Government Operations Committee on Oct. 24th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid all I'm doing with you today, Ms. Carr, is cutting you off. I apologize.

I'm afraid that's all the time we have today, witnesses. Thank you very much for joining us. We'll let you go.

We're going to continue on with our internal public meeting. We're going to stay in the meeting. We're not going to suspend because we have a hard finish in nine minutes.

Mr. Housefather, did you want to go?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I just wanted to touch on the issue of our witnesses for ArriveCAN.

We've invited members of the four different departments to come. My understanding, and perhaps it was erroneous, was that we asked for production of documents. As an attorney, for my entire career, you would get the documents you would ask for in discovery and prepare for your cross-examination or examination of a witness based on the documents, so you could be as knowledgeable as the people who are coming in to testify.

I don't really understand the purpose of having the departments before we get the documents. My understanding, Mr. Chair, and perhaps the clerk can correct me if I'm wrong, is that we gave 10 working days to the department last Monday, which would bring them up to next Monday or Tuesday, I think.

Could we postpone the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'll address that, but just for the sake of time, Mr. Barrett, did you want to go first, quickly? Then I'll address Mr. Housefather.

There's just a shortage of time.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Housefather's points are well taken. I was not a party to the discussions last Monday. That's fine.

I don't know what the direction is with respect to Thursday's notice of meeting and the witnesses who have been invited. I am very curious on the date that document production is owed.

Seeing how there was an agreement in principal, I understand from conversations with members from all parties this morning that ministers would not be coming until we had the documents.

In that same good faith interest, instead of moving motions to invite ministers or invite them for a specific day, I would just ask you, Mr. Chair, to canvass the room to see if there is an agreement in principal that once we have received those documents in both official languages, following that and in preparation for that, the clerk could invite ministers to appear. Could an invitation go to ministers today saying that the committee is going to receive documents and, in anticipation of receipt of those, the committee would like them to appear?

As much as I would love them to come next Thursday or next Monday, that's not my experience. My expectation or my belief would be that they would come when it suits their schedule based on this committee's scheduled meetings. That would likely be the week following our November week break.

In the spirit of collaboration, could we get that agreement in principle without a motion being passed?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Sure. Certainly, I will canvass the room.

Very quickly though, for next Thursday, it was my direction that we had no witnesses planned for any of our ongoing studies. Unfortunately, with switchover of chairs and not having had a planning committee, we had nothing.

Just because of the scramble from the emergency meeting we had, the witnesses weren't available for the first period. My assumption was they were therefore aware they would be called very shortly. I saw that we had no witness set up for Thursday. They were ready because they were kind of put on notice, so I decided to put them in for next Thursday.

Otherwise, we would have had nothing planned for Thursday. We would have wasted a day. That was my decision to do that. That was why.

Is there a desire for Mr. Barrett's suggestion?

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

I want to be sure I've understood the proposal correctly, and I want to make sure that it is in keeping with what we negotiated in the initial motion. We will hear the witnesses once we have received the documents.

If I understood correctly, if we don't have any witnesses lined up for Thursday, we will not hold the meeting. That said, we can always discuss the committee's future business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

[Inaudible—Editor]

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

If we don't have witnesses, we could discuss work plans, just to make the meeting completely relevant. If we hear from witnesses without really knowing why and go fishing, the meeting may lose its relevance and effectiveness.

In my humble opinion, if you agree, we would be better off not hearing from these witnesses before we receive the documents. We could discuss the work plans, especially since we have not been able to meet over the past week, even though we have been running around after each other for various reasons.

What do you think?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I see Ms. Block. Then we'll go to Mr. Johns and then Mr. Kusmierczyk.

Keep it to 30 seconds, please, because we're finishing.

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

It's really tight.

I have two things.

A letter was sent. We had the conversation about the study on ArriveCAN. I would have assumed that because it was timely and somewhat urgent, we would have build it into our immediate schedule.

The second thing would be this: When is the production of documents at its 10 days?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Johns.

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

I just see lot of urgency with six studies. We have six studies now that we're working on. I can't think of another committee in government that has six studies. We haven't completed a single study yet, so I think we need a meeting on Thursday to talk about our plan. We have to get organized.

We have a new chair, and I think it's an opportunity, Mr. Chair. However, I agree that we need the documents before we see the public servants. Then let's decide which ministers and who we want. We're going to want to bring forward some witnesses after we've heard from the public servants, but we want to hear from them before we start putting names forward. That's where I'm coming from in terms of thinking we should get organized.

We have to get our priorities in order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

My intent is that we would do that on Monday. We'd do a sub, and then we'd use up Monday because we have no witnesses, but we do have witnesses for Thursday.

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

I think Ms. Vignola also had an urgent study we were doing on the Governor General's expenses.

I think prioritizing how we are deciding on this.... It's not that I don't want to get to the bottom of the ArriveCAN, because, trust me, there are a lot of questions that we have, and we want to get moving. I just think that it's important that we're organized.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Kusmierczyk, please be brief, and then we'll have Mr. Barrett very briefly.

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

There's no need to repeat. I think Gord and Julie [Technical difficulty—Editor] sensible plan forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Barrett, and then we will have Mr. Housefather and Mrs. Vignola.

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

For clarity, the official date with the 10 days for the document production, Mr. Chair, is—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

October 31, Halloween.

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

That'll be a treat.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That was a set-up.

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

I do agree with the sentiment that we need to have a meeting to set some priorities, including with regard to ArriveCAN and also for the studies that other members of this committee have proposed prior to the past week. We do need to hear from those officials.

However, again, Mr. Chair, I would just ask if you could canvass if there is an agreement in principle that once we've seen those documents and once we've had officials, we can anticipate inviting the ministers. If we wait until after, we'll be inviting the ministers in a month. We could lose a month. Then we're dragging this out into the return—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Be really brief, Mr. Barrett.

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

This is dragging it out until after the return in January.