Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 7th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

(Subamendment withdrawn)

Madame Fortier, do you want the floor? It is yours.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Yes, please.

Thank you.

I will read out the amended motion. While I am reading it, my team is drafting the amendment that I will be sending the clerk.

The amended motion would be as follows:

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3), the committee conduct a review of the Members of the House of Commons Workplace Harassment and Violence Prevention Policy, study occurrences and impacts of harassment within the House of Commons, Parliament Hill, Constituency Offices, and via the use of Members' social media, and make any relevant changes to ensure Members of Parliament, personnel and members of the public who participate in the day-to-day activities of the institution are protected from violence and harassment; that the committee invite: a) the Chief Human Resources Officer; b) the current and past speakers of the House of Commons; c) the Clerk of the house; d) the head clerk of committees; e) the Sergeant-At-Arms; f) the Interpretation Directorate; g) anti-harassment specialists and workplace mental health and safety experts; h) and any other witnesses as needed; that at least three meetings prior to Friday, June 21, 2024 be devoted to witness testimony and that witness lists be submitted to the clerk within seven days upon the adoption of this motion; and that the committee report its findings to the House.

Mr. Chair, I believe the amended motion has been distributed to members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mrs. Romanado.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Just to reiterate, during our suspension, we had agreements among the parties, so I just want to make sure that these are reflective of the conversations that we had.

That is what we discussed earlier.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mrs. Romanado.

I am looking around the room. I'm seeing nods, so there is implied consent here. With that, would we like to call a vote on this motion, colleagues, or would we simply like to apply unanimous consent?

I'm asking for unanimous consent.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

(Amendment agreed to)

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Congratulations, colleagues. That was a very productive use of time this morning.

Mr. Cooper, I believe you want the floor.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will now move the motion that I put on notice arising from the prima facie question of privilege that has been referred to this committee by the Speaker, by the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

Go ahead, Monsieur Lauzon.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Based on our discussions, we will indeed be proposing an amendment to Mr. Cooper's motion. I have in fact already sent it to the clerk, and each member should have a copy in both official languages. There is however one thing that has to be changed: in the second last paragraph, “September 9” should be changed to “August 9”. That correction should be made before the amendment is distributed to the members. We discussed it during the negotiations, and everyone agreed.

Mr. Cooper's motion is long, but I will nevertheless take the time to read out the amended version so that we understand the changes properly:

That, in relation to its Order of Reference of Thurday, May 9, 2024, regarding the prima facie contempt concerning the People's Republic of China's cyber attack against members of Parliament, the committee: a) make use, for the purposes of this study: (i) the evidence received during its study on foreign election interference; (ii) the evidence received during its study of the prima facie contempt concerning the intimidation campaign orchestrated by Wei Zhao against the Member of Wellington-Halton Hills and other Members; and (iii) the evidence received by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics during its study on foreign interference, provided that it shall not limit the witnesses who may appear before the committee or the questions which may be asked of them; b) deem the public evidence, including testimony and documents publicly available on the website of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions and pertaining to cyberattacks to have been received by this committee and may be used in its reports, provided that it shall not limit the witnesses who may appear before the committee or the questions which may be asked of them or the documents which may be requested or ordered to be produced by the committee; c) invite the following witnesses to appear: (i) the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs; (ii) the Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence and former Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness; (iii) the Honourable Harjit Sajjan, former Minister of National Defence; (iv) the Honourable Anita Anand, former Minister of National Defence;

We have removed the Honourable Marco Mendicino's name since he is a former Minister of Public Safety. Continuing now:

(v) panels of impacted Canadian members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China who wish to appear, provided that no more than three members shall appear on each panel, for one hour per panel; (vi) Eric Janse, the Clerk of the House of Commons, by himself, for one hour, to discuss parliamentary privilege considerations; (vii) Michel Bédard, the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons, by himself, for one hour, to discuss parliamentary privilege and the production of documents; (viii) officials of the House of Commons Administration, by themselves, for two hours, to discuss information technology and cybersecurity considerations, provided that one hour shall be in camera; (ix) the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons; (x) officials of the Communications Security Establishment, by themselves, for two hours, provided that one hour shall be in camera; (xi) officials of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, by themselves, for two hours, provided that one hour shall be in camera; (xii) Nathalie Drouin, Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council and National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister; (xiii) Vincent Rigby, former National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister, alone, for one hour;

(xiv) David Morrison, former Acting National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister; (xv) Jody Thomas, former National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister; (xvi) officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, alone, for two hours, provided that one hour shall be in camera; (xvii) officials of the Secretariat of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, by themselves, for one hour; (xviii) academics, information technology and cybersecurity experts, and other witnesses requested by the committee, provided that the parties shall file their preliminary lists of witnesses within 10 days of the adoption of this motion; d) order the production of all Canadian memoranda, briefing notes, e‑mails, records of conversations, and any other relevant documents, including any drafts, which are in the possession of any government department or agency between January 2021 and December 2022, including the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, the Critical Election Incident Protocol Panel, relevant minister's office, or the House of Commons Administration, containing information concerning cyberattacks and efforts to conduct cyberattacks against Members of the House of Commons by Advanced Persistent Threat 31 (APT 31) and related entities, provided that:

Here we have removed the list of documents but added the following:

(i) the departments and agencies tasked with gathering these documents apply redactions according to the Access to Information and Privacy Act; (ii) these redacted documents be deposited as soon as possible, but not later than Friday, August 9, 2024, with the clerk of the committee to be distributed to all members of the committee in both official languages; (e) report its findings to the House not later than Friday, December 13, 2024 and that pursuant to Standing Order 109, the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

That is the proposed amendment to Mr. Cooper's motion, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Lauzon.

Were there any other members who wanted to speak?

Please go ahead, Mr. Berthold.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, if I understand correctly, the six meetings that will be held before the end of June will be devoted to this study. Is that correct?

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

That's right.

We have nine meetings left, not counting today. Three of them will be devoted to our study on harassment and six will be devoted to this study. That is what we have agreed today, Mr. Chair.

As we know, the committee will be considering two private members' bills, as well as a question of privilege. So the committee has a lot of work to do, but we have agreed to focus on the two studies that I mentioned for the next nine meetings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Go ahead, Ms. Dabrusin.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I believe there was a copy that was circulated. Perhaps the clerk can clarify by reading out loud the wording that was circulated, just to make sure we have the right wording in front of us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mrs. Romanado.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I believe all members and substitutes have received the document with the amendments. Because some people hadn't received it when it was being read out, I want to clarify that what is in the document is the proposal. For the sake of expediency, rather than having the clerk reread the amendments, could we all agree that the document that was circulated by the clerk is the version we are voting on?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Colleagues, just to summarize, there may have been a different version being worked on as Monsieur Lauzon was reading. Whether there was or not can simply be rectified by the committee agreeing that the motion that everybody has in their hands, which was circulated by the clerk, is the one we are going to be asking the committee to adopt.

I'm looking around the room. Okay. With that, we are going to move to a vote on this motion.

Do we want to have a recorded vote, or would the committee like to adopt it by unanimous consent? I'm seeing yes on all sides.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Colleagues, I want to congratulate everybody on a collaborative and efficient use of our meeting time today. I'm very pleased that we have gotten to a point where we have some substance to dive into.

There are a few things to discuss following the meeting in terms of when we're going to get together to talk about the path forward vis-à-vis the two motions we just adopted as a committee. However, with that, I'm going to move to adjourn. There's plenty of time for everybody to get to the vote, and we will see you again on Thursday.

The meeting is adjourned.