Government Operations Committee on Oct. 24th, 2023

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Terrazzano, thank you for your work. I wonder if Mr. Sousa is being tough on you, because he's smarting from your recent revelation about the NCC spending $8 million to replace a barn.

I have farmers in my riding, and I think many of them could build a barn for less than $8 million.

Do you want to speak ever so briefly to that revelation?

[Franco Terrazzano]

Yes. I mean, eight million bucks on a barn...? The National Capital Commission and Rideau Hall teamed up to soak taxpayers for a whole bunch of waste.

Look, I think the real issue here with the ArriveCAN app is the fact that it originally launched for $80,000, and at the end of the day we somehow ended up with a total hit of $54 million to the taxpayer. I think all Canadians who are worried about this scandal are now left scratching their heads, wondering who is going to be held accountable. If no one is going to be held accountable for this within the government, then what's stopping this type of waste from happening again?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I think fundamentally we need to replace this Liberal-NDP government with a government that cares about spending and values taxpayers' money.

Mr. Chair, I am very concerned about the testimony we received in the previous hour and the gaps in the testimony previously shared with the committee. As such, I would like to move the following motion:

That the committee report to the House this motion of censure, expressing strong disapproval of testimony given by Erin O'Gorman on November 14, 2022, and by John Ossowski on December 8, 2022. In an apparent breach of the committee's privileges, Mr. Ossowski definitively and inaccurately denied any contact with Kristian Firth and Ms. O'Gorman failed to share information at the committee about an RCMP investigation despite knowing about the investigation at the time.

Chair, I think it's important for us to report to the House these concerns we have regarding the testimony that was received, because committees need accurate information from witnesses in order to do their jobs.

In the one case, the committee received information that apparently was inadvertently inaccurate, but I checked the record from December 8, and Mr. Ossowski was quite definitive. He didn't say, “Not to my knowledge,” with respect to contact with Mr. Firth; he said a definitive no.

I think the committee might have been inclined to view the issue more charitably if he had simply said, “It's possible. I don't recall,” but he was very definitive in his denial at that time.

I think the evidence suggests that Ms. O'Gorman—although as far as I can tell she was not directly asked about an RCMP investigation—should have been forthcoming about that information.

For committees to do their work, they need clear, forthcoming and accurate testimony. When there are areas that witnesses are not aware of, they should at least acknowledge those things. We continue to be looking for information about who made this decision, who was responsible for this decision; and that information continues to be withheld.

I want to put that motion forward. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm going to assume you do not have that in French to circulate.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Chair, I'm moving it as the matter at hand, and I'm moving it verbally. I was putting it together during the course of the discussions here. I did send it to the clerk maybe 10 minutes ago, but I assume the translation process isn't complete yet.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm just asking because I'm hearing requests to have it distributed. I wanted to double-check before saying that it's not available to distribute.

Colleagues, can you give me 15 seconds, please?

Colleagues, quickly, if everyone is fine with it, I'm going to dismiss our witnesses. There are a couple of other things I have to discuss before we continue with that.

Mr. Conacher, thank you again for joining us. Thank you, always, for your advocacy for whistle-blowers. I appreciate it.

[Duff Conacher]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Terrazzano—

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

We did not get their time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We are out of time. I have to get to other things, which will make sense. Trust me.

Mr. Thorpe, thanks for showing up.

I'm going to dismiss.

We also are at a point where we have to grant our interpreters at least an hour's break.

I'm going to suggest that we suspend for just a couple more seconds, so that we can excuse our translators. Let me just chat with—

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We have a motion to adjourn.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have a point of order, Chair. I put this motion on the floor, highlighting significant concerns we have about testimony. The government wants to adjourn that discussion right away, clearly.

I'm not sure if the government even properly had the floor when they moved that motion, and you do have to have the floor to move a motion.

Again, the government is looking for ways to shut down the conversation on this issue, clearly. That's obviously very disappointing, but it's not at all surprising that they're moving to shut down the discussion right now.

However, they do have to do so within the rules, and I don't believe that member had the floor.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Colleagues, we require an hour's break as soon as possible, so I am going to suspend the meeting for an hour.

I'm sorry, but we have to suspend as soon as possible.

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

Can I say something really fast?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

No, I'd prefer not.

Be really brief, Mr. Johns.

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

Can we come up with an agreement to bring this back Thursday? I think it's worth the conversation. That's all I'm working for.

I think that a lot of us have commitments here tonight. I am supposed to be in the House.

I hope we can come to terms with an agreement that would bring this back on Thursday to have a full conversation.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

We have the Botler witnesses for two hours on Thursday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Colleagues, I'm going to suspend. We have to suspend.

We'll discuss this separately.

We are suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Colleagues, thank you.

We are back in session.

I think we have general agreement on what we are doing on Thursday. Are we comfortable adjourning now?

Mr. Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

My understanding is that we're going to maintain the full two hours of testimony with our scheduled witnesses, and we're going to set aside additional time in order to deal with this motion after we've been able to hear from those witnesses on Thursday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I understand it's a short amount of additional time. We're hoping it will take around 10 or 15 minutes to address this.

Mrs. Vignola is next, and then Mr. Johns.

Be very brief. Again, we are losing resources.

Mrs. Vignola.

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

The interpretation cut out for part of Mr. Genuis's remarks, so I want to make sure I understand correctly.

My understanding is that we're going to keep the two hours with the witnesses, with the motion to be discussed afterwards. I assume we will have it in both of Canada's official languages, of course.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Are we in agreement, then?

Colleagues, I would just ask that different parties might want to get together in the next couple of days to iron out the motion.

If we are in agreement, we are adjourned.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.