Health Committee on Nov. 16th, 2020

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

No, I was on the speakers list. That's why I had my hand up. If somebody has a point of order, they say, “point of order”. I had my hand up to be on the speakers list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I don't see anybody else interested in a point of order at this point, so go ahead.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I put a motion on notice, Mr. Chair, with regard to the order that was referred to our committee by the House of Commons. It is in regard to the process for document redaction.

I know there was some interest in potentially having the law clerk appear before our committee to go through whether there are adequate resources, etc.

For discussion, I move:

That in relation to the study referred to the Committee by the House on October 26, 2020, the committee hold a meeting on or no later than—

—and I'm flexible on the date; we could say, “within the next week”—

in which the committee would invite the Law Clerk to appear for one hour in camera, and hold one hour of committees business.

Again, I'm open to amendment of that motion, but I know there was some interest from committee members on ensuring adequate resourcing of the law clerk prior to the end of the document order period that was in the motion that was referred from the House.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I have a point of information, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Through you to MP Rempel, I'm wondering what the rationale is for having one hour in camera and one hour in public. I'm curious. Would she be able to respond to that question?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Chair, may I respond?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Yes, go ahead.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I think when I put the notice of motion forward, we still didn't have a timeline for when we were putting the COVID study plan together. If that's something we're doing today, again, I'm open to amendment of the motion. It doesn't have to be that way.

If colleagues would like to have an opportunity to have the law clerk here—because I know there were a lot of questions about the process for redaction and if there is adequate resourcing for that to happen within the time period—I'm proposing that we invite him here as a point of business on the House order.

That's all. It's open to amendment.

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

I have a point of information at this point.

Are you open to the possibility of not having this meeting—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Speak through the chair, please.

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

Sorry. Is the opposition in favour of the possibility of amending that motion to allow it to not be in camera?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Again, Chair, I'm fine. When I put the notice of motion forward, I think it was because we had no direction on when we were going to be doing committee business and that sort of thing.

Again, this is something I understood that other committee members were looking for, so I would like to get that done ASAP.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

As moved, it requires us to meet in camera. It would require unanimous consent to pass this motion, because our routine motions require unanimous consent to sit in camera for other than those three specific cases.

If someone could—

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

Can we give a motion to amend it, then, so it's not in camera?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Are you making such a motion?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Okay.

We have a motion by Ms. Rempel to call the law clerk to speak to us in the near future, which was amended by Dr. Powlowski to remove the in camera aspects. Is that clear to everyone?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Chair, I don't know how you are managing the speaking list and the raised hands, but mine has been raised since the beginning. As you suggested, I set my microphone so that it would no longer be on mute and the symbol indicating that my hand was raised has disappeared. I would like to be able to express my point of view on the matter we are discussing.

I don't know how you are managing the speaking list, but, as I said before, there seems to be a problem. I like my friend Mr. Powlowski a lot but I don't think his hand was up. First, I would like the priority of raised hands to be followed. Second, with regard to the motion adopted in the House, there was—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I take your point, and I apologize. We will withdraw Marcus's intervention at this point.

On my list, I have Mr. Davies, Mr. Fisher and Mr. Van Bynen, followed by Mr. Thériault. We will go back to that list.

This is on the motion as unamended.

Mr. Davies, go ahead.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to be clear. I will speak to this motion, but I don't want to lose my spot. I was next on the speakers list on a different issue, so I just want to make that clear.

Quite frankly, I don't understand why we're calling the law clerk at all. The law clerk has been designated by a House motion to redact documents that come before this committee on at least four specific grounds—three, really, and then a fourth one on a particular aspect of the House motion. One of the reasons I supported the idea of the law clerk doing that is that the law clerk, I think, is an objective officer of the House, as opposed to someone in the ministry or someone attached to the minister's office or someone who could be directed by government.

To me, it compromises the law clerk's objectivity to call the law clerk before this committee to be questioned about how or when or why he or his office is going to be doing the redacting. I would imagine the law clerk would contact our committee if he has any issues with that.

I also note that the motion speaks to a time period. He has to have the documents to us, redacted, by November 30. There is, if my memory serves me correctly, an opportunity for him to ask for an additional seven days, and that's it. I expect documents to be received by this committee in redacted form, according to the motion passed by the House, by November 30, or at the latest by December 6 or 7.

I'm concerned about politicizing the act of redacting. To put the law clerk before us and to have Liberals, Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc question him on how he's going to be redacting is inappropriate. Those are my feelings. If the law clerk is going to come before committee, if it is the will of this committee to call him, then I absolutely think he should be conducting the testimony in public, but I could be persuaded otherwise. However, if a motion is going to be made to have the law clerk appear in public, not in camera, I would support that.

At this point I'm not sure what we gain by or what the purpose is of having the law clerk appear before committee while he is supposed to be redacting documents.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Mr. Van Bynen, go ahead.

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

It would be helpful for me to gain a better understanding, but my concern was largely around the fact that there is another process also involved in redacting documents, and that's the ATIP process as well. If we were going to have the law clerk outline how they would approach the redacting, then I think we should also have members who would be responsible for the ATIP process as well.

All in, I agree with Mr. Davies. It might well be best not to engage the law clerk at this point and to let him go through his process. If there are any questions of clarification following that individual's due diligence, then that might be the time to have that conversation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Van Bynen.

Mr. Thériault, you have the floor.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Chair, I am a little ambivalent. On the one hand, it seems to me that Mr. Davies' arguments could convince me more to hear from the law clerk in camera to avoid the perception that parliamentarians would be exerting undue pressure.

On the other hand, there were allegations about the motion voted on in the House. According to some, the motion could harm research, contracts and the development of a vaccine. Under those conditions, I believed that it was possible to establish benchmarks indicating the point to which we could go in our questioning, in our future study and in our way of working on this motion in public. I thought we would have some guidance in that regard, and that is one of the reasons why I wanted to see the law clerk. There was quite a strong collective reaction and it has gained ground recently. I am also sensitive to that.

Our position was that there was no problem. However, in the event that we were to cross a certain line in our work, which should be open to the public, it would be helpful for us to have benchmarks. I also believed that the law clerk would set those benchmarks along the path. If I am mistaken, just tell me.