Government Operations Committee on Oct. 16th, 2024

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

To the witnesses here, I want to give you a couple of examples of similar situations that we've just experienced, where they want to silence witnesses.

On the ArriveCAN scandal, when it first gained speed, the Auditor General was conducting an audit. She was asked to attend a committee to give us an update on the audit. It was then revealed that the RCMP had started an investigation.

I put a question to the Auditor General about when she was informed that the RCMP had started their investigation. Her response was that she read it in the newspaper just like everybody else. I expressed my deep concern and disgust that the Liberal government did not see fit to inform the Auditor General about this important fact. The moment I asked that question, my time was up, and it went to a Liberal member who moved to adjourn the committee. She literally spoke for maybe 10 minutes, and a two-hour meeting collapsed. Similarly, on other issues, the RCMP commissioner attended various committees. Again, they didn't like the line of questioning we put to the RCMP commissioner, and they moved to shut it down.

It really surprised me, at the time of this particular motion—given that one Liberal member actually asked relevant questions and gave me that impression—that all members here, including the government, including the NDP and including the Bloc, who voted in favour of ruling against the chair on this particular motion, wanted to sidestep the hearing of crucial evidence.

I assure you, ma'am, that regardless of what decision is made today, I will ensure that you're not silenced. I will ensure that the representatives of PLATO will not be silenced. I will ensure that any indigenous representative, whether they be in person or representing an organization, will never be silenced when it comes to this particular corruption and mismanagement of taxpayer funds. As I indicated to you, this is over a billion dollars every year—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry, Mr. Brock, we have a....

Who has the point of order?

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

It's Michael Coteau, online.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Mr. Coteau.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

If Mr. Brock wants to not silence the witnesses, why doesn't he just let us vote so that we can get back—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That's not a point of order, Mr. Coteau.

Go ahead, Mr. Brock.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Nice try, Mr. Coteau, but that's the point and that's the message I want to deliver to you: These types of procedural shenanigans ought not to happen, particularly when we're dealing with a sensitive issue such as this. I assure you that you will have an opportunity to fully participate in this committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

I have Mr. Zuberi, then Mr. Jowhari and then Mrs. Vignola.

Go ahead, Mr. Zuberi.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Simply, to be very brief, I think that we should reduce our interventions on this subject in the interest of actually hearing the witnesses. I find the testimony extremely interesting, and I believe that the number one domestic human rights issue is reconciliation with indigenous peoples. The testimony we're hearing today is very important.

That being said, what Mr. Bains brought forth with respect to a motion is also important in terms of how committees operate—and this committee in particular. With full respect to the committee members and to the witnesses, it makes sense that invitations be sent out with a minimal respectable delay. I think that's really what we're debating here, which is wholly pertinent to this particular meeting but also future meetings.

Therefore, I keep my intervention very brief because I want to hear from the witnesses. I hope that we can vote on this subject in short order so that we can continue this meeting, as scheduled.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Jowhari, go ahead, please.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I echo what a number of my colleagues already said. Ms. Atwin talked about the fact that we really do need the time. We have not had a subcommittee meeting to set the agenda. We trust the chair to make sure that he uses judgment.

Sending notices out with less than 48 hours resulted in the situation we are facing. Of our five full-time members, two of them cannot attend, and now we have to go back and brief them to prepare for the next meeting that we are going to have on indigenous procurement. That is neither fair to us nor to them. Also, such a short notice does not allow us to properly prepare to ask the questions that we should be asking to ensure that the government gets the feedback it should get. If this meeting were planned way before, we didn't know about it, so that is an issue—not following the guideline in the form. We've always worked very collaboratively. We had a meeting last Thursday that got cancelled with less than 20 minutes' notice and was given to another Conservative chair to run an impromptu meeting, which caused another issue.

We are here to work—there's no question about it—with all our documents. As I said many times, we scrambled and changed our schedule to make sure that we could participate in this meeting, but not everyone in the committee can do that because there are commitments. Two of our members cannot be here today. Most of us changed...and we gladly change, given the signal. We are not asking for you to cancel the meeting. We are not saying to not have a meeting during the constituency week. All we are saying is that, if you're going to have this meeting during the constituency week, give us 48 hours.

Had we had that conversation in less than two minutes, we would be back into the vote, respecting the committee, getting the 48 hours' notice, making sure that we can get all our members here, making sure that we are properly prepared and benefiting from the testimony of the two witnesses we have—and I look forward to going back to them very quickly.

I'm not sure why our Conservative colleagues, with all due respect, are filibustering rather than sticking to the point. Let's vote. Let's make sure we get 48 hours' notice, even during the constituency week. Let's make sure we can get permanent team members here and that we really give ourselves good time to prepare so we can ask the questions that are going to help us, because their recommendations are going to go into the report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Great.

Before we go to Mrs. Vignola....

Last Thursday, if you recall—a couple of meetings ago—Mrs. Vignola graciously agreed to move back her motion so we could hear from witnesses. Then, when we came to her motion, it got bumped by another motion. I communicated that we were going to allow committee time on Thursday for Mrs. Vignola to specifically move her motion again—the one that got bumped. I think we all felt badly that she'd played the bigger role, then ended up having her time taken from her. Again, we were going to do that on Thursday.

I found out on Thursday that Mrs. Vignola was not going to be available, so I decided to move that time for her to Tuesday, which is why we cancelled the Thursday meeting. These were extraordinary circumstances in order to allow Mrs. Vignola the right to bring in the motion that was taken from her in a previous meeting. That's why Thursday was decided on.

Mrs. Vignola, go ahead, please, with your intervention.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I am more than surprised to hear that I wasn't here last Thursday. I don't get it, since I was on Parliament Hill all that day and until Friday, but that's a matter for another day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry, Madame Vignola. To be clear, I'm not blaming you. I found out you would not be available. I had set aside time. I just wanted to make sure we had time available, because we had bumped you, if you recall, from a previous opportunity to speak on a motion you'd presented. That's why.

I'm not pointing fingers at you for that reason. It was to allow you the opportunity, as we had planned.

I'm sorry. Please continue.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay. It will come up again, I'm sure.

I want to hear from the witnesses. The motion was not intended to be a filibuster, a political move or a virtue signalling exercise. It was just a reminder that it would be nice to have 48 hours' notice, because all of us have busy schedules. Yes, a schedule can be reshuffled, but that can be complicated. Personally, I prefer to come to Ottawa in person, for various reasons of my own, but it really wasn't possible with exactly 24 hours and 39 minutes' notice. It's impossible for me to drive six hours, prepare, get a bit of sleep and attend the committee on such short notice.

It's simply a matter of respect for everyone, including the witnesses. This is not about opening the door to a filibuster. This is just a friendly reminder, because I reread the motion and it seems to me that it is quite cordial in tone. We don't need to play politics over this.

It is important to have the witnesses here and hear their answers. I won't stand for being told that I could not care less about them. If there's anyone who cares about first nations, it's me. I have lived among them. I ask that I be shown a modicum of respect and that no one assume what I think or don't think. That would be lovely.

Now, before I lose it, I call for a vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Is anyone else on the speaking list?

Mr. Genuis.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I have a few other things. This motion is obviously deeply flawed. I would be very open to a discussion of some of the issues raised by the motion at another time, but I think this motion is not in order for a number of other reasons, one of which is that it seeks to not withstand the rules of the House.

The rules of the House prescribe a Standing Order 106(4) procedure for bringing witnesses in. This motion appears to say that you have to have unanimity of all parties before you can convene a meeting outside of the regular time slots. That is a violation of Standing Order 106(4), so it's not even within the committee's authority to prescribe that.

This was hastily drafted. Even if we're going to treat this motion with some degree of seriousness, it's flawed from a procedural standpoint. I don't think this is what this is about. I think the Liberals are hearing harsh testimony from witnesses who are calling out their own failures. The motion has to be written and presented properly if we're going to be able to actually consider it.

Chair, I'd like to ask you maybe to rule on that component of it in particular. I don't think that it's been raised yet in terms of those limitations. Maybe if the committee passes a motion that tries to not withstand the rules of the House, then it just doesn't apply or something, but this is just another issue with this.

I think we should come back to this motion. Again, there are things to discuss, but I think we can come back to it at another point in time.

Maybe, Chair, I'll wait for your feedback on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have a point on the 106(4). I'm not sure Mr. Bains'...or the spirit behind the motion was specifically directed at me or at 106(4)s as well. It is rather unclear in the motion. It would be nice if it were properly stated and lined out so we knew exactly what we're dealing with.

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

Okay. I move that we proceed to hearing from the witnesses. I won't attach a condition to that, because I know that would make it a debatable motion. Of course, we can return to it at any point. We can return to it later today. We can return to it tomorrow. We can return to it and work on some language that resolves these procedural issues, but I want to hear from the witnesses.

Let's set aside some time to establish a procedure.... If we want to establish a procedure around break weeks, let's have some off-line conversations and let's do it. Let's try to be reasonable. If members want to do that, that's great.

I move that we proceed to hearing from witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Okay. Before we get to that dilatory vote, I'm happy to set aside time either tomorrow or Tuesday, and we'll get it straightened out. We can either do it in public or we can do it off-line in the meeting, just so we can move forward. I'll leave that up to everyone around the table.

We'll go to the vote on resuming the questioning of the witnesses.

Go ahead, sir.

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

Mr. Chair, just as a point of order, this vote is to adjourn debate. Is that correct? It is not to proceed to the witnesses. I don't believe proceeding to the witnesses is dilatory.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

No, it is. That's what we had earlier and I ruled on it. The clerk reaffirmed it as well, so we're just returning to the witnesses.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 4)

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We're back on the motion.

Mr. Genuis.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I am very disappointed that we're not able to proceed with a motion to get back to the witnesses. The government's position seems to be that it will refuse to allow the witnesses to testify as a way of forcing us to advance a motion that is poorly drafted and out of order and seeks to ignore the established rules of the House of Commons without any kind of dialogue whatsoever. This is, unfortunately, clearly a way for it to avoid hearing the testimony that Plato and the Ghost Warrior Society have to offer.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We're ready to discuss some procedure around how we can approach these meetings in a way that conforms to the rules of the House, recognizing that the vast majority of parliamentary committees have government chairs and this committee has an opposition chair. Part of the reason some committees have an opposition chair is that it allows them to have a few additional tools to get to issues of government corruption.

We are trying to investigate the Liberal indigenous procurement scandal. As we have heard, there has been a flagrant disregard for what indigenous organizations are saying about indigenous identity in the course of the way the government has administered these programs.

People can go back and look at the discussions. The Liberals were extremely reluctant to have this study happen at all. They wanted to severely constrain the number of meetings we had on it. They wanted to severely limit the number of ministers who would be called. They have done everything they can to avoid us getting to the bottom of their own failures.

The Liberals used to talk about how the most important relationship they had as a government was with indigenous people. You don't hear them saying that anymore because, frankly, they've given up on delivering results. They tried to have a program that, on the face of it, looks like it's delivering opportunity for indigenous communities, but in reality, they have admitted it's not about that. According to the minister, the only purpose of the program is identifying indigeneity. As we've heard today, it can't even effectively identify indigeneity.

Liberals have been failing so profoundly when it comes to delivering results, especially in the areas of economic development and opportunities for indigenous Canadians and all Canadians. This is the context in which they have—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. Someone is singing online.

I'm sorry for interrupting you, Mr. Genuis.