Health Committee on July 20th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Yes, you can. Your sound quality seems to be okay right now.

Go ahead.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would like to propose the following amendment to this motion. The amendment would read, “provided that the department does its assessment and vetting in gathering and releasing the documents as it would be done through the access to information process”.

As the members know, our federal departments are always discussing issues under provincial jurisdictions with their provincial colleagues. Many of these communications are included in documents that could be caught up in this motion as it stands now. The amendment I propose would ensure communication and trust between the provinces and the federal government is protected. This is a matter of protecting private information, while at the same time ensuring the committee gets the information it is looking for.

Furthermore, it's clear that the opposition members also agreed with this at one point, as this language has already been used in motions in AGRI and OGGO. It's reasonable that we use the same approach now, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Madam Sidhu.

I will go now to Mr. Van Bynen.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you.

The motion that was put forward by Ms. Sidhu, I intended to do that as well. I think there has been a very fulsome discussion about this, so I just want to say that I support the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Van Bynen.

We will go now to Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I agree with Mr. Van Bynen that there has been a fulsome discussion, so I'm not going to repeat the points that I've made earlier and that others have made.

I also want to just say I agree with Mr. Kelloway that I also don't take this position on redaction and disclosure based on any negative view of the Canadian public. That's not my motivation here. My motivation here really is to ensure that independent committees exercise our full powers in a way that's independent of the government and in a way that's responsible and in the best traditions of accountability and transparency.

What I wanted to add to this is that my excellent researcher has sent me the grounds for redaction under the Access to Information Act, so I thought I would just read those into the record so that my colleagues are aware and we know exactly what we're doing before we vote on this and agree to redact information. Here are the grounds under ATIP: information obtained in confidence; federal-provincial affairs; international affairs, defence and national security; law enforcement investigations and security of penal institutions; safety of individuals; economic interests of the Government of Canada; personal information; third party information; advice; testing procedures; solicitor-client privilege; statutory prohibitions; and information to be published.

If that's a complete list, then I'm led to believe there are 13 separate grounds for redaction. Those are exactly the grounds for redaction that resulted in the completely unacceptable material that we had delivered to this committee back in February and March. I think all committee members who had a chance to review that information would, contrary to what Ms. Sidhu said or her admonition, agree that we didn't get the information that we sought.

I don't know why this committee would now formalize the adoption of criteria for redaction that everyone in this committee knows are going to result in us not getting the information that we want, but rather just getting information that any person in any community in this country can get from this government. We are basically neutering this committee's powers of production and guaranteeing that we're not going to get the information that the substance of the motion wants.

I agree with Ms. Sidhu that we should be getting information that we want, but mark these words here, because when we get this information if this passes.... I must say for the record, I'm a little disappointed in the Bloc's agreeing with this because my understanding is that last week the Bloc did agree with a redaction process that would result in more production of documents.

We will revisit this issue again in September when we get these documents, and we'll see whether or not the ATIP criteria result in this committee getting the information that we really want to get, because if it doesn't, I hope that all of us are open-minded enough then to review this and make sure this committee can actually get the information we want.

Finally, I would just say I don't think there's anybody on this committee who wants to harm federal-provincial relations or any other such things. I think all of the colleagues on this committee want the same thing. We're the health committee. We have a vested interest, as no other parliamentarians do, to look into, in detail, matters of fundamental importance to public health in this country. These are things like determining the about-face on masking, where we had the chief medical officer and the health minister of this country telling Canadians not only that we didn't need masks but that masks would be harmful to public health. That's what the position of PHAC was about three or four months ago, and now we know that's completely not wise public health advice.

When we're told by Dr. Tam that she changed her mind because of recent evidence.... For us to be able to test that as parliamentarians, we need to have access to the full information that she had to determine whether that is actually true, and whether or not Canadians are getting the unvarnished facts.

This is where I think Ms. Jansen's point is well made. The Canadian public may or may not have lost trust in this government, but we risk having them lose trust in their chief public health officer and the government if we, as parliamentarians, fail them and do not seek out information when we have such a colossal, blatant about-face in public health policy, if we're not prepared to look at that in an unvarnished courageous way. That's what I think is behind these motions, not a nefarious attempt to violate someone's rights.

I'm going to conclude by saying that, as you can see, some of these criteria are so broad that if we're allowing the vetting for third party information, for personal information, for safety of individuals and for advice, we are guaranteeing that the documents we will get back from this request are going to be so heavily redacted as to be virtually useless to this committee. Again, mark these words, because come September or October when we get these documents back, each member here who votes in favour of this and denies that will be held accountable. We'll see if those documents really do provide the information that we really need to see and want to see, as Ms. Sidhu passionately claimed.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

We go now to Dr. Powlowski.

Go ahead, please.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I appreciate Mr. Davies' comments and I think the onus is now on the Department of Health. If they come back with documents that are heavily redacted and basically useless and that make the department non-transparent in the areas where we want transparency, then it's certainly going to undermine those of us on the Liberal side who are preaching transparency. I fully agree with Mr. Davies that there has to be that transparency. I have some trust that the Department of Health will do their redactions judiciously. If they do them very liberally and apply everything under ATIP in a very liberal fashion, large parts can be redacted, but I look forward and hope and trust that the Department of Health will do the redactions appropriately and in the best interests of Canada, and the best interests of Canada include transparency.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski.

We go back to Ms. Jansen.

Go ahead.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I just have to say, Mr. Chair, how really disappointed we are that yet again we are not going to be allowed to have the documents that we need to ensure that there's complete transparency and openness. I believe that is very important to ensure that Canadians are confident in the decisions that are being made on their behalf for their safety, and I continue to be extremely saddened that we cannot find a way to be open and transparent at this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Jansen.

We'll go back to Mr. Davies.

Go ahead.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'd like to thank Dr. Powlowski for those comments.

There's one thing that's important to remember. I don't think we have to wait to see in September how the department is going to react, because we already have an example of how they reacted.

Again, the law clerk of the House of Commons took the unusual step of writing to the clerk of our committee when he received the documents pursuant to our first request back in February. I think it's really important for committee members to think about this.

I'm going to quote from his letter again. It said here:

Upon reception of the documents on March 15, 2020, you provided them to my Office so that we could make the necessary redactions to protect the privacy of Canadian citizens, permanent residents and public servants as contemplated by the production order. However, as mentioned above, the documents had already been redacted by the respective departments.

Even though there was an order to the department to provide the documents to the law clerk and to let the law clerk do the redactions, and to redact them only according to the three criteria we had given them, the department took it upon themselves to do the redactions and to redact according to ATIP, when that was clearly in violation of the production order of this committee.

Moreover, in terms of Dr. Powlowski's thought that maybe we can see how they do and then respond, this is what the law clerk said to us in the same letter:

As my Office has not been given the opportunity to see the unredacted information, we are not able to confirm or adopt those redactions.

Once you get page after page that are blacked out, there is no way to determine how wisely or responsibly those redactions were applied.

Those would be my responses to the claim to just see how the department does and we'll be able to hold them accountable. No, we won't. This committee has one job right now, and that is that we have to determine what the criteria are that we're going to give to the department in terms of the documents we seek. I think it's completely responsible for us to say, “Send those documents to the law clerk and have the law clerk redact according to specific criteria.”

If Liberal members of this committee think that those three criteria are not broad enough, then the amendment should be to add some more, so maybe add federal-provincial relations or whatever you want, but by simply adopting the ATIP criteria, all 13 of them holus-bolus, nobody can look anybody in the eye at this meeting and say, “Whoa, let's wait and see. I'm sure we'll get fulsome information from the department in September. They'll give us everything we want to know about this.”

Anybody who is seriously advocating that right now is not paying attention to the evidence that we have before us of how they responded when we asked for the documentation in February and March.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

The amendment to Mr. Jeneroux's motion as previously amended is to incorporate the ATIP information as we did in the last motion. Is there any further discussion?

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We go back now to Mr. Jeneroux. I believe you have another motion you might wish to move.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair, and it is my final motion. I move that:

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), the committee send for the following documents to be provided by the government by Monday, August 31, 2020, and that the documents be published publicly on the committee's website by Monday, September 7, 2020:

All documentation from the Military Report on Long-term care homes in Ontario.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Jeneroux.

We have a motion on the floor, which is the motion to receive information about the military report. Mr. Jeneroux has made the date changes, as he expects them to be asked for.

Is there any discussion? We have Mr. Powlowski.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

At the risk of looking really stupid and making the same mistake twice, do we have the dates right? Now the dates are August 31, and I'm requesting it be amended to the date of the 7th for being published publicly on the committee site. It would be changed from August 10 to September 7.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Yes, Dr. Powlowski, I believe that is how Mr. Jeneroux made his motion.

Mr. Jeneroux, perhaps you wish to confirm.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Yes, Mr. Chair, that's how I did it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Dr. Powlowski, the date changes you were interested in have already been incorporated into the motion.

We go now to Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Pardon me, Ms. Sidhu. Your sound quality is very bad. Perhaps if you turn off your video, you might get better sound. Could you try that?

That's good. Try speaking now.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would like to propose the following amendment to this motion.

The amendment reads, “provided that the department does its assessment and vetting in gathering and releasing the documents as it would be done through the access to information process”. The reasoning for this amendment is the same as before. I believe adding language like this will ensure we receive the best information possible, while protecting privacy issues, such as interprovincial communications.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Sidhu.

Is there any discussion on this amendment? Ms. Sidhu has moved to amend the main motion by adding the ATIP qualification.

Ms. Jansen, please go ahead.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I just want to say once again that we really should hold ourselves to a higher bar of communication and openness. It's just a shame what we're doing here.