Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 7th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Mr. Gerretsen, go ahead.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That's my point of order: A point of order means you're bringing up the fact that you believe there has been a procedural error in the conduct and the operation of the meeting. You are making a point of order for the meeting. Mr. Richards, instead, is trying to discuss some of the issues and challenges that he sees with the report and get answers to those questions. Perhaps he's superseding the order the meeting is going to take and we will eventually get to that point.

If there is a point of order that the chair has done something incorrectly in proceeding with the meeting, let's hear what it is. Let's address it and move on. However, this is not, all of a sudden, “Point of order. Now I get to deal with my issues for the next 20 minutes”, because that's not what a point of order is.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

It sounds as if Mr. Gerretsen is challenging the chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Hold on. If I could respond, thank you for both—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Could I respond to the point of order before the chair's ruling, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

No, I'm not making a.... I'm actually going to allow you to speak, so maybe you'd like to hear what I have to say.

Because we haven't heard you out, if you do need clarification—it seems you're seeking some kind of clarification—I'm going to allow you to ask what you need clarification on, and we will see if it is allowable and a proper point of order, and the clerk may be able to respond to it.

Let's hear you out.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thank you. I appreciate that. That was the point I was trying to make, Madam Chair. I think members need to let me finish so they can see that it is, in fact, what I indicate it is. It's simply a matter of having these issues dealt with so we can consider the report in an appropriate fashion. I'll go through them.

The first point I was making, obviously, as I already indicated, was in regard to the outstanding request there was for documents to be produced by various witnesses. I'll just go through them so the clerk will have the list of what they were and we can maybe then see whether there are responses to that.

The first one was during the April 21 meeting. Of the Clerk of the House Charles Robert, Ms. Blaney had asked for an assessment of which MPs could have problems or concerns with Internet accessibility and whether that was something the clerk or House administration had a handle on.

On April 29, there were several. Of Mr. Moseley from Zoom, Mr. Gerretsen had asked for the minimum megabytes per second for Zoom to be able to work properly via the Internet. From the Translation Bureau, Ms. Blaney had asked Ms. ?Laliberté for the numbers of increased injury or fatigue incident reports. Of Mr. Moseley, Ms. Blaney had asked for the number of employees they have in Canada. Of Mr Moseley again, Mr. Duncan had asked for the status of the master services agreement with the House of Commons, and a copy of it. Again, of Mr. Moseley, Ms. Duncan had asked about their ability to authenticate votes. Of Mr. Weigelt from Microsoft, Ms. Duncan, again, had asked for cryptographic measures that would be recommended to protect the integrity of votes.

Then on April 30, there were a few requests of Mr. McCowan from the PCO. I had asked for the government's perspective or policy on the use of Zoom. Of Mr. McGill from the Scottish Parliament, Ms. Duncan had asked for the options being considered there for remote voting. Of Mr. Hamlyn of the U.K. House of Commons, Ms. Duncan had asked for remote voting testing arrangements and a follow-up on their testing results. Of Mr. McCowan of the PCO, Ms. Blaney had asked whether cabinet interpretation is provided by Translation Bureau employees or freelance contractors, and if by contractors whether they are certified.

Lastly, on the May 4 meeting, there were five requests. I requested from Ms. Gagnon from the International Association of Conference Interpreters whether there was a research paper or a study referred to in their brief and in their comments as “conclusive proof that the quality of sound...[teleconferences] provide never come close to the quality of sound needed for” remote simultaneous interpretation. On whether there was a study or a research paper that was referred to in that quote, she indicated there was and that she would provide it. Of Mr. Phillips of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, both Mr. Turnbull and Ms. Blaney had asked for numbers concerning the interpreters' injuries.

Again of Mr. Phillips, Mr. Blaney had asked about ISO details associated with international standards for interpreters and video conferences and for a follow-up brief on when consecutive interpretation would be more appropriate than simultaneous interpretation. Lastly, of Mr. Patrice, the deputy clerk of administration, Mr. Brassard had asked for the number of employees required for virtual proceedings.

That was the first thing.

Secondly, I had asked if we could have our analyst provide research on provincial governments and their reopening plans, or the status currently of their legislatures as far as their sittings are concerned. He indicated he would provide it, so I know we'll receive it. I'm just wondering what the status of it is.

Thirdly, there were a number of witnesses who were proposed but not heard from, and I just wanted to get an indication as to what happened with those witnesses. I think some of them are quite significant. Particularly, there are four different groups of witnesses. The first one would be security witnesses. We didn't really get a lot of chance to discuss and sufficiently address this even though there seemed to be some concerns raised by me and a number of other members.

I think that in order to produce a proper report, we need to have some of those concerns addressed.

One of the security witnesses that was quite significant was the Communications Security Establishment and officials from there. We didn't hear from any of them. Other witnesses with regard to security that were requested, but not heard from, included Dick Fadden, the former national security adviser to Prime Minister Harper and the former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and Chris Vickery, a director for cyber risk research for UpGuard. Then there was the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity at the University of New Brunswick and representatives from there.

Other groupings of witnesses who could be considered quite important that we didn't hear from include some of the former officials from the House of Commons. Audrey O'Brien was the former clerk, and many of us will remember her. She often provides very good advice. We did not hear from her, nor did we hear from the previous law clerk, Rob Walsh, or from another former clerk, Mr. Marleau, who has written a number of important books that we utilize in our day-to-day lives as parliamentarians. The advice there would have been good.

Then again, with regard to other jurisdictions, there were a number of other witnesses who were suggested. We did hear from a couple, but we didn't hear from any officials from the Australian Senate or the House of Representatives. We didn't hear from the New Zealand House of Representatives or from either the Senate or the House of Representatives in the United States. Obviously, those are often considered three of the close comparisons we make to our system. We also did not hear from Inter-Parliamentary Union officials.

There were also a few other witnesses that I would call “others”. One is Dale Smith, author of The Unbroken Machine: Canada's Democracy in Action. Another is Dr. Hannah White, deputy director of the Institute for Government. Then there's Dr. Kathy Brock, a professor at Queen's University.

Those are all people we didn't hear from who might have provided some very significant testimony. I wonder if we could get updates on all three of these items.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We will go to Madam Normandin, please.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I'd like to go further back. If we ever get to consider the report, I recommend that we proceed paragraph by paragraph, since a paragraph represents an idea. The interpreters will be lost if we refer to lines in the Hansard blues, for example.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Your point is noted, and I tend to agree with you. I think that's how we will proceed.

We're going to hear from the clerk as to some of these points.

[The Clerk]

Madam Chair, on Mr. Richards' first point with respect to some of the follow-up information that witnesses had committed to send to the committee, the answer is that some of the material has been sent in to us and has been distributed. We are, however, still waiting for some of the other material from various witnesses. I know that Mr. Moseley did get back to me and provided information, and that information is in the process of being translated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That was from Zoom, correct?

[The Clerk]

That's right; it's Harry Moseley from Zoom. That information may have been distributed this morning, since we received the translation.

As for some other witnesses from earlier on, like, for example, Madame Laliberté from the Translation Bureau, we are still waiting for information. We don't have any from her, so that is an outstanding item that we have not received. The same goes for information from Mr. Weigelt. I noted that yesterday evening, or it may have been early this morning, follow-up information from the Privy Council Office was sent around. It was received yesterday and then sent out yesterday evening or this morning.

Some of the more recent.... In fact, as this meeting has been going on, I noticed an email come in from Mr. Hamlyn. I am assuming it is some follow-up information that Mr. Hamlyn, from the U.K. Parliament, is providing to us. Before that gets distributed to the committee, it will of course need to be translated.

As for commitments from our most recent meeting on May 4, I have not received any follow-up information yet from Madame Gagnon or Mr. Phillips. My understanding, from what they indicated in the meeting, was that in some instances they would need to consult with the Translation Bureau to put adequate follow-up information together.

The long and short of it, in terms of the information we're expecting back, is we've gotten some of the material back. We don't have all of it back, but as I am receiving it and able to get it translated, I'm distributing it to members of the committee. Mr. Richards is right, though, that there is still some outstanding material left to be provided to me by the witnesses we've seen.

On Mr. Richards' second point, the briefing note, I can confirm that a briefing note is being worked on and should be distributed shortly. It is a comparison of the provincial and territorial measures that have been taken in relation to how the provinces and territories are proceeding with sittings given the coronavirus.

As for witnesses, Mr. Richards indicated that some of them didn't appear. This is mostly due to the limited number of meetings the committee was able to have with witnesses and the need to balance out panels from among the various suggestions that came from members.

There are also other reasons some of the witnesses weren't called. For example, the panels we had on Internet security filled up with witnesses before we got around to calling or inviting other witnesses, and when that occurred, we didn't invite them because we had already filled the panels. Some of the witnesses mentioned—I noted Audrey O'Brien, Robert Marleau and Mr. Walsh—declined the invitation. The U.S. House and Senate were also approached but they declined.

With respect to the issue of the New Zealand Parliament and the Australian House of Representatives, we did not approach them, mostly because of the time zone difference. For them to appear, they would have had to do so early in the morning, at one or two in the morning, their time. For that reason we didn't approach them.

I hope that responds to some of the concerns.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Sure.

Madam Chair, could I get some further clarification on a couple of things, briefly?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I'm sorry about that. This is just for some further clarification on a couple of those items, briefly.

I appreciate the clarification that you've given, and I appreciate the difficult nature of the short timelines. I want to point out that our clerk, our analysts and all the folks who support us here are doing a great job trying to keep up with everything that's happening. I want to make sure that I make it clear that nothing here calls that into question in any way. Obviously there are things we do and, in some cases, need for a proper report.

Let me address the first point I made about the undertakings that we are awaiting. It sounds like most of them are addressed other than, obviously, the last meeting, and we're still awaiting some of those.

There were a couple I noted, and maybe I missed it, but I don't think our clerk addressed them. The first one was Mr. Robert, the Clerk of the House of Commons, from the April 21 meeting, and then the one from Mr. McGill of the Scottish Parliament. I didn't hear anything, and I guess we haven't received anything from either of them.

Then on the stuff from May 4, could you just give me an indication if we've done any follow-up with the individuals who haven't sent anything, and maybe when we might expect to receive those and the ones from the May 4 meeting? Obviously, it'll be important information for us in writing the report.

On the witnesses, I appreciate that clarification as well. What about the Communications Security Establishment, CSE? What happened with them specifically? I think there were a number of issues that arose around security that would have made them a really good further witness, so I just want to get some indication on that one in particular.

[The Clerk]

Madam Chair, with regard to some of the witnesses and the follow-up information they committed to provide to us, generally, if we've received a response, it's sent out, and with the amount of time that it takes to have it translated, sometimes that might be a day or two. I can follow up and check if we've received something from the Clerk of the House. I do know that there was one bit of follow-up information that did come from Michel Patrice, the deputy clerk of administration from the House. It's entirely possible that the House viewed that as essentially the follow-up information it was committed to providing back, but I can follow up and determine if, in fact, that was the case.

On the follow-up information that Mr. McGill from the Scottish parliament committed to providing, I have not seen anything like that as of yet, but I can definitely follow up with them as well to see if that will be forthcoming.

Lastly, you mentioned some of the follow-up information from the May 4 meeting. I have had some discussion with those various witnesses and, as I indicated and they indicated in the meeting three days ago, some of the material that they needed to provide back to the committee would be information they would need from the Translation Bureau, and so they were committed to approaching them to secure the information they needed in order for them to pass on the follow-up information back to the committee. I can also check with them to see where they are with that and just how quickly the committee can expect to get information back.

I have indicated to many of them that the committee is currently looking at the draft report at this meeting and anticipating looking at it in the next meeting too, meaning next Tuesday, and that for this follow-up information to be of any benefit to the members, ideally they would send that information to us during the time the committee is considering the draft report, which would mean today and Tuesday.

With respect to your specific question on CSE, unfortunately, that would fall into the same category I indicated earlier. The limited nature of meetings that we were able to have on Internet safety filled up with various witnesses. Once those panels were filled up, we didn't necessarily go any further down the list in providing invitations, precisely because we had managed to secure enough witnesses from a variety on the party lists that had been provided to give us some full and balanced panels for those meetings.

Thank you.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thank you very much for all of that information and the diligence you're undertaking to provide all of that to us. I appreciate the clarifications.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

That was quite impressive. It was a long list, and it was all in order. I can only recall some of it off the top of my head. Thank you, Justin, for the fact that you had all of that readily handy.

Ms. Normandin has proposed that we go through the report section by section on a topical basis. I think that's a good suggestion because the translated version, of course, sometimes falls on different lines.

Yes, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thank you.

I don't have a problem with going through things point by point or paragraph by paragraph, but I will point out that I separated this from the conversation I was having with the clerk, because I don't believe it's something that we could fault our clerk for by any means.

However, I do think that CSE, given some of the things that were raised about security—I know I did and I know others did.... There was advice that seems to have been provided by CSE—at least from what's reported in the media—that doesn't really seem to have been followed by the government. I think it really would have been important to have heard from CSE, and I don't know how we now address that.

One of the things that I will point out is that we are rushing through this. I get that we've been directed to do this by the House, but we may need to consider the idea that any report we're providing now would simply be an interim report just to deal with the immediate situation and that anything that's being done to address recommendations toward a future crisis like this.... My assumption of what we're doing here, and maybe others have a different understanding, is that not only are we looking at the period of time that we're dealing with now, but also that we seem to be straying into an area that may be a bit outside of the ambit of the motion we were given as to what happens in future situations like this one.

If that is a decision the committee makes—and I'm not suggesting that we should necessarily do that—we probably need to have a bit more of a full study here that includes things like that. If the committee makes that decision, we would maybe want to consider this as being an interim report to deal with the immediate situation, and then anything that would be going forward from there would certainly require more study.

That may not be within the motion, and maybe the committee doesn't want to go there and that's a decision we'll all have to make, but I just point out that some of these things are lacking. I get the constraints that we've been given by the House, but if we're doing anything beyond looking at the immediate situation, we'd be doing a disservice if we didn't consider some of those things.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you for your points, Mr. Richards.

At this point I would suggest that we start going through our draft report and, of course, if the committee finds that the members want to title the report a certain way, it's up to the committee. If the members decide they want to study this issue beyond this report's deadline, the committee may decide to do that as well. If the committee members decide to even put that into one of the recommendations or highlight in certain sections that certain information was lacking or missing, the committee can also do that.

If there isn't consensus on some of those things, of course we do have our supplementary and dissenting opinions where we can also stipulate that. In addition, since this meeting is public, some of those issues were also noted and will be recognized in the blues and, of course, on ParlVu where everyone can see that.

We were on a rushed time frame. We did the best we could in being able to invite a variety of people. I have to attest to the fact of what Justin said when we were going through the witnesses and certain panels for certain days. I could see that they had done a really good job at putting together witnesses who came from a variety of different parties, perhaps not on every panel, but in any given meeting, we made sure we had witnesses whom the Conservatives had suggested and witnesses in that topical area whom the Liberals, the Bloc or the New Democrats had suggested, so we had somebody that each party had suggested on each topic. That is the best we could do in this time frame, but, of course, we're free to include in the report those comments and suggestions to study further.

In terms of going through the report, we will start with page 1 and the introduction.

Are there any issues that anyone would like to raise with the introduction?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Madam Chair, I will ask—and not to try to delay things in any way—that you give us a little time because, in some cases, certainly with some parts, and the introduction being one of those for me.... I'm not asking to read the whole page while we all sit here, but just give us a bit of time before moving ahead so that we can have a quick look at the page, at least in the instances where we haven't had a chance to view it. Obviously, with the rushed nature of things, in some cases that will be the case. I just ask that you move a bit slowly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Absolutely.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Not excessively slowly, but move a bit slowly, if you wouldn't mind.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We can take some time on each paragraph. I'll slowly ask if there are any issues or any suggestions on any of the paragraphs as we go through it.

I'll give you some time to quickly skim it at least.

Okay? Maybe that was enough time to get through the introduction.

As we go through the other paragraphs, we do have a function at the bottom of the screen, called “Reactions”. Maybe everyone can just put a thumbs-up when they've gotten through the paragraph and are okay with it. If they're not okay with it, they can raise their hand in the participants section to provide feedback.

This is for the introduction. Is everyone okay with the introduction, just the introduction?

Perhaps everyone could also put their cameras on at this time. If your camera is on, I'll be able to see your thumbs-up reaction.

Thank you.