oath, an oath to uphold the secrecy of all matters that come before them in their duties and to uphold the statutes that govern privacy laws in Canada.
As we push these public servants for the release of information, they are conducting a delicate balancing act between our rights as parliamentarians to reasonably access government documents and their sworn responsibility to uphold the confidence of the cabinet process and protect the functioning of responsible government. I think that, up front, the clerk should be commended. He recognized that this program, while on its merits was a good concept as far was the program was concerned, clearly had issues on the implementation front. He recognized the need to be 100% up front and transparent in regard to how the CSSG came into being, and he ensured that the cabinet documents relating to its creation and approval were made available for parliamentarians.
However, as committee members, we have to recognize that this unprecedented move to make the information available had to be balanced with the need to protect cabinet confidences on matters that were unrelated. If we accepted the request from the clerk to appear, I think that is what he would tell this committee. I think he has a measured and reasonable explanation for why some information was released and other information was not. I think the testimony he will give will side with the fact that it is not the responsibility of the Clerk of the Privy Council to assist the official opposition with their politically motivated fishing expedition
I think it wouldn't be appropriate for him to unredact information for purely political reasons, to help the opposition. It would taint the cabinet process. All these explanations would be better heard coming from the lips of the clerk himself.
I think we know what colleagues on the other side are afraid of. They are rather annoyed that we will not allow the tyranny of the opposition majority to rule supreme here in this place. I think they are annoyed that a non-partisan professional public servant is willing to come forward and testify, and that the testimony that would be given would likely counter their narrow partisan strategy. I encourage all my colleagues to vote in favour of the subamendment to allow the clerk to come forward and explain the position of the government in regard to the redaction. It's the right thing to do.
I ask colleagues to do the right thing: Allow the clerk to come before us. Let's move past this matter after he testifies and get to the work that Canadians expect of us. In particular, I am very much looking forward to discussing the motion from Ms. Dzerowicz regarding pre-budget consultations. It's the whole reason this committee exists. Let's hear from the clerk and then let's get to the work on pre-budget planning.
This is a critical point and one that is quite relevant, because, if we think back, this debate around Mr. Kelly's amendment and the subamendment that has been proposed by the Liberal side really does, as we continue with it—and I think we should because the subamendment is tremendously important—stand in the way of our looking at Ms. Dzerowicz's motion, which is completely on par with what this committee, as I just said, needs to do: commence pre-budget consultations so that we can begin to hear from Canadians about what their priorities are.
As we face a second wave, COVID-19 continues to impact almost every part of this country in some shape or form. In my own province, Ontario, we are seeing real challenges, not only in the GTA and in Ottawa, but also in other parts. As we start to grapple with it, we need to hear from experts, particularly on the economy, and consider how COVID-19 is impacting the land. I can't emphasize enough to my colleagues how imperative it is that we move in this direction. If we think back to when we were elected, what was it we were sent here to do?
The committee process for all MPs is central to the job of being a parliamentarian. We all know that this job is many things. It's really two jobs, at the end of the day. You have the constituency work, which is vital, but you also have the work that takes place on Parliament Hill. On this latter point, the work on Parliament Hill, our committee work is crucial, imperative. I have had the honour of serving on the committee for foreign affairs, on the committee for public safety and national security, and now for the previous two years, under your learned leadership, Mr. Chair, and I say this very sincerely.... I know you're a modest man, and you're shaking your head there. You should not. You have led the committee in a very able way, Mr. Chair.
It is a tremendously important thing to sit on the finance committee, and the work we do is varied. We have a role in the gathering of ideas that relate to COVID-19 and the economic response, the gathering of ideas that find their way in the form of recommendations for the finance minister to consider and for the Prime Minister also, of course, to consider. That is not a small thing. It is something that I and colleagues around the table will take pride in, but our constituents also feel a great amount of pride when they know they have MPs representing them who sit on this committee, arguably the most important committee on Parliament Hill.
As we have engaged in this debate, I have thought back to what it is preventing from happening. It is obviously preventing us from dealing with Ms. Dzerowicz's motion, which is calling on us to begin immediately pre-budget consultations.
However, that doesn't mean this debate is one that I'm willing to simply surrender to the opposition, because there are a number of things at stake here. We have the Clerk of the Privy Council, who has made the very important point that he wishes to come before committee to be asked questions, not only by members of Parliament on the Liberal side but by opposition members of Parliament as well. It is an extraordinary move on his part, and we see the opposition standing in the way of that happening.
This is where I have real concerns. We have not dealt in previous meetings with this point that I'm about to make at this committee, but it has been suggested, especially by Mr. Poilievre, and I am disappointed not to hear opposition colleagues challenge him on this point.... I will tell you—and I think I speak for the entire Liberal side—that when Mr. Poilievre suggested that it would not be something he would be open to, that he would not be in favour of having the clerk appear before this committee, because in his view the clerk operates at the whim of the Prime Minister and, as I think Mr. Poilievre put it, is somehow under the thumb of the Prime Minister, is reliant, is “dependent”, on him.... These are the words he continues to use. Mr. Poilievre has said that the Clerk of the Privy Council is dependent on the Prime Minister. It's just not true.
The most senior civil servant in the land is, by definition, neutral and objective. They must be in order to carry out their role, which is what? The clerk has the most important role in the public service, and we need to make sure that, while there naturally will be quarrels between members of Parliament on opposite party sides, we do not attack the public service, which, as we have seen with the issue of the day, COVID-19, were it not for the federal public service.... We could also talk about the public services operating at the provincial and municipal levels, but I won't do that. I'll focus on the federal public service and what an extraordinary job they have done through COVID-19.
By suggesting that the head of Canada's public service is somehow under the rule of and entirely “dependent”, as Mr. Poilievre put it, on the Prime Minister, that is something that besmirches not only the reputation of this particular clerk. It besmirches the reputation of clerks previous and those who will come after Mr. Shugart. It also attacks the reputation and honour of existing public servants at all levels, whether they are public servants who have just recently joined Canada's civil service or whether they are experienced ones as well.
I wonder why it is that my Conservative colleagues continue to do this at almost every opportunity. It surprised me as well that Mr. Poilievre made the point, because he speaks very highly, at least he has in previous sessions and meetings of this committee.... In the previous Parliament, for example, I remember him putting on record that he held Mr. Shugart in high esteem. That was an interesting point, but one that he completely contradicts when he says that Mr. Shugart is under the thumb of the current Prime Minister. It's just not the case. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, when Mr. Poilievre served in cabinet, Mr. Shugart was the deputy minister to Mr. Poilievre and has served under a number of different governments.
All of which is to say, that the moment we begin to attack public servants is the moment when we see a tide or a shift in our democracy that we should absolutely avoid. All of us are in this position as members of Parliament, a position that will not be forever. We are here for sometimes a few years and sometimes a good number of years. The reality is that partisanship plays a role in that process. We've decided to approach our public service in that way, but public servants who decide to work in the civil service, making a contribution along those lines, want nothing to do with politics. Once we begin attacking them, we violate a central, a cardinal, rule in a democracy, and that is that the public service must never be politicized.
Public servants are not politicizing this process but by making the accusations that Mr. Poilievre has put forward, and which again I emphasize to my amazement, the opposition has not intervened to correct him or to voice their view on the matter. We take away, we do away with the need to ensure that our democracy, in terms of the public service, is free of politics.
There's another thing, too, here. I remember Mr. Gerretsen suggesting this, although he didn't complete the thought, if I remember, when he sat at this committee a few weeks back. It was that we have to be very careful about how we decide to engage discussions around the public service because they're not here to defend themselves. When Mr. Poilievre makes these accusations he does so without Mr. Shugart and other public servants present. That to me is offensive because public servants are not to be attacked for all the reasons I've laid out. Also, it's not their position to engage in these debates.
Mr. Shugart realizes that but in a very honourable way has put forward a letter to this committee so he can be heard. If members of the opposition at that point wish to engage combatively with him I suppose that can happen. To launch these accusations without the Clerk of the Privy Council present is quite extraordinary and something I don't think I've seen at any committee level. I wonder if it's happened before in previous committees. Perhaps it has, as that parliamentary history is long. I'm going to assume, because of the strength of our democracy, that the times it has transpired are few and far between.
This point about not attacking the public servants who serve this country—