Government Operations Committee on Oct. 20th, 2022

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

I think two weeks is reasonable. Perhaps we can just tack that onto the end of it there, that this be completed in two weeks.

[The Clerk]

Just to clarify, you're suggesting two weeks following the adoption of the motion, for example?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Yes, sir.

[The Clerk]

May I suggest also a time of day be added? That is helpful, because otherwise the time of day ends up being midnight.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

It's 5 p.m.

[The Clerk]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll go to Mr. Johns and then Mr. Housefather.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I would just hope that we would have them before we have the public servants here. I believe we're having them on the 27th.

Maybe you can share that with us, Mr. Chair. Is that the aim?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I believe that would make sense.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Yes.

I would hope that we would have the documents by 5 p.m. on October 26. That way we have them in hand before we see the senior public servants on this issue.

I hope my colleague would be supportive of that amendment to his motion.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Johns has a good point. Unfortunately, because it has to be translated, it won't be done in time.

I suggest that maybe we pick a date and then, on anything from CBSA and PSPC, for those who come next Thursday, we can bring them back at a later date, after the documents arrive if necessary, driven by what's in those documents.

Mr. Housefather.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Chair, given that, again, we were supposed to be questioning the witnesses and this is now taking away from the time of other parties to question the witnesses, may I ask that this discussion on the motion—hopefully with the agreement of Mr. Barrett—be deferred to a certain point, such as 5:20, 10 minutes before the meeting ends, so that we can continue our questioning? We can then have time to get this in writing and read through it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I understand what you're saying. I think my preference would be that we just settle this and go to a vote, if necessary. That seems to be the will of the majority of the committee. Then we can get to the questioning.

I hope, Mr. Anthony, that Mr. Weber and Mr. Firth will be willing to stay until 5:30 and we can get through another round.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Chair, with respect, I would like to see this motion in writing.

Number one, I want to understand it better. Right now we're talking about the amount this company has received, which is $9 million of the $54 million. It's not the $54 million or whatever that is. These are also documents that the government has already been asked for. This is a duplication. We're now asking a company with two employees to gather a mountain of documents within 10 days, when the government departments are already doing this. I find it a little bit strange to ask for the same documents from two different parties.

I would like time to consider the motion, and I would like to see in writing what it says.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Since we have a hard stop at 5:30, I'm not inclined to do that. You can put forward a motion to adjourn the debate, and we can vote on it.

I understand what you're saying, but I sense it's the will of the committee to adopt this. I may be wrong. We can put it to a vote, end it quickly and then move on to the questions.

Mr. Johns.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I want to just add that there shouldn't be a concern. Mr. Housefather has made it clear that we've already asked for these documents. He shouldn't be opposed to our asking for these documents from them as well. I don't see any reason why we don't just move on this and vote on it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll go to Ms. Vignola and then Ms. Kusie.

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

I'm trying to understand, and two questions come to mind.

We've already asked the government to provide us with the documents. Why should we ask this company to provide them as well?

Legally, does the committee have the right to require a company to provide it with documents?

These are frank and honest questions I'm asking, given that the committee has already requested the documents, and we had said that we would talk about this once we were able to analyze the documents.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

To answer the first question, yes, we can ask for the documents.

Mr. Barrett, do you want to answer her question as to why?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

In response to my colleague's question, today's report in The Globe and Mail is what's precipitated my query to the witnesses and this document production request. It's that the government said in this one example that ThinkOn Inc. was given $1.2 million. That's what the parliamentary secretary signed in response to an Order Paper question. CBSA did the analysis and said here's the list of contracts, including $1.2 million to this organization and the CEO of ThinkOn Inc. today said he got zero dollars.

It's important to see.... The government is saying one thing and a private company is saying, no, we don't know where that $1.2 million went, but we didn't get it. We are looking for a second document set to compare with what the government is offering. That's the rationale. It's transparency and I think it's important.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll go to Mr. Johns and then Mr. Housefather.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I see no problem asking for this information. Government is the tenant of public procurement and it requires transparency. These are public dollars, so diving into a private company that has a contract for public dollars I have no issue with whatsoever.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Chair, I think there are two different issues here.

Number one, whether or not we go ahead and adopt the motion.... Again, I think it would be good order to have the motion in writing in both languages so people can actually read it. I think that the normal custom of this committee has been that we talk to each other about our motions in advance, we share them and we don't come up with them at the meetings at the last minute when nobody's seen what they actually say. That would be number one.

Number two, again, the amount in question that my colleague is referring to is not related to the amounts paid to this company, so there isn't going to be any divulgation from this company that is going to deal with the $1.2 million, clearly, because it's from a different document that the Canada Border Services Agency gave. They have made it very clear that they have no relationship with that third party company.

The third thing, Mr. Chair—and this is where I really have an issue—is that we adopted a motion on Monday and we all agreed on what would be produced as part of that motion, and my understanding at the time was that we were not going to have witnesses on ArriveCAN until the we got the documents so that we would be prepared with the documents for the witnesses. Then suddenly, again, without consultation, witnesses were invited for ArriveCAN today on Thursday, so the documents were only supposed to be produced in 10 days after the Monday meeting, and my understanding—and that's what we discussed on Monday—was that the documents were going to come first and then we would have the witnesses. The reason there is a request for duplication today isn't related to what the government has provided. The government hasn't provided anything yet because we're not at the deadline yet. In the end, should the company produce this, I'm not going to stand in the way if everybody else also wants them to produce it, but I don't think the sequencing makes much sense.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Okay. That is noted.

If no one else wants to chip in, I think we'll call the vote.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])