Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 13th, 2021

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I just want to clarify and to thank the clerk. His explanation is consistent with the meaning of my subamendment.

To Monsieur Therrien, I thank him for his interventions on this. I do take both official languages very seriously, so I do want to make sure that when we do have these translations—and we did have this translated by the translation bureau—they are consistent. I was the vice-chair of the official languages committee in the previous Parliament for nearly two years, so I do have a special understanding and appreciation for our two official languages. I did just want to clarify that.

If there were any translation errors—and we all make mistakes—I would fully take the blame for that.

I appreciate the clerk's explanation, and that is consistent with the subamendment I moved.

I will leave it there. I don't think there's anything more to say, but I appreciate the interventions on that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Mr. Lukiwski, please go ahead.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I will be very brief. I just want everyone to know what the consequences will be as a result of a vote on Mr. Nater's subamendment, should we get to a vote today.

If the vote is defeated, the reality is that the Prime Minister will never appear before our committee. I'm reading the political tea leaves a little bit here in anticipating that Mr. Blaikie will be voting against Mr. Nater's subamendment, but that would have the effect, as I've just said, that the Prime Minister will never appear. He may be asked to appear, but he will not be compelled to appear. Only Mr. Nater's motion would have a possibility of compelling the Prime Minister to appear. Everyone should be very aware of that: a vote against Mr. Nater's subamendment means we will never see the Prime Minister at this committee to answer any questions about prorogation and his reasons for bringing forward prorogation when he did. That, in my view, would be extremely unfortunate. I'm choosing my words carefully. I would have other words to choose rather than “unfortunate” but, being observant of parliamentary decorum, I will leave it at that.

Colleagues, make no mistake. What the Liberals have been doing for the last three months during their filibuster is to prevent the Prime Minister from appearing at this committee. If this committee votes against Mr. Nater's subamendment, and in favour of Mr. Blaikie's subamendment, which we've already voted on and passed, the reality is the Prime Minister will never appear. We will never hear from him, and that is more than just unfortunate. Frankly, I think it's shameful.

That's the reality, colleagues. I'll cede my time to the next speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski.

Mr. Kent, please go ahead.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

As we move toward the inevitable, in this very long and unnecessarily prolonged discussion, I'd like to reflect on what's been going on for the past three months plus.

We have dealt with one another in this committee very respectfully and collegially, with a certain amount of humour, but at the same time have recognized that the Liberal minority on this committee has been acting to protect the Prime Minister, preventing the will of the majority of the members on this committee.

Basically, it fulfilled an objective that was described very eloquently in the Globe and Mail, regarding the behaviour of Liberal minority membership on committees right across the House. It was essentially to prevent accountability on any number of crucially important matters that should be considered, examined, and be open to consideration in every standing committee, and special committee for that matter, of the House of Commons.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Mr. Kent, could you adjust your boom mike up a bit? There's that popping noise again.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you. I apologize.

I must say that Mr. Blaikie was passionate throughout the three-month filibuster until today, until this week, until the end of proceedings last week, when there was a sudden apparent backroom liaison between the NDP and the Liberals, and Mr. Lauzon suddenly came up with a confected, on-the-fly motion, which is still under consideration here today. I think Mr. Blaikie laid out very well, from his point of view, as Mr. Therrien, Ms. Vecchio, Mr. Nater and Mr. Lukiwski did, the opposition's desire to call the only individual who can fully explain the decision to prorogue Parliament last August.

I regret the fact that by running out the clock, unfortunately successfully with this filibuster, the committee has been placed in a position where backs are against the wall and where priorities are bringing us to the point where the united opposition has been effectively defeated by the Liberal filibuster's running out the clock.

I agree with Mr. Blaikie that whatever motion might have been passed by this committee calling on the Prime Minister, inviting the Prime Minister to speak for three hours, for one hour or to just show up, that was highly unlikely. I think that it is the responsibility of committees, as we often hear from the Liberal House leader, to stand with a mind of its own, accountable to the constituents who elected each of us individually and to the appointments by our respective parties to deliver accountable, responsible performances in the activities of the various committees.

In this committee, the mother of committees, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, it is exceptionally disappointing. This is one of the most disappointing moments I've had in 13 years in elected office in the House of Commons, where the will of the majority members has been defied by a minority for the most venal of reasons.

I'll leave it there. I know that we won't get to a vote today. The time for a complete and thoughtful report of this committee, I think, has already run out. I suspect that Mr. Blaikie, in making a report essential to his position to vote with the Liberals, has more to do with the supplementary or dissenting report that he, the Conservatives and the Bloc will be enabled to attach to the report, which has been, I'm sure, competently assembled by our analysts.

I think that is a false victory. It's an imperfect victory, and I think we should all hang our heads in shame at the way this committee has been dysfunctional over the last three-plus months.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I'm surprised that you think you might have to write a dissenting report. I feel you'll have a lot of support on many of those recommendations that you might wish to move, but I guess only if we get to that point will we know that. I don't know. I'd be surprised. I think the Conservatives would be happy that they'll probably get a lot of recommendations they want to see in the report.

Ms. Vecchio, you're next.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you very much.

Carrying on with Peter's words, I do fully respect the fact that we have seen in the past.... I'm looking at some of the types. Minister Qualtrough has come to committee and has been put in as one of these things to come to committee. We've also seen these in other committees—with the China-Canada committee—where they're asking for people to come. There are lots of things we should be doing here.

I really do respect where John has gone on this. I think at the end of the day, there's only one person who needs to speak on this report. It's very unfortunate that his voice will not actually be in this report because he chooses not to come.

Perhaps I can ask the clerk.

Has an invitation actually been sent to the Prime Minister, and has there ever been a response? If you can [Technical difficulty—Editor] the time frame on that, since this all started, has anything ever been sent to him? Has there ever been a response? What can we look at there?

[The Clerk]

Madam Chair, I can answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Go ahead. It's the same answer, though. It was sent at the very beginning when the request was made and—

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Could I actually get dates and know when he was asked and when he actually replied? What follow-up was done? I would really like to know that. For months I listened to how Chrystia Freeland had come, yet no one rapped on her door to say, “Chrystia, can you please come to our committee?”

I want to know what's actually happening. I want to know the facts and how much true intention was given to having any of the Liberal ministers actually come.

[The Clerk]

Madam Chair, I can answer Ms. Vecchio.

The original invitations to the Prime Minister and the other witnesses the committee had identified and wanted to hear from go back to a steering committee report. I don't have the precise dates off the top of my head, but back in February, the steering committee recommended a whole series of witnesses be invited. They included the Prime Minister, Minister Chagger, Minister Freeland, the Kielburger brothers, Mr. and Mrs. Perelmuter, and Bill Morneau. The recommendations for those witnesses had been ratified by the main committee also back in February. Invitations were sent out to all of those people.

When it comes to ministers of the Crown, such as Minister Chagger, Minister Freeland and the Prime Minister, we go through departmental contacts, parliamentary relations people who work with the minister's office, or in the case of the Prime Minister, with the Prime Minister's Office through PCO, to coordinate a response. Now, in the case of the Prime Minister, Minister Chagger and Minister Freeland, the invitations were made. As of today, I still do not have formal responses to those invitations. I did remind them, even as your motion was moved back at the end of February, that despite the fact that you had a new motion you were proposing to reinvite these people, the original invitations were still live, and that they can get back to me at any point with a formal response indicating yes or no.

Periodically, through the intervening three-plus months, I have checked in with each of those departments and the Privy Council Office to see where they were in responding to the invitations, but as I indicated, I have not received a formal response to any of the three invitations.

Some of the witnesses the committee had called for who weren't cabinet ministers or ministers of the Crown did get back to me definitively. Mr. Morneau got back to me definitively and declined. Mr. and Mrs. Perelmuter also got back to me definitively and declined, as I indicated to the committee some time ago. As for Marc and Craig Kielburger, I went back and forth with their representative as to a date, but they never settled on one. We never heard back in a formalized way regarding those two witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We could always add that to the report. If we move on to the report, we could give the analysts.... It's up to you guys. It can always be added to the report, if you want that.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I was just checking to see. Honestly, we filibustered for three and a half months on inviting people who had already been invited.

The thing is, as we're looking at the motion that John put forward today, once again, I know that the Prime Minister will not be coming. Therefore, it is imperative that the House of Commons, where the majority are not in government and where the majority would like to actually hear from the Prime Minister.... Regardless of how things end up in this committee and regardless of this vote, I know that every opposition member wants to hear from the Prime Minister. This is what we're trying to do today, to force the Prime Minister to come and to be accountable.

I will end by saying that accountability is what should be leading this country, and it's not.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

Mr. Clerk, can you help us with the vote on Mr. Nater's subamendment?

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

It's 12:59. Will we have time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, I think so.

(Subamendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Would it be possible to move to Mr. Lauzon's amendment right now?

There are a few hands up.

Mr. Nater.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Chair, not to prolong this, but I do have a second subamendment. This is very simple. This will require that the committee table this report, and table it before we move forward with any other business of this committee.

I have seen, we have seen and Mr. Kent mentioned his reading of the Globe and Mail about what is happening with us and with other committees' business making it through to the House of Commons.

This would be a fairly simple subamendment. I will read it out. I do have it in both official languages. I will email it directly to the clerk once I've finished having the floor. I will read it out at this point:

That the amendment be amended by replacing all the words after the words “disposed of” with the following: “before the Committee begins consideration of Bill C-19”.

Again, very simply, if we're going to go directly to drafting this report and tabling it in the House of Commons, we need to do this before we move on to the next business of this committee. I do not want to see the past number of months wasted by having a filibuster on a committee report when we do the line-by-line review. We've seen that happen in other committees where there's a draft report left uncompleted for very important and very serious matters that are before those committees.

That's my subamendment.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Excellent.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Karen.

I will cede the floor at this point. Just give me the 30 seconds or so for me to click “send” for both the English and French versions of that subamendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Your subamendment basically just says that....

Mr. Blaikie's subamendment which already passed already requires there to be a tabling of the report on June 11. You're just saying that's fine, that the tabling will happen on June 11, but we can't start anything before that time.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

That's correct, Madam Chair. The purpose of this subamendment is that the business of the committee will proceed with this committee report prior to taking up any other business, namely, Bill C-19.

I will cede the floor and send out that email immediately so that everyone has it, and we will go from there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Chair, I wanted to take the floor just to express some real disappointment with the way that today's meeting has gone, because I had really hoped that we would get to the point where we could get on with issuing a report. The timeline was tight as it is. My Conservative colleagues know that. They've spent a lot of time talking today, after spending months saying they were tired of hearing talking and that we should vote on issues before the committee so that decisions can be rendered, and they've found ways to extend this debate without us getting to actually making these decisions.

I appreciate the tightness of the timeline. I know that. I'm not happy about it. I get that Liberal members of the committee got us here by filibustering for some time and I appreciate the frustration. The question is whether at some point you want to decide to get anything done or not.

After listening for months to one party that has a Prime Minister about whom there are allegations of political abuse of prorogation, we finally get to the point where there might be a decision taken on how to proceed as a committee. Let the committee speak. That's what we've been hearing from Conservatives, rightly, for months now, and now I'm watching the other party that has had prime ministers who have been accused of political abuses of prorogation take up the filibuster where the Liberals left off, because we have two parties that aren't interested in building in meaningful accountability on how the Prime Minister uses the powers of prorogation and dissolution. That's what's going on.

I'm sorry. I forgot Monsieur Therrien. It's just hard to know where the Bloc is at on any given day.

Before Bill C-19 was sent to the committee, the NDP reached out to other parties to say that we wanted to—