Finance Committee on Nov. 5th, 2020

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

Are we still talking about the motion, or are we getting a little liberal here?

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

It's not a point of order, Ms. Jansen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

This is not a big “L” or a little “l”, Ms. Jansen. I think she is refuting some points in debate that Mr. Poilievre made. I'll let her close quickly, and we'll go back to the subamendment.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I'm only going to be another couple of minutes, Mr. Chair. I will not be speaking for many hours. I just think that, if someone is throwing out misinformation, it's important to correct it for the record.

Mr. Poilievre also indicated that we have not submitted the WE documents. All those documents have been submitted. They've been redacted. They've also been submitted to the Law Clerk. There are two sets of documents that are out there. That has been completed, so I wanted to correct that for the record.

I also wanted to indicate that there's been no conversation in our deliberations over the last few weeks, since October 8 when we reconvened, around cartoon characters. I think there was a reference to a Polkeroo, and the only reason we mentioned Polkeroo was because there were large periods of time when Mr. Poilievre was missing. I think we made a reference to a Mr. Polkeroo at that point in time.

I want to end off with the proposal where Mr. Fraser has left us, which is to say that, in whatever remaining moments we might have of this meeting, which is 25 minutes right now, I think it's better spent on our trying to find a solution.

I also want to thank you, Mr. Chair, for doing a really fine job of outlining an alternate proposal in terms of a calendar. I think that clearly illustrates that we are willing to work, that we want to get to pre-budget consultations, that we've looked into how it is that we can do some credible work around pre-budget consultations and hear from some of those who have submitted the 793 submissions, that it might take some extra effort on our part in December and January in presenting, unusually, in February this report to the House and that we're willing to really get down to business.

I thank you for your work in doing that and outlining that to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Fragiskatos, we will be going back to you in a moment.

I don't see unanimous consent to allow the motion Mr. Poilievre has put forward, so we will go back to the subamendment.

I would wish Mr. Fraser and Mr. Poilievre well in terms of trying to find a solution to this little bit of an issue that's left on this matter over the next 12 hours or so.

If the House leaders are involved, I would just absolutely plead with them to find a solution and allow us to go ahead so that we can, as a committee, get to the pre-budget consultations and to other issues that must be addressed from the finance committee's point of view.

I rule the motion as proposed out of order without unanimous consent.

Mr. Fragiskatos, the floor is yours on the subamendment from the business that was left unresolved from our last committee meeting.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will echo what Mr. Dzerowicz said about your stewardship of the committee. I just wanted to take a moment at the outset, if I could, to commend you on your leadership at the committee level. I know our deliberations have been going on for some quite some time, and you continue to do your best to guide us through the process, often while being an hour ahead of us and for a period of time while self-isolating.

I also want to take a moment and thank colleagues for their continued participation in this process. While we may not agree, I think it would be fair to note that we are all here for the same reason, to advance the interests of our constituents and Canadians.

Mr. Chair, I would like to begin by taking a moment to reflect on why we are here. Yes, it's to debate a subamendment, and yes, it is to come to a fair and equitable agreement in relation to the situation regarding WE documents. However, what is at the core of this debate that we have been debating here at the committee is our work in service to our constituents. I can say, at least for my part, that working day in and day out to advance the interests of my constituents is my first and primary thought.

Now, I know my colleagues in opposition may be fed up with this debate we are having, and that is understandable. They have their goals, and they are trying to achieve those goals. They need these motions to go through quickly and without much scrutiny.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to continue, but something could be wrong with Ms. Jansen. I'm not sure if she's wanting to get in or to raise a point of order. I'm not sure what's going on, but she seems anxious and on the edge of her seat to intervene, or highly amused by the introductory remarks I've given, which I didn't think were all that amusing. However, if Ms. Jansen has something to say, I'm glad to yield the floor for a brief moment. She's saying no.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I think Ms. Jansen is saying no. She is sitting on the edge of her seat though, Mr. Fragiskatos, just so you're aware.

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

Fair enough. I thought she was ready to intervene there. Being a good committee colleague, I was willing, even in this case, to yield some time to the opposition even. That shows the good faith that Liberal members are bringing to the committee level.

Getting back to what I was talking about, I think robust debate is needed to ensure that we get this right. There is already confusion on the opposition side after they passed a motion that specifically removed cabinet confidences and they received exactly what they asked for. It seems in their rush to pass this motion, they confused themselves, unfortunately.

In regard to all these stories that the opposition is trying to weave together with respect to WE Charity, it's no wonder that they find themselves confused. You really do have to be immersed in what has been going on and in the debate we're having to understand the intricacies of what is going on here. What I can say for certain is that constituents are not bogged down in this minutiae on the WE Charity affair, at least not the constituents in my riding. Frankly, they have looked at this matter closely over the past few months, and the conclusion of most Canadians seems to be clear: Nothing improper occurred.

This makes sense, Mr. Chair, because after hours of testimony by those the opposition majority allege are involved, and after thousands of pages of documents have been released to the public, it's clear that nothing untoward took place.

Now, I understand that Mr. Julian may be itching to call me on relevance, which he hasn't done yet—it will the first in a while, but I guess the night is young—to the subamendment. That's understandable. I apologize. I am a sucker for a good preamble. But I do promise that I'm getting to my point. I feel that we must lay this out properly for those who are watching at home so they can understand exactly what we have going on here. In fact, I think it's paramount that in all the things we do, we keep our constituents informed and ensure that they can follow along and understand the false narrative that the opposition majority on this committee and in Parliament is trying to weave.

Chair, it's clear that my opposition colleagues know full well that the public is not biting on this web of stories that they're trying to push. Here we are, still debating documents, unredacted versions that are in the hands of the law clerk, that really do paint a clear picture of what occurred and support the position of the government. Mr. Poilievre can argue all he wants about privilege and documents being redacted. However, the truth is clear. The motion that Mr. Poilievre put forward specifically noted that cabinet confidences should be removed. The documents provided by the government via the House leader were very clear and transparent in regard to the student service grant and provided an unprecedented look behind the curtain. Mr. Poilievre is not pleased that his plan to have the law clerk review the documents backfired, that in fact it was the clerk who redacted a significant amount of information in the documents. It was those documents that Mr. Poilievre held up in his display in front of the press gallery back in August.

It's completely understandable that Mr. Poilievre is now upset. It's because the Clerk of the Privy Council, who was our topic of discussion with this motion, I remind committee members, ordered an unprecedented release of cabinet documents as they relate to the student service grant. In August the government House leader released those documents. I know that my colleague was expecting full well that in some fantasy scenario we would be completely redacting those documents. That just wasn't the case, however, and this upsets him.

We are here today because we have a motion, an amendment and a subamendment, all of which deal with these documents in question. Part of our discussion has focused on comparing the documents, which Mr. Poilievre does not want to happen because this will show it was in fact the law clerk who redacted the documents more fully and not the public service. He doesn't want the Clerk of the Privy Council to testify or any of the deputy ministers to testify because their testimony will also support that the public service was open and transparent.

If we actually had the ability to hear from Mr. Shugart, I'm sure he would tell us the same thing that he has said in testimony previously at other committees and at this committee, that he ordered unprecedented unmasking of cabinet confidences and personal information for public release. He would likely attest to the fact that the minor redactions that were done on cabinet confidence documents were done because the information was unrelated to the CSSG. He would likely remind us that the cabinet and the government were navigating the first wave of the global pandemic, and some decisions being taken were not relevant and were related to national security and other matters that should not be made public. However, we cannot know any of these things for certain, because the opposition majority continues to reign supreme here.

I truly believe that each of us needs to have reverence for this place. We are trusted by our communities to represent them in Parliament. It is a unique privilege that few before us have had. When I was first elected in 2015, in London North Centre, I had high hopes for what could be achieved. I heard past stories of members from all sides coming together to work toward the common good. In fact, I've seen at least a few examples of this through the years.

Sitting here, and debating a motion that is being blocked by the opposition to allow the highest ranking public servant in Canada from testifying before a parliamentary committee, frankly, is unacceptable.

I thought that at some point we would be able to come to a compromise, and this subamendment seemed like a fair and equitable way to get to the bottom of the story around these documents. It would allow us to hear from those who control the redaction processes. It is truly unfortunate that partisan politics are stopping us from coming to that agreement. It's even more unfortunate that these partisan games are having the effect of politicizing the position of the clerk, who has worked under governments from both parties, and has been nothing but an upstanding and well-respected civil servant.

Sometimes as elected officials we have to stand back, and realize the effects of the actions that we take. Unfortunately, because Mr. Poilievre did not get what he wanted out of the initial request for documents, he is now willing to go to any length to find a way to continue his narrative.

We have a subamendment before us that could answer all the questions that all parties have, and because it doesn't fit the narrow partisan interests of the opposition majority, we have yet to reach a consensus.

I implore my colleagues to put aside the partisanship, to put aside their personal vendetta against the Prime Minister and his family, to look at the facts that are clear and surely out there, testimony that has been more than apparent, to vote in favour of this motion, and do the right thing, allow the clerk to come before us to explain that nothing nefarious took place, and to finally put this matter to rest once and for all.

We have important work to do. We are far behind on our work to conduct pre-budget consultations as mandated in the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. This is the work that our constituents are expecting us to do. This is the work that will help the economic rebuild for us. This is the work that we were elected to do.

In fact, Mr. Chair, if I could follow-up on that last point, it's so critical that this committee think long and hard about the path ahead. The subamendment sketches out a meaningful way to address exactly what the opposition has been calling for, what Liberal members are more than prepared to get behind in the form of a subamendment, but for some reason they continue to delay. They continue to throw up road blocks.

We have something here that's indeed quite reasonable, Mr. Chair, and when you think about the work that could be done right now...We could be holding pre-budget consultations. We could be hearing about the best way forward, not only in terms of dealing with the pandemic, but in the economic rebuild that must follow.

We could be hearing from organizations across the country focused on the environment, focused on indigenous issues, focused on urban transit, focused on rural issues, focused on all these issues that should be seizing this committee, a committee that is arguably the most important in Ottawa.

When the time comes around to deciding committees, every MP in the House of Commons wants to serve on the finance committee. It is a unique role and honour. Instead of doing the work that I expected to be doing at this time, and all members around the table expected, we continue to debate these matters when a meaningful solution is on the table that opposition parties should get behind.

The position of the opposition members on the matter is such that they have in fact worked to politicize the role of the Clerk of the Privy Council, the chief public servant in all of Canada and the highest ranking public servant in all of Canada, by suggesting, as they have in previous meetings, time and again.... It hasn't only been once.

I think each Conservative member.... If I'm going to single anyone out, I won't call out Mr. Julian or Mr. Ste-Marie on this, but Conservative colleagues have suggested that the Clerk of the Privy Council is somehow controlled by the Prime Minister. They have politicized his role. The Clerk of the Privy Council is an independent public servant, full stop. Someone in the form of Mr. Shugart has served Conservative and Liberal prime ministers, and when these allegations are made, it undermines public confidence in the institutions of the country, not only in the Privy Council, Mr. Chair.

These allegations are not just inaccurate, but pushed, and reveal in the Conservatives an approach to the public service that we must fight against, because if you look at the tendency in modern democracies, you see a populist right-wing that is rising. Thankfully it hasn't hit Canada, but you do see it in other mature democracies, whereby members of the public service are belittled and the end result is that citizens lack faith in democracy. I would call my opposition colleagues to be more careful, because when you have someone in the form of the Clerk of the Privy Council who has not just expressed in verbal form but also through a letter to this committee a desire to appear to make his case, to answer any questions, and yet we are told by the Conservatives that he cannot do so because he is somehow being controlled by the Prime Minister, it is a bizarre argument. It is an argument without any merit, but more than that, it's not laughable because it has effects, and the effect is, as I said, to undermine public confidence in the institutions of federal government.

No doubt the rise of social media means that the democracy before us has been reduced in many ways to an algorithm. When the Conservatives put forward these sorts of ideas, inevitably these find their way onto Facebook and the like. It doesn't take much. All of a sudden, an image develops and someone who is objective and non-partisan then bears a reputation saying the opposite.

The way things work now, the person I'm talking about, the Clerk, Mr. Shugart, could be dismissed by Canadians as not being objective. And all of a sudden, the institutions of the land are not able to serve the public interest.

Ms. Jansen is agreeing with me as she continues to follow along, and I'm seeing that she's deeply amused with the argument, which says to me that she's in violent agreement with exactly what I'm putting forward to the committee. I say that, of course, rhetorically, and I would say to her very respectfully, because I know she's not going to interrupt me—she's too polite to do that—that I will not interrupt her when she speaks.

I would ask her to carry the message to Mr. Falk, Mr. Poilievre and to other Conservative members of the committee. I see Mr. Kelly has disappeared. Mr. Poilievre is having an influence on him. Mr. Kelly is usually quite good at staying at committee meetings, but he's suddenly gone, and I guess that's the influence of Mr. Poilievre. Oh, there he is. Okay, So Mr. Poilievre has not had a tremendous influence, but there, he's disappeared again. Mr. Kelly is gone.

Not to joke around too much, Mr. Chair, we're all colleagues here and we're all striving to find ways to work with one another. If it's Ms. Jansen or if it's Mr. Falk, I don't know, but this idea that the Clerk of the Privy Council is somehow under the thumb of the Prime Minister of Canada, please do away with that. It's not acceptable and let's not besmirch the reputations of public servants.

In my remarks, Mr. Chair, I think back to what it means to be an elected member of Parliament and the work that one expects to carry out when here. I've always seen the job of an MP...and granted, I'm still relatively new to the job, five years in now. But I think it's fair to say that the job is really two jobs.

There is the constituency role, and there is the role that one has on Parliament Hill. As far as the constituency role goes, it is the most important element of the job. The assignment to the finance committee has allowed for the merging of the two. You can take local concerns and bring them to the level of the finance committee, even having the privilege of suggesting witnesses from one's own riding.

You might recall, Mr. Chair, that London-based organizations have been invited a few times over the years to present at the finance committee, whether in pre-budget consultations or otherwise. My colleagues have sometimes accused me, jokingly and in good spirits, of talking too much about London, but I will never apologize for that, Mr. Chair. I will never apologize for making my community a key agenda item of my work in Parliament.

The point I'm making is that we could be engaged in pre-budget consultations right now. I could be inviting local-based organizations and stakeholders...and I know that other committee members would have the same right and privilege to do so. Instead, we continue to be here. We continue to waste time because the opposition does not want to deal with the subamendment in a meaningful way.

I'll leave my comments there, Mr. Chair, because I'm not the sort of member who wants to occupy all the space here.

I see that Mr. Fraser's hand is up. In the spirit of being collegial and the like, he wants to speak, and I think I'll turn it over to him.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Next on my list is Mr. Fraser.

To throw in a friendly reminder to the House leadership of all parties, try to solve this by tomorrow somehow.

Go ahead, Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Before I begin, I'm looking at the “raise hand” function. I see that Mr. Poilievre's hand is up as well. I think he preceded me, but I'm not sure.

Shall I go ahead?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You can do that. I think Mr. Poilievre forgot to take his hand down after he put it up.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Sure. That's not problem at all.

Where to begin? Before I get into any remarks, I am sincere in saying that I am going to try to fix this. I want a chance to look at what Mr. Poilievre has put forward. I've had a few conversations with him and others over the past number of weeks. I'd like to get on with business as much as anybody would.

The reality, though, is that it was probably not on the point of relevance, when Mr. Poilievre was making arguments about Canada's position compared with our global comparators. Much as I disagreed with just about everything he said, I kind of enjoyed getting to hear somebody's perspective on the fiscal track of our country.

I'll turn to the subamendment, since that's what we're debating, and I'll do my best to bring it back to solution-oriented topics as we go.

The original motion that caused so much consternation at this committee was made pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), and it asked the committee to order that any contracts concluded with WE Charity and Me To We.... Where am I? It reads as follows:

all briefing notes, memos and emails, including the contribution agreement that the government and organizations...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; that matters of Cabinet Confidence

—Obviously that has been the subject of a lot of our more informal chats—

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.

If we start with the motion, I think the controversy that seems to be the subject of the current piece is the fact that some of the redactions were made by the Clerk of the Privy Council as opposed to the law clerk. For weeks, we debated whether cabinet confidences ought to have been redacted by the government or by the law clerk.

It's pretty clear, from my initial reading—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Fraser, I hate to interrupt, but I don't want to take away from other committee time. I'm going to interrupt you, and that will give an opportunity for the various players to find a solution so that we can settle this problem early in the meeting on Thursday, and hopefully meet the Governor of the Bank of Canada, and find a path forward on the pre-budget consultations.

With that, we are suspending.

Thank you.

[The meeting was suspended at 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, November 17, 2020]

[The meeting resumed at 3:30 p.m., Thursday, November 19, 2020]

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll call the meeting to order. We're now resuming meeting number five of the Standing Committee on Finance.

Pursuant to the motion adopted by the House on Wednesday, September 23, 2020, the committee is meeting virtually—

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

Point of order, Mr. Chair. Has everybody been sound-checked? I was, and a couple of other people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, Mrs. Jansen. I think they were. The only one—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I got a chance—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, your video was off. They thought you were in the wilderness somewhere.

We'll give you a little check now, Pierre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I've been here all along. I was just hiding from you. That's all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Oh, I can't imagine you in hiding. You just like it out front too much.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It's good to see you, Wayne. I wish we were together in person.

I hope my audio here is clear enough for our friends in the technical branch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Are we okay?

Okay. You're good.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Excellent. Thanks, Wayne.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You're always good, I know. You're just better today.

Pursuant to the motion adopted by the House on Wednesday, September 23, 2020, the committee is meeting virtually. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference and the proceedings will be televised and made available on the House of Commons website. As usual, for too many meetings now, it's just committee members, so I won't go through the other rules. We all know them; they'll be in our heads.

With that, we will try to start where we left off. I know there are some people on the speaking order, but I believe Mr. Fraser and Mr. Poilievre, and probably others, were in some discussions on amendments to the motion that we were batting around the other day, which wasn't the original motion.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Fraser first and then go to Mr. Poilievre.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Actually, I don't want to lead where I left off. I was about to make an intervention on the subamendment where we left off, and I'm pleased to report that's not where I plan to start.

As you signalled, there have been a couple of conversations on the basis of the proposal that Mr. Poilievre put forward. I received just a few moments ago an email from Mr. Poilievre with some modest tweaks to the last version of the motion that I had discussed with him.

Pierre, if I can keep this informal, I think they seem quite minor and fine, despite our point about the Ethics Commissioner, and I think that's an accommodation that we'd be happy to make.

Mr. Chair, I just flipped the most recent copy of this to you. I appreciate that not all committee members will have seen it. It's substantially similar. What I propose to do is just read it aloud. I do apologize, Mr. Chair. The most recent version that I sent to Mr. Poilievre was translated in both official languages, but I don't have the French language for the version that I've just received now.

I'm sorry. I have a little technical issue here. I have too many things popping up on my phone at once, but I'll read this in a moment.

Pierre, for what it's worth, I'm reading directly from the email you sent to me: That the committee temporarily set aside the motion relating to the point of privilege put forward by the Member for Carleton on October 8, 2020, and the subsequent subamendments moved by the Member for Calgary Rocky Ridge and the Member for Kingston and the Islands....

Just one moment, please.

I'm sorry, Pierre. Can I ask for just a point of clarification before I continue reading this?

I thought for some reason that there was an amendment put forward by Mr. Julian, not the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge. Has that been changed? Just to reflect what has actually taken place, I want to make sure we're parking the entire debate on the privilege motion we've been dealing with.