Government Operations Committee on April 17th, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

No, I think the public health ones we did for COVID were greater than this.

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

I was hoping that you would enlighten us on your experience around it—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

[Inaudible—Editor] but I don't think we do.

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

This, to me, just as someone on the committee feeling the volume of documents being sent to us, it is quite substantial. I'm just trying to get an idea of how much money we are spending—of taxpayers' dollars—on this right now. I'd like to get an idea. I'm going to move a motion following the discussion on this motion so that we get an idea. I want to know, you know, before we keep spending money.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You can do that. Obviously, you can do an Order Paper question, but most of the—

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

I'm going to move a motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I will speak out of turn. Most of the documents that are being withheld from us, despite the committee order, have already been translated. They're already ready to go. They just require the departments to do so.

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

Mr. Chair, I want to make sure that it's heard and said that I also want to see those departments in front of this committee so that they can explain themselves, especially on the poor translation that's happened, so we can ask questions and certainly give Ms. Vignola the chance to ask them very direct questions about why her privileges are not being met here at this committee. I think that's important.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It's everyone's privilege. It's not just hers, but I understand what you're saying.

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

It's in respect to her.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I have Mr. Housefather and then Ms. Vignola.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank my colleague and friend Mr. Johns for advancing, I think, a very legitimate point.

I think, Mr. Chairman, that I also accept responsibility. When we created this list of documents, this incredibly wide-ranging list of documents, I never in my life thought that McKinsey would be producing 91,000 pages and that the government would be responsible for producing multiple times that, and what the costs were in terms of manpower hours going into finding everything and producing it and the cost of translation both for the government and at the translation bureau.

This is an incredible amount of production that in the end I don't think was really warranted in any way. Having listened to the witnesses from McKinsey and having looked at what we've received, I don't see that there's a smoking gun there that really required this level of scrutiny by this committee.

What I think, Mr. Chair, is that we all can learn a lesson from this, which is that.... In the same way, at the public accounts committee, which we were both talking about here, a specific number of vaccine contracts were requested. There was a clear reason for requesting those specific contracts. Here, it wasn't requesting specifics. It was a random request for production, hoping that something would be found in hundreds of thousands of documents. I think the committee and all committees should learn a lesson from this and do better in terms of trying to narrow the focus of what should be received.

I agree with what Mr. Johns said. I think the correct approach should be to bring here the most egregious violators and the departments that were disrespectful of official languages—ESDC and whichever others the analysts would identify as being the three or four worst violators—to talk about official languages and the respect for official languages, and those who redacted the most or refused to provide documents to explain their rationale and to defend it before an entire committee in public. I think that would be the correct approach, as opposed to referring this to the House, where I can see many hours and days of lost time in dealing with this issue, as opposed to dealing with legislation and the budget.

Mr. Chair, that would be my position at this point. I don't support Mr. Barrett's motion, but I will support other motions to do the two things I've mentioned, which are to bring witnesses before us to explain themselves—and we can take whatever action we want after we hear from those witnesses—and to support Mr. Johns' request for an accounting of what has been spent in light of the production request.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

Ms. Vignola, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will start out by saying that I'm perfectly capable of expressing my own needs and desires. I do not need anyone to mansplain things to me.

If the departments had provided the documents from the start as we requested, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We wouldn't even be talking about the report, apart from the terrible quality of some of the translations provided. I see a passage right here that wasn't even translated. Yes, translation cost money. But I'm not quite ready to say that we've been going around in circles up until now and getting nowhere fast.

I'm not saying that I've read all 90,000 pages from McKinsey and the tens of thousands of other pages, because I also have a busy life with four children. I was able to discover, however, thanks to the documents as well as the witnesses, that the contracts specified English as the sole language for the deliverables. When we put the question to the department, the answer was that it is the supplier that decides what language is used, but when we go to the supplier, they say that it is up to the department. So something is just not adding up here.

It is also possible to establish links between the findings contained in certain studies and the decisions made by the government afterwards. Some of the recommendations that were made became policy, but some recommendations did not take at all into account the fact that French is an integral part of Canada. I'm not just talking about Quebec either.

As to the quality of the translation, it is not just a breach of my parliamentary privilege. Truth be told, I always put myself last, it's the way I am. People have tried to change me, but I am pretty stubborn, as stubborn as a mule, I guess. All that to say that I am not the most important person, here. That said, this is not the first time that such a situation has cropped up. These documents are not in the public domain, but some others are, and francophones from everywhere in Canada, not just Quebec, will have access to documents that have unfortunately been badly translated.

I am not pointing the finger at the interpreters and the translators. There are currently 825 language employees, whereas 20 years ago, that figure was 1,200. We are lacking resources and these people do what they can. Consequently and regrettably, we are turning to technological tools that are not reliable. I can guarantee that if I had seen the expression “deep dive analysis” translated as “plongée profonde” when I taught English as a second language, I would have noticed. I think that even my students would have noticed.

I know it costs money, I do understand. That said, even if there had been fewer documents, we still would have been required to have them translated. Saying that costs are high due to translation is not acceptable. If the documents had been provided solely in French and we had said to the anglophones that they wouldn't get translated documents because translation costs too much money, would that have flown any better? I don't think so. It doesn't fly with me when you say that the costs are exorbitant.

Yes, there are indeed a lot of documents. I am keenly aware of this, because I have been reading them. It is also unacceptable to say that we are incurring costs because we were are forced to have things translated and we are giving francophones the right to access information in their mother tongue, and then conclude that for these reasons, we can't go any further and we have to stop the study, forgo the report and not get worked up about the fact that what we requested has not been provided.

I will not say sorry for being francophone and for wanting to communicate and receive information in my language, no way. Personally, I have been reading all the documents twice over, because I have to double-check with the English. I fully understand that there are costs involved and I think you know me sufficiently well to know that I am also cognizant of the need to spend taxpayers' money wisely. It's a priority for me.

We do, however, have the right to request and receive documents of good quality. It isn't just a question of parliamentary privilege, it's the privilege of Canadians, and the government has to acquiesce. I've said what I had to say.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.

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

Thanks, Chair.

The motion we're voting on, hopefully, is to approve the report from the analysts. I would ask other members what they disagree with in the report from the analysts. If it's nothing, if the concern is cost, there is no cost to report on this to the House.

If we want to bring public servants or departments to committee to admonish them or to ask them tough questions, why? If we don't accept that they breached the privileges of this committee, why would we ask them to come here? They did or they didn't. I don't understand why we would want, as a committee, to whitewash the situation.

Has there been a breach of privilege or has there not? If there has been, why wouldn't we report that to the House?

Those would be my questions. I imagine this is going to be discussed for quite some time.

What is incorrect in the report prepared by the analysts? That's question one. I have not found anything. Question two is, with no additional cost to the committee, what reason do we have to not report this breach to the House?

If we're going to plan to call bureaucrats here, again, I just don't understand what our questions would be. We either agree with the report or we don't. For it to properly be followed through on.... That exceeds the authority of the chair of this committee and it must be referred to the Speaker of the House.

We're either for the rules or we're not. There has been a breach of privilege. The House should take the measures it deems appropriate. I concur with the seventh report as amended and as prepared by the analysts, and I'm prepared to vote to that effect.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Barrett.

Go ahead, Mr. Johns.

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

To respond to that, I think it would be the right thing to do to have the public servants come so that we can ask questions. Why? Why haven't they produced documents? Why are there delays? I don't see anything wrong with that whatsoever, and then we can decide where we want to go with it and whether we refer it to the House or not.

I think having them, at least, here at committee so that we can ask them direct questions and get some answers would be the right step to take at this point in time. Let's get them here and ask them questions. Have them explain to us what their obstacles or delays are, or why they're refusing.

We can go from there. I think that would be a natural step.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I agree wholeheartedly with what Mr. Johns just stated. This is an opportunity to engage directly with the officials from the departments, ask them very difficult questions and shed some light. I want to highlight that these are also meetings that would take place in open sessions.

Again, I think we're missing a step here. I agree wholeheartedly with what Mr. Johns has brought forward. Quite frankly, I don't understand why the members of the Conservative Party would not want to take the opportunity to, again, question the officials—

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

Because they already broke the rules—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Barrett, let him finish.

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

I don't know what they're afraid of in terms of taking that step, having that conversation, engaging with the officials directly, having them respond and having them respond on the record. I agree wholeheartedly with what Mr. Johns has brought forward. I think it's a practical step.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Barrett, let others have a say.

We'll go to Ms. Block.

Please put your hand down, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would concur with my colleague Mr. Barrett and his observations on what the motion is calling for and what the really direct questions are.

If we want to get into delaying what we obviously know is a breach of privilege, I would like to ask the analysts how many times the departments have been contacted to get the information that we've been asking for and whether we've received responses from the department as to why documents aren't forthcoming or if they have provided any sort of excuses as to why they aren't being presented in the form that we have asked.

Thank you.