Government Operations Committee on Jan. 18th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll proceed to the vote.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'd like a recorded vote, please.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 4)

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We are returning to Mr. Johns' motion with Mr. Sousa's amendment.

Mr. Johns, I see your hand. We'll start a speaking list.

We probably have resources for about another 15 minutes.

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

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

Can you advise me on the procedural aspect of this? We've raised a question of privilege, and the committee has defeated the privilege motion. Does that effectively kill consideration of the privilege issue, or does that open the door for an alternative privilege motion to be raised?

I'm a bit perplexed by this in that we clearly have an issue where the privileges of members are under threat. We would have easily moved on to the other item if we had been able to adopt a privilege motion of some sort. The defeat of it leaves me wondering whether we have any alternative remedy available to us, or if it's simply inferred to be the will of the two parties that voted against it to essentially shut down this issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Let's suspend for a few seconds.

I will confer with our clerk, and I will advise you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks for your patience, colleagues.

The advice I am given is that it's treated like a regular motion. Another question of privilege can be brought forward, but it would have to be substantively different from the first one.

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

I have a point of order to clarify that.

Is it that the motion would have to be substantively different, or the question of privilege would have to be?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

The question of privilege is treated similar to a motion—

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

Okay, so we have the NDP-Liberal coalition killing the privilege issue for the time being.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Yes, that would be correct.

Do you have a point of order, Ms. Vignola, or do you want to be added to the speaking list for the debate on Mr. Sousa's amendment?

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

I have another point of order, Mr. Chair.

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

I would like to have the amendment in writing, in French and English, so I can read it and understand it properly, because I'm visual and better at reading.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. Is that on Mr. Sousa's amendment?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Johns, is it a point of order, or is it to continue the debate on Mr. Sousa's amendment?

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

I would like to speak to that, but I think we should suspend while Ms. Vignola gets a chance to look at the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Okay, but that's not a point of order.

Mr. Sousa, do you have it in writing in both official languages so that you can forward it to the clerk?

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I do and I will forward it to you now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It's coming out now, so why don't we move on to Mr. Genuis?

Did you have a point of order, Mr. Genuis?

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

It's okay. Add me to the speaking list, please.

I wanted to see the amendment in writing, but I understand that's....

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll suspend for a couple of seconds to get the amendment out in writing to everyone. Then we'll have Mr. Johns speaking on the amendment, Mr. Genuis and perhaps Ms. Vignola.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

The amendments have been circulated.

I have a speaking list. I have Mr. Johns and then Mr. Genuis.

Go ahead, Mr. Johns.

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

First, I want the opportunity to respond to Mr. Genuis about the fact that today at OGGO, we're having an emergency meeting about studying an urgent matter. As I said, we've spent an hour and 57 minutes discussing this matter. We met specifically today and yesterday, on constituency weeks, because it's so urgent. This is an urgent matter for those 200,000 businesses facing this deadline today. This could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.

I know the Conservatives don't support CEBA. They should just come out and say it. On merchant fees, they fought hard. They did not stand up for lowering merchant fees for small businesses. They sat idle on that. They lowered corporate taxes by 5% for large corporations, but only 1% for small businesses. I know this. I was a small business owner and I ran a chamber of commerce. They should come clean on this.

I hope they will support this amendment and this motion, and that we can support small businesses.

I'd like to move to call the vote on the amendment right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We cannot go to a vote while we still have a speakers list.

We'll go to Mr. Genuis and then to Mrs. Vignola.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This has been really disappointing, I have to say. I was very clear.

I'm sorry; I'll just stand back here. I've been away for four weeks, and I've missed committees so much. Now I'm excited.

We had an opportunity today to do two things at once: to recognize the important issues raised by my privilege motion and also to deal with Mr. Johns' motion.

I put forward a privilege motion because I believe that the privileges of members of Parliament are now under threat. They are under threat because we have a situation in which people came before our committee and provided frank and candid testimony in which they were critical of other public servants and, indirectly, a minister. They did so in response to questions that were asked. They weren't particularly critical in their opening statements, as I recall, but they gave frank answers in response to frank questions.

Immediately after that, those individuals were subject to severe retaliation: the extremely rare situation of public servants' being suspended without pay. This is what happened to Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano. We're concerned about what this does for them, but this particularly raises significant questions about the integrity of our democratic processes.

We have been trying to get to the bottom of what happened in the ArriveCAN scandal. We have had people, public servants and consultants repeatedly lying and accusing each other of lying before this committee. Creating an environment in which witnesses can appear and can speak the truth and be protected while they speak the truth is going to be our only way of getting to the bottom of what happened. As such, I raised a privilege question, which, according to the rules—which I did not make up—takes precedence over the motion that was on the floor. I intended to do that in my final round of questions. However, Mr. Johns moved a motion beforehand.

Mr. Johns says that he wants his motion on CEBA dealt with. Well, if we had gone to the vote and had passed the motion related to recognizing the abuse of privilege that took place, then we would have immediately returned to Mr. Johns' motion. I certainly would have been favourably disposed to wanting to work collaboratively on that.

Mr. Johns chose to throw in his lot with the increasingly evidently corrupt Liberal government in choosing to bury that question of privilege. Liberals and New Democrats voted together to kill that question of privilege, which means that we will not be able to proceed, at least on that particular question of privilege, and address this issue moving forward. It is gravely concerning to me that we have Liberals and New Democrats trying to bury this issue of retaliation against public servants who speak out. It suggests to me that Liberals and New Democrats don't want to get to the bottom of what happened with ArriveCAN. They don't want public servants to feel comfortable telling the truth. Instead, they want public servants to feel intimidated, to worry for their jobs, and to, therefore, come here and toe the party line.

That's not what I want. What I want is public servants feeling that they can be frank and honest and that, when they're frank and honest before a committee, they will be protected. It was clear to me today from the testimony that we received—from the witnesses that were before us—that they could provide no explanation for why witnesses, immediately after they appeared before this committee, received letters telling them that they were under a cloud of investigation. Subsequently, they had support for their legal fees pulled. Now they are on leave without pay.

We have retaliation against public servants who come before committee and try to provide frank answers to clear questions. What is the government trying to hide and bury on this?