Government Operations Committee on March 13th, 2024

[Kristian Firth]

Mr. Chair, can you also ask the clerk to summarize for me what I'm sending back in, please? I will also mention that I won't even be home by five o'clock, so could it be later on in the evening, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Yes, we'll say by eight o'clock tonight, sir.

[Kristian Firth]

I would rather, if it's at all possible, that it be tomorrow morning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Could you by nine o'clock tomorrow morning?

[Kristian Firth]

Perfect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll do it for nine o'clock, and the clerk will send you an email outlining what we are looking for.

Thanks, Mr. Firth. We will dismiss you.

I see Mr. Bachrach, but Mr. Genuis has a question of privilege, I think, that he's bringing up.

Go ahead, sir.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

It's simply this. Mr. Firth has refused to answer direct questions that have been put to him by the chair on behalf of this committee. This witness has shown complete disregard for the prerogatives and responsibilities of parliamentary committees when it comes to getting answers for Canadians. I believe that this is a violation of the privileges of this committee, and this needs to be attended to in order to ensure that all parliamentary committees can insist upon responses to direct questions that are asked.

Chair, if you agree that this is an issue of privilege, then I will be prepared to move the appropriate motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I have looked and I have chatted with the analyst, and I believe it is, sir.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

My motion is the following:

That the committee instruct the clerk and analysts to prepare a report to the House, which the chair shall table forthwith, outlining the potential breach of privilege concerning Kristian Firth’s refusal to answer those questions which the committee agreed to put to him and his prevarication in answering others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

The clerk is just sending it out to everyone's P9 right now. I'm happy to suspend for about a minute, until it gets out to everyone.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We're back. I understand it's now been received in everyone's P9. I don't see anyone's hand up. Are we in agreement with this, colleagues?

(Motion agreed to)

Wonderful.

Mr. Bachrach, you have your hand up, sir, before we adjourn.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just recognizing that we're right at the end of the meeting, I wonder if you could provide the committee with an update on your efforts to have the Canada Post CEO come before committee as part of our study on rural postal service.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks for bringing that up, Mr. Bachrach. I'll be honest that we have reached out repeatedly to Canada Post, and we are not seeing a lot of co-operation on having them attend. We wrote to them again this week, on Monday or Tuesday, and again we have not received a response. I will update the committee, hopefully, at our meeting tomorrow or on Monday. I think we might be at a point at which we need a stronger invitation or a summons or some other form to have the president show up. We've been very flexible in offering various dates. We're just not getting anything back from that side, Mr. Bachrach.

I will update you tomorrow if I have anything, but otherwise it will be on Monday. Then we can perhaps take other steps on Monday. I do understand your concerns. It is an approaching issue we need to get to.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll come to our meeting tomorrow with the appropriate preparations to bring the CEO before the committee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Wonderful.

Thank you for bringing that up, Mr. Bachrach. I do appreciate it.

Colleagues, if there's nothing else, then again I will thank our clerk, our analysts and all of our support team for sticking around late.

We are adjourned.