Government Operations Committee on April 24th, 2020

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

My first point was to Mr. MacKinnon's intervention. Witnesses can always decline to attend, and if they provided us with a rationale that made sense in terms of their time being taken up in other committees or the fact that they aren't able to do their work, I'm sure we could extend grace to them for that.

When they attend other committees, the focus may be very different in terms of the questions being asked. The reason we may be seeing some overlap early on is that not a lot of committees were meeting. I know that the health committee, for example, invited witnesses from PSPC because there were questions around procurement and OGGO wasn't meeting, so we weren't able to ask those questions ourselves.

Some of these issues may iron themselves out. I would not want us to say no for people, and neither would I want us to not do our due diligence on this committee, asking the questions that we feel need to be asked around procurement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Raphaëlle, I'd ask you to make a quick response to that, and then I'll have a couple of closing comments.

Based on the comments and suggestions you've heard, do you feel that you will be able to revise your work plan somewhat and get that revised work plan out to committee members in short order? Give us your thoughts, please.

[Raphaëlle Deraspe]

Yes, I would ask members to send their comments and the names they find are duplications to the clerk as well as new witnesses by early next week, and then we can provide a revised plan based on those comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Raphaëlle.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Chair...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Clerk, Paul, you had your hand up. I'm not sure if you were the first to raise your hand.

[The Clerk]

I believe Mr. Drouin outranks me, so you should go to him first.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Drouin probably outranks everyone, so we'll go to Francis.

Go ahead, Francis.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I hope my mother can hear that.

I have just a quick question on procedure. We had to end the meeting 15 minutes earlier, and I know other committees do a side meeting to discuss witnesses. I'm just wondering, Mr. Chair, if we could do that as well, not every week but maybe once every two weeks, to discuss the upcoming witnesses at a time when we're not officially meeting so that we can use the full two hours to ask questions. I'm just wondering what the feel of this committee is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

My apologies again. I was the cause of this committee's starting 15 minutes or however many minutes it was past the allotted time. Unfortunately, we only have a two-hour block, simply because there are many more committees coming on stream now that will have virtual meetings at the same times as ours. We only have so many interpreters who are available, so we have to be somewhat cautious about extending our time or trying to break into others' time when they may have requested a specific meeting time as well.

Specifically, Francis, yes, I have no difficulty whatsoever getting together one more time or even several more times to discuss potential witnesses, but I think Raphaëlle's comment was very apropos.

Should anyone on this committee have any witnesses right now that they would like to see appear, please get those names in immediately. Then I will wait until I see what Raphaëlle has come up with in terms of a revised work plan. Then, Francis, perhaps we can have another informal steering committee meeting as we did last Friday. Is that okay?

Steve, I understand you wish to share some stuff with the committee as well.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I won't harp on this. I just want to say, Mr. Chair, that there are, I think, four committees operating, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe there are more, but they're all doing their own witness lists.

I just want to state the obvious. The health committee has a specific mandate to oversee the Department of Health and the Public Health Agency. I don't know who has appeared where, but it strikes me that, either through you, Mr. Chair, or the committee staff, we may want to ask the health committee members who they intend to convene or have in fact convened and coordinate so that we're avoiding enlisting the testimony of very busy people repeatedly across committees or asking people without coordination from outside of the Government of Canada apparatus to appear before multiple committees when they may be asked to do really important work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, Steve. I believe Raphaëlle has taken that under consideration. Yes, if there's any way we can avoid the duplication of witnesses, it would be beneficial to all, not just our committee but all the other committees and the witnesses themselves.

Colleagues, seeing no more questions, and unless anyone else has any information or business—

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chair, I would just like some instruction from the committee regarding who we want to invite for Wednesday and Friday next week. According to the current work plan, we are to have representatives of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada as well as the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises and the procurement ombudsman. We were originally planning that for Wednesday, and then the third meeting was going to be for next Friday.

Can the committee give me some sort of instruction? Do the members still want me to invite those organizations for Wednesday? Also, who would the committee like me to invite for next Friday? As we're not approving the work plan today, I would appreciate some guidance as to who I should invite to appear before the committee for the next meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Paul, let me intervene as well, if I can. You're right. We haven't officially approved the work plan as presented by Raphaëlle but she is coming back with the revised work plan, hopefully early next week, based on the comments and suggestions from this committee.

In the interim, unless there are any great objections, my suggestion is that committee members go forward with the next two meetings, certainly the next meeting on Wednesday with the witnesses as suggested in Raphaëlle's work plan. Unless I hear any significant objections to that, that would allow our clerk and analyst to start compiling the witnesses and confirming their attendance.

I see one thumbs-up from Madam Block. Thank you for that, Kelly.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chair, I hate to be unnecessarily bureaucratic or procedural. Unfortunately the order we are currently working under requires that all decisions be taken by a recorded division. That is the order adopted by the House.

If the committee will permit, may I put to them the question that you just enunciated, that we follow the work plan for the next two planned meetings in anticipation of a revised one being presented by the analysts in the near future?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

That's excellent. Please proceed, Paul.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 9; nays 1)

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Then we will proceed, Raphaëlle, with the next two meetings as indicated on your work plan.

Once again, colleagues, I would strongly suggest, should you have any additional witnesses or suggestions for evidence to be presented at this committee, get that information as quickly as possible through to our clerk so that when we make a revised work plan, it can take some of your suggestions into account.

Colleagues, thank you very much. Once again, my apologies for the delay in the commencement of this meeting. Hopefully it will be a little easier next time.

The meeting is adjourned.