Government Operations Committee on June 21st, 2023

[Matthew Shea]

That would be out of the PCO.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

I have a document here, which I read into the record last time. It is out of the PCO. Paul Mackinnon is still at the PCO.

I'm going to ask you, Monsieur Bédard, are we entitled to these documents? It was this opposition that passed the motion to have the documents. Are we entitled to those documents, since we passed a motion that we should have those documents?

[Michel Bédard]

Provided the document that you're referring to falls within an order that has been adopted by the committee—

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

That's right, an order was adopted.

[Michel Bédard]

—then the committee is entitled to the document.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

That's right.

An order was adopted that says we are entitled to these documents, yet I have here a note to Mr. Mackinnon from Maia. She was informing Mr. Mackinnon, who is still at the PCO under this branch that is here today. I'll read it again. It says, “The government considers it non-binding if Parliament does. If government doesn't produce documents as ordered by the House, then the matter can be escalated in a number of different ways, including as far as finding the government is in contempt, a minister or official being called to the bar, a non-confidence vote”. This is the same kind of scenario as last June with Iain Stewart being called to the bar. As my colleague, Mr. Barrett, pointed out, this was a conversation with someone who is still in the PCO.

Are you on the same page as Paul Mackinnon? Do you have meetings with Mr. Mackinnon in terms of determining where your direction comes from? If you are on the same page as Mr. Mackinnon, then the decisions of this committee are not binding. It's very clear to me from this email where the PCO takes their direction. It's not from this committee. It's not from parliamentarians. It's from the government. It's very clear by this document here.

I think anyone from any party, in particular the government, is obstructing democracy by saying that we would not be entitled to these documents. Yet, it seems that this is what is going on at the PCO. Again, I remind all opposition members that we were the ones, on this side of the House, who made the decision to have these documents come from the government in a completely unredacted form and in both official languages.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to take this time now to present another motion, if I may.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Read the motion, please.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much.

The motion reads as follows:

That, further to the evidence received by the committee pursuant to the motion adopted on Monday, April 24, 2023, and in relation to the redactions and improper translation of documents received by the committee pursuant to the order for production of documents adopted by the committee on Wednesday, January 18, 2023, the committee is of the opinion that there is a potential breach of privilege which must be reported to the House, and therefore,

a) The draft report prepared by the analysts on this issue be amended to identify the following departments, agencies and crown corporations that did not comply with the committee’s order to produce unredacted documents, or did not adequately translate documents prior to their submission,

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited

Business Development Bank of Canada

Canada Border Services Agency

Canada Development Investment Corporation

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

Canada Post

Destination Canada

Department of Finance Canada

Employment and Social Development Canada

Export Development Canada

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

National Defence

Natural Resources Canada

Office of the Veterans Ombud (Veterans Affairs Canada)

Privy Council Office

That's no surprise.

Public Sector Pension Investment Board

Public Services and Procurement Canada

TransMountain Corporation;

b) The draft report, as amended, be adopted;

c) The report be entitled: Question of Privilege on Providing Documents to the Committee;

d) The Chair, Clerk and analysts be authorized to make such grammatical and editorial changes as may be necessary without changing the substance of the report;

e) Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee request that the government table a comprehensive response to this report;

f) The dissenting or supplementary opinions be in Calibri 12-point font, left aligned, single-spaced, and be submitted electronically, in both official languages, to the clerk of the committee, not later than 4:00 p.m. on Friday, June 23 2023;

g) And that the Chair present this report to the House at the earliest opportunity.

Mr. Chair, again, we have requested these documents three times. I would remind my opposition colleagues that we would not have had to spend so much time on this matter had we just received the documents properly translated and in an unredacted form. Alas, we did not. We did not for reasons of the government as well as opposition members. That's why we continue on this. The first time was on January 18. The second time was a March 5 request by the chair. The third time was on March 8.

I will also say that we had such a delay, our poor analysts had to redraft the report a second time, wasting their time as well. If we had just dealt with the matter at hand, which was getting the documents that we were entitled to as parliamentarians, having passed a motion, with all opposition parties at that time in agreement.... I'm not sure why things changed. I guess it's like a relationship; things change sometimes.

We don't have those documents. As such, we unfortunately find ourselves in this position today.

I know that Ms. Vignola has also pointed out several times that we unfortunately didn't get the documents in both official languages. She also said that the quality of the translated French wasn't as good as the English.

That is a shame as well.

Mr. Chair, I'm putting this forward today. This is despite the government not wanting us to see these documents. It is evident that this is happening. It is evident that this is happening at the highest level of government with the PCO here today. Despite that, and despite opposition members who were once on board with transparency in the fight against a company that is corrupt, a company that has fuelled the opioid crisis, something that I thought the member on this side of the table was committed to getting to the bottom of and solving, here we are—

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

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Yes, that's all there is to do at this point—laugh—because of the place we're at now. All we can do is laugh.

But I'm not going to sit here and laugh, Mr. Chair. I'm going to, once again, through this motion, ask the committee to pass this motion to get the documents. I have some clues as to what will go on, but I think Canadians will see, again, the obstruction of information that is occurring at the highest levels in coordination with the coalition.

I'll leave it there, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

The motion is in order.

I've started a speaking list. We have Mr. Barrett, Mr. Johns, Mr. Housefather and then Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to my colleague Mrs. Kusie for this motion.

We've been dealing with this for some time. There was a lot of discussion about the volume of documents requested and the amount of time it has taken, but it was an order of the committee that the documents be produced.

There are a lot of great things parliamentary committees can do, and there are matters still under review by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates that can be completed over this term of Parliament. However, the situation we're faced with is this: If we undertake a study on diversity in procurement or on shipbuilding, or one that expands to Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers.... If we want to review the criteria used by government to award contracts, and whether these should be awarded to companies that have been involved in supercharging opioid sales in other countries and attempting to do so in this country; that have engaged in fraudulent practices in other countries; that have been involved in election interference; that are so morally bankrupt as to hold a corporate retreat adjacent to concentration camps—specifically in an area where Canada's Parliament is said to have been—where a genocide is occurring.... If we want to look at any of those things....

If the committee wants to ask for any documents but is content with the entities from which we ask for documents just saying, “Well, it's private information, so we don't want to share it with you”, so it's case closed and Parliament doesn't need to look at it, if that's what we're content with, we can dispose of this motion, move on to those other things and not get to see anything the people we are studying or investigating don't want us to see. We're going to be pretty ineffective.

That will survive not just in this Parliament and government but also in governments into the future. Witnesses today have talked about departmental plans and government position papers from more than a decade ago. If we want to use and rely on those—the current government claimed they would do better than that, because they didn't like the conditions as they existed, but then they did the exact same thing—we're going to keep getting the same results.

It would be astonishing—and I'm frightened at the thought—to find ourselves with a single party in government forever in this country. If we don't want to improve on what happened a decade ago under a previous government, or on what's happening with this government, how could Canadians possibly expect there will be an improvement on that with future governments, particularly if the opposition sees its document production requests not being met? They will say, “We want to continue to look into things, but the government is obviously obstructing information from Parliament.” That's what's going to happen with a future government.

If we don't have the opportunity to fix it and demonstrate to departments that they're not allowed to continue to do what they claim they've always done.... “That person doesn't work here anymore, so we're not responsible for them saying our department doesn't believe the committee actually has the juice to get these documents from us. What are you going to do?” That was the gist of the email Mrs. Kusie read. I guess they're about to find out what we're going to do.

The dollars or time spent on the document production is not the issue that was raised in the failure to produce the information in the form it was ordered in by this committee. It's their refusal to give us the information. Please, I stand to be corrected by you, Chair, by the analysts, by the witnesses or anyone who is listed here that the only impediment to their meeting the request of this committee is time and money. That's not what we're hearing.

If they're saying that they need a little more time and that they're prepared to give us the documents as they become available, then we should remove those entities one by one from the list, but that's not what we're hearing. They have a different set of rules they are looking to operate by from those that Canada's Parliament operates by.

I don't work at PCO. I work for Canadians, and we have laws that allow us to order these documents. We're seeing that the servants are becoming the masters of Parliament. That's not the position we want to find ourselves in. I don't like to be there as an opposition member; I wouldn't want to be there on the government side, either. That's not how this place is supposed to work.

We had this discussion at committee. We had this discussion amongst this group several months ago—about more time. First, write them a letter and tell them we're about to take the next step. That was the request from Mr. Kusmierczyk. That was his request. I protested. I said they'd had enough time. However, just because you get your say, that doesn't mean you get your way, so we gave them more time.

Mr. Johns said he wanted to see them here and wanted to ask them questions. I protested. I thought it was sufficient that the powers are established that we're able to order these documents, but here we are and we have asked for them all to come. I haven't heard anything different from what they've said to this point.

Those were the concerns raised by the fourth party and by the government: They wanted to give them more time and give them a chance, and they wanted to hear from them. Perhaps they would say something compelling.

I find myself not compelled by what they've said. In fact, I find myself distressed because this is going to be the state of play going forward—not just for the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, but for all parliamentary committees. If they don't feel like giving us the information, they won't. That's what we're choosing to accept or not.

Mr. Housefather and Mr. Kusmierczyk, at our previous meeting this week, said there was concern that referring this to the House was an attempt to delay the business of the House. The relevance and the importance of Parliament only exist if we actually protect the powers we have as legislators.

I undertook on Monday—having spoken to the House leader for His Majesty's loyal opposition—that this would not be raised before adjournment at the end of this week for the planned recess, if it was referred to the House. That wasn't to the satisfaction of government members, so I question their sincerity in raising that as their objection.

We have, Chair, checked all the boxes. We checked the box of giving the departments a lot more time. We checked the box of giving them the opportunity to come here individually to offer statements or remarks, expanding on their opportunity to correspond in writing with this committee.

The majority of the representatives from these organizations declined to even speak to the issue. They were given the opportunity to come, and they were given the time to produce the documents. We've had the legal opinion from the House, which is crystal clear, that we as a committee are, without restriction, entitled to these documents. Cost, time, care and control of the documents are not the issue. The issue is that these entities do not recognize the right of Parliament to require the production of these documents. That's what it comes down to. Either we're effective and we have the powers that have been given to us as a parliamentary standing committee, or we give them away.

Often in the House, when the opposition asks the government about what's going on at committee, the response is that committees are independent and masters of their own domain. There's no party line. There's no supply and confidence agreement that would weigh into this. It's strictly the opinion of the regular members of this committee—or the associate members, who are appropriately substituted onto the committee—that this does rise to affect our privileges as a committee.

This is the foundation on which all of the work that we do is built—our ability to actually get people to come and talk to us and give us the papers to read so that we can understand the issues.

I'm not a lawyer. We brought one today. He doesn't work for the opposition; he works for Canada's Parliament. We heard, in response to my questions of some of these same witnesses last week, that they're not lawyers, but they disagree with the one of Canada's Parliament. I'm going to err on the side of Canada's Parliament in this case. My understanding is supported by what we've heard from his testimony, and that's that the privileges of this committee have been violated, and the only way for us to redress this is for the matter to be referred to the House.

That's why I support this motion. I'm very concerned about our ability to meaningfully do any work for the remainder of this Parliament if we don't refer this matter to the House—but also in future Parliaments. I think that's the question we should be concerned with. That's the question, certainly, that I'm concerned with.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Johns, go ahead.

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

The idea was to get witnesses to come here so we could ask them questions and get answers to try to find a pathway to a solution. Instead of doing that, we're debating this motion.

The Conservatives brought in the rules in 2010, and today they're kicking and screaming because the rules that they brought in don't work for them today. You can't make this stuff up. They're yelling and screaming at public servants because of the rules they brought in.

I don't like the rules, and it's interesting because Mr. Barrett talked about the history of government after government with these bad policies, and I agree. That's why the NDP wants their turn in government. We're working on that. As I'm getting heckled by the Conservatives, I will say this. There is some difference, but not a big difference, between Conservatives and Liberals. We just saw them work together on whistle-blowing to defeat a bunch of motions by the Bloc and the NDP to make sure that whistle-blowers have a better structure in terms of support and protection. We saw them gang up on that.

I will say this. Yes, I supported this motion, but I am embarrassed about the cost this has taken on the public servants, the delay in other work that they could be doing, the $8 million just for translation from PSPC, the $172,000 taken from pensioners when two paragraphs were missing out of 800-plus pages. This is not okay.

We're doing nine studies. We haven't completed one, not one. I'm embarrassed; I had a part in this. We had a part in this, but I would never, ever, go down this rabbit hole again. I'll tell you that right now.

We should be studying accountable government. If the Conservatives are so upset about the rules that they brought in, then let's look at them, but let's do it right. We can't do anything right here. We can't even do McKinsey and say here's a dissenting report, or here's a report that can include this concern as part of our main report. Even on the Governor General, motions start dropping in here ahead of the report. On McKinsey, more motions start, like, let's ban McKinsey.

Let's include it in the report. Let's actually do a report, something we can bring to the House, recommendations we could make to the government and then hold them to account. We can't do that, because no one wants to do it. Why even do studies if we're just going to play games here? This is out of control.

This idea around McKinsey and the toxic drug crisis, and even an attempt to shame me—

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

You should be ashamed.

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

No, I am not ashamed, actually. I'm not ashamed by listening to experts—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Let me interrupt, Mr. Johns.

Let me just say, colleagues, that Mr. Johns has the floor. I would ask everyone to allow him the floor.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, if we're going to ban McKinsey for their role in the toxic drug crisis, which might be a good recommendation for the report at this committee, then we should also, when we're doing the bigger report, look at some of those other highly paid consulting firms and look at their roles in some of the scandals that have happened in this country.

We have to make sure that we have some standards that are legitimate and that are across the whole spectrum, and that we have credibility. I'm not afraid of that, but to try to insinuate, first, that McKinsey is responsible for all of the toxic drug crisis is completely ludicrous. Bad drug policy is responsible for the toxic drug crisis that's killing people. Fentanyl entering the drugs that are on the street, the toxic drug crisis that's killing people, is clearly a result of failed drug policy.

What we've tried to do is bring forward policies that are recommended by experts, including the police chiefs' association, chief medical health officers across the country, the expert task force on substance use and experts across the country, but the Conservatives don't want to listen to them. They just want to say, “Let's put it all on McKinsey.” They don't want to come back with a robust, comprehensive response to a complex issue.

It's not so simplistic. These issues are not simplistic.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Without the documents—

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

I'm sorry. I am getting heckled again by the Conservatives on this issue we are talking about today. This is policy and rules that the Conservatives brought in, and they are yelling at public servants, which is completely unacceptable—to yell at people. This is a committee. We are parliamentarians. Leadership means we have to work together through difficult times.

I think we should be getting back to the witnesses so we can ask them questions and then include the concerns, and what we hear, in the report. If most of this needs to go in the report, I'm fine with that, but to have this in the motion—to have dissenting opinions reported to the House 48 hours from now—is completely unreasonable. We have to get to reasonable.

I actually want to work with my colleagues here, who think that I don't. I actually do want to work with them. In my municipal government, in my little town of Tofino, we didn't even act like this. We asked staff to come back with a report. We looked at the report.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

We did that—twice.

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

We made decisions. I sat in local government. That's how it was.

We're Parliament. We're running a country. This is not okay.

That's all I have to say.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Johns.

Mr. Housefather, go ahead.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will try to be succinct. I have a few things I want to say, but I also want to get back to the witnesses who were called here today. We have many of them, and I think we should be using our time with the witnesses.

Mr. Chair, coming back to the question of.... Something really important was raised by my colleague, Madame Sinclair-Desgagné: Why, in the public accounts committee, was it okay to obtain unredacted copies of the vaccine contracts? Why did I work with her and with you, sir, to get those? It's because it was something that was reasonable. It was something that was tailored and targeted, and there was a mechanism put in place that everybody agreed with and that ensured everything was kept confidential. It wasn't a fishing expedition of thousands and thousands of documents at huge cost and huge effort that kept the bureaucracy tied up for months and cost millions of dollars for translation. There were very specific contracts.

I agree with the principle that committees should be able to get the documents they ask for and that they should be able to work out a way to get them in an unredacted way. I believe that very strongly. I think we should be looking into the current procedures being used by the Privy Council Office and the departments and rethink them and make suggestions, but I don't think that what we did here was well thought through at all. If I could go back, I wouldn't vote for the motion the way it was, because it was clearly much more wide-ranging than I think any of us really understood at the time—certainly me.

The second thing, Mr. Chair, is that we've had a lot of outrage about documents being shared with certain redactions. This motion was raised by once again referring back to an email that I now have asked for copies of twice and both times have been refused, an email that at the previous meeting was used to clearly suggest that this was written in June of this year and tied to the McKinsey documents. It was again raised in the questioning to the Privy Council Office as a precursor for this motion. As opposed to receiving it redacted or unredacted, this committee has not received it at all. It hasn't been shared, even though it's being relied upon as the reason why the motion was brought forward.

I find it outrageous that in the last meeting I was clearly misled to believe that this document was written as an email about McKinsey, when the person who allegedly wrote it has not been with the Privy Council Office this year, and that email that we keep talking about has not been shared with the rest of us.

Mr. Chairman, given that, I move that the debate on the motion be adjourned so that we can return to the witnesses.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Housefather.

That is a dilatory motion, so we will go to an immediate vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

Colleagues, we will get back to the debate.

We're finishing at 6:55 today, so if we wish to have time with our nominee, we will end this round with the witnesses at about 6:20.

Mr. Bains, you are up for five minutes.