Government Operations Committee on Oct. 24th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll have Ms. Block, Mr. Johns, and the Liberals, on that.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I think I was after Mr. Barrett.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Barrett asked before, and now he's asked again. Is there a will for his suggestion to have the ministers?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Not right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

No, it would be as soon as the documents are out.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

After we have the documents and have heard from the department, then I'm open to hearing this discussion on who we need to hear from after we have heard from them, but I don't know what minister at this point. I think we need to hear from the departments.

I understand the timeliness issue, too.

Mr. Chair, can I make one suggestion?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Be very quick because we're done in 30 seconds, and then I will make a comment.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I promise to be really quick.

Mr. Chair, if I might, I would suggest that on Thursday we do a planning meeting; for Monday you have the clerk invite witnesses for a different study; on Thursday we have the departments, and then you add another 30 minutes at the end of Thursday's meeting to discuss what other witnesses we need to hear from after we've heard from the department.

I think that would be a fairer way to do it, and that way you'd get there before the break week.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Johns and Mr. Barrett to finish up.

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

Clearly, I'm excited about the outsourcing study, and it weaves into ArriveCAN, so perhaps there's a way we can work these two together, because I think there is some continuity here and obviously they're important.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead Mr. Barrett, and we'll finish up before we turn into pumpkins.

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

If officials have been called for Thursday, let's hear from them on Thursday and let's have the planning meeting on Monday.

The fact that for the outsourcing study we don't even have ministers summoned or invited is a challenge. If we are inviting ministers and then expecting them to just arrive the following day, we're going to have no success, and these studies are going to drag out. We're going to have six or seven studies and we're going to be dealing with them in February or at the end of January when we return in 2023. We just need—

[A voice]

We need a whole plan of government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Okay, Mr. Barrett.

I'm going to thank everyone for the comments. We're going to finish up.

I'm going to suggest that we stick with the Thursday. We have witnesses already. We had difficulty getting them the first time around. For Monday, I would suggest that we do our planning meeting, but we have witnesses already, so I'm going to say that we'll stick with that, thanks.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Chair, should we vote on this in terms of the plan for next week?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

For Monday, sure. For Thursday we're going to stick with our witnesses.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I would like to move that we not call those witnesses this Thursday, and that we have them after we get the documents.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Barrett.

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

Chair, we have a situation in which the committee initiated this work on a matter that's in the public interest, and you've expressed that the clerk had difficulty—

[An hon. member]

That wasn't what we agreed to do. You guys are railroading—

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

I'm not railroading anything.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm going to interrupt. We do have a motion but we have to finish this.

[An hon. member]

Point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry but let me finish. Why don't we continue for five minutes—Mr. Barrett, you're still speaking—and the clerk will check about services. We were told there was a one o'clock cap. I'll have them double-check. If there is a one o'clock cap, then we're going to have to call the vote, because we can't adjourn ,but we can't continue.

Mr. Barrett, why don't you go ahead and we'll check with services while you're speaking.

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

First of all, Chair, I don't believe the Standing Orders allow for a vote to be put at committee while there are still speakers who are seeking the floor. I would implore you to check that as well.

We have a situation now where there was an understanding that the committee would not hear from ministers until documents were received. My understanding is that this is what's unfolding. There was a motion put forward a week ago today that prescribed that ministers be called. Now, that was not the motion that was passed. The motion was amended. There were to be two meetings, with more meetings as required.

We had a half-meeting where we heard from GC Strategies. We heard from GC Strategies on the same panel that we heard from the union who represents our CBSA officers. Hearing from GC Strategies without having seen the documents is as problematic as hearing from anyone else. It would always be great to have that information, but I also think we're in a situation now where we're going to have to read it once and check it twice, hearing from the officials about what their role was, what the process was that unfolded in the awarding of contracts for this app, why government services weren't used, and why in-house IT wasn't used; and then, taking a look at the documents, determining whether we need different officials. Do we need those same officials to return?

Frankly, the information that we're operating on was given to us by the government. It was signed by a parliamentary secretary. Some of it was wrong. It's not outside of reason that we're going to need to hear from some people twice. The need for multiple document sets has evidenced itself. Seeing the documents that private companies have as well as the documents that the government used—that's going to prove to be important. Solely relying on what's being tabled is not sufficient. It's thanks to public reporting, in this case in the Globe and Mail, that we found out that a million-plus dollars to one company didn't actually happen.

There's a lot of work to do here. I think the further we push this off, it will turn this into a process that will stretch into the new year. We're going to run out of runway unless this is the sole issue that this committee wants to devote its attention to between now and Christmas, and I don't see a will for that. Getting some of this done, getting some of that work done, I think is important. If these witnesses have been invited....

Mr. Kusmierczyk said I was “railroading” them. I had no idea witnesses were coming this Thursday—none. I'm not railroading anyone. I want to talk to officials. I want ministers. But I understood that there was a conversation, a sidebar, where folks said that's not the spirit of what we discussed last Monday, when you weren't here. Okay—so I put forward an informal proposal that we invite ministers. Frankly, those ministers can say no.

We're not doing any planning. If we're just running meeting to meeting, now we're pushing off the witnesses who we know we're going to have so that we can have a meeting to talk about inviting those witnesses. That doesn't seem like it's going to be a very good use of time. We're going to end up at the November break week. Then we're going to be into the last five weeks before the end of this year.

I just don't see us getting through this, Mr. Chair.