Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 7th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Yes—

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I've given a great answer, and I'm happy to leave it at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

There is a bit of noise, Minister, but I was about to cut you off anyway.

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

Okay, colleagues, we've just about made it through. Madam Fortier will have the floor for five minutes, and then we will have completed our first round here.

Ms. Fortier, you have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for being here with us today.

Congratulations on your new role as vice-chair of the Cabinet Committee on Canada‑U.S. Relations. I know these committees are very important. I had the privilege of sitting on a few of them. It’s another way of making sure you have the opportunity to fulfill your mandate, which is exactly what we are discussing right now.

I would like you to talk about your role. You are responsible for certain large government agencies whose mission is to ensure everyone’s safety. Could you tell us about the impacts on public safety due to the cuts made by the former government to our public safety agencies? How did the investments we made to reinstate funds cut by the Conservatives ensure all Canadians’ safety?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Ms. Fortier, thank you for your question.

You are right. As the Minister of Public Safety, I have the privilege of seeing the very impressive work of men and women at, for example, the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency, the Correctional Service of Canada, the Parole Board of Canada or, obviously, the Canada Security Intelligence Service. I also have the privilege of seeing the work of officials at the Department of Public Safety, who try to coordinate some of those large agencies’ operations.

There’s always financial pressure on those agencies, who do their best with the budgets they have. Our government decided it was worthwhile to increase, for example, investment in the Canada Border Services Agency and the Canada Security Intelligence Service, who had not received an increase. The context of their work has changed. I see the important and essential work these agencies do, which is—as it must be—not necessarily visible for many Canadians. We therefore decided it was worthwhile to increase those budgets.

Ms. Fortier, you referred to the fact that the former government cut—I think—800 border services officer positions during the last two years of its mandate. I do not know if it cut 1,000 jobs with the intention of cutting 800 more, or if it was the opposite. Did it cut 800 or 1,000 positions with the intention of making more cuts after an election which, thank goodness, they lost? I don’t remember, but I was very surprised, especially because our colleagues here talked mistakenly about cuts we could have made at the Canada Border Services Agency, when it was their government that decided it was a good idea to cut the budget.

I recognize we can always do more with more money. I often tease my colleagues about it. My work consists of convincing the Minister of Finance, my colleagues and my boss to invest in the right places as much as possible, specifically to give agencies the tools they need. I trust the work being done, but I also accept the idea that we can always work on adding resources and staff. We do so based on changing threats, in a context of foreign interference, and in a context of concerns regarding border security.

We will really support this kind of process, specifically to build Canadians’ trust.

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

We were just talking about foreign interference. We also found that it happens in other countries, including our G7 allies.

I don’t have a lot of time left. In a few seconds, could you explain how Canada works with other countries, specifically the United States and the United Kingdom? What do we now know about the new system being implemented to deal with this situation?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Once again, Ms. Fortier, I think it is a very important issue. Canada is facing an increased threat of foreign interference. We talked about it publicly. However, the situation is just as visible and known among many of our allies. We have meetings with the Five Eyes.

It has a cooler title in English: Five Eyes, but there are actually 10 eyes. When we have a meeting with the different ministers, there are 10 eyes in the meeting.

These meetings, Ms. Fortier, often focus on threats or shared risks, and I must conclude that it’s a matter of transnational repression. We see it in the case of China and India, for example, and it also happens in the United Kingdom or United States. Unfortunately, it is a common problem. We often share very important intelligence. I had interesting conversations with ministers from Australia or New Zealand. Even though the context is not the same, the threat is often relatively common. It is a means for us to talk about our respective ways of protecting our fellow citizens; specifically, to do the work people expect of us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Ms. Fortier.

Colleagues, we are going to briefly suspend. Because we don't have any witnesses appearing virtually, it should be a relatively quick turnover.

There are a couple of witnesses who won't be with us in the second panel. I'd like to thank Deputy Minister Geddes and the director of CSIS, Mr. Rogers, for being here.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we will be suspended for about two minutes and we'll come back in to our second round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

All right, colleagues, we are going to get into our second round of questioning here.

Minister, you are afforded the opportunity to provide remarks for up to five minutes.

I'll turn the floor over to you to begin.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Chair, thank you, and I'll try to be brief. I won't introduce my colleagues, two of whom were here for the previous hour, but our colleague, Rachel Pereira, who is the director of the electoral and senatorial policy unit at Privy Council, has joined us.

Mr. Chair, this is to discuss with your committee Bill C-65, the electoral participation act.

As members know, in my mandate letter, I was tasked with reviewing the Chief Electoral Officer’s recommendations; strengthening safeguards against foreign interference and disinformation; and examining the link between technology and democracy in order to protect Canada’s elections and democratic institutions. Bill C‑65, which is before you, is the culmination of these three priorities. It proposes, among other things, two additional advance polling days, improvements to the special ballot voting process and making the popular vote on campus program permanent.

I am very proud, as the member for Beauséjour, to represent New Brunswick’s Mount Allison University in Sackville. During elections, I see students proudly voting at their campus polling stations. We want to make this opportunity permanent.

However, election day still remains the single most popular and traditional way for Canadians to vote. For that reason our government in Bill C-65 proposed to move the October 2025 fixed election date by one week forward to avoid a conflict with Diwali and certain municipal elections in provinces like Alberta.

That being said, I've certainly taken note of comments from colleagues and I'm happy to reiterate the comments I made at the second reading debate that the government will of course happily respect the will of this committee should there be a desire to amend the legislation and move the date forward even further, or move it back to October 20. I'm happy to see the work of this committee.

I trust that we can move forward on the many important amendments proposed in this bill that we think improve safeguards for our elections. Take, for example, the proposed improvements for long-term care residents and persons with disabilities, which seeks to give electors the ability to select an individual to assist them. This was recommended by the Chief Electoral Officer with the existing integrity measures in place. I think of persons in my riding who may have limited reading skills who may want a trusted person with them to help them ensure that in fact they're casting the vote for the person they intend to vote for.

The second priority of Bill C-65 is the protection of personal information. This legislation proposes new privacy policy requirements as a condition of registration for federal political parties, with the Canada Elections Act continuing to be a national, uniform and exclusive regime for federal political parties dealings with personal information.

Finally, and this is an important one that picks up on our previous discussion, Bill C-65 proposes a number of measures to continue to meet the evolving threats of foreign interference and disinformation. This would be done through measures that would, for example, extend the existing bans on foreign influence and misleading publications so that they apply at all times and not just during the election period, and add a new ban to protect against intentional disinformation about candidates and the facts of our electoral process, such as polling locations and the mechanics of the electoral process.

Protecting elections in Canada should never be a partisan issue. Bill C‑65 includes many important measures Canadians want to see implemented before the next election.

I hope that as parliamentarians, we can work together and improve the bill, as we should.

It may be up to your committee to assess the importance of passing this bill. It will ensure accessible and transparent Canadian elections that are able to withstand the threats weighing on our democracy.

I see you shaking your head, Mr. Chair. You probably want to tell me that you would like for me to wrap up the absolutely extraordinary remarks I just shared with you.

I would be pleased to answer my colleagues’ questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Duncan, the floor is yours for six minutes, please.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you to the minister for being here. I want to get into the details for Canadians to know exactly how this bill came together in full co-operation with the NDP.

I don't want to get too personal, Minister, but do you remember this year on Valentine's Day who you had dinner with?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I do. It was a very romantic moment. I live in New Brunswick. I was in Ottawa. I was away from my family and it was a February night and we went to a great place called Colonnade Pizza. It's at the corner of Metcalfe and Gilmour. It's great pizza. I would invite you to go. My date for that evening was a great guy. You maybe remember him. Daniel Blaikie was his name.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you.

Daniel Blaikie was the lead negotiator for the NDP on this bill and as a matter of fact he stood right behind you in March when you made the announcement. You had said on multiple occasions that this bill was part of the coalition to secure the continued support of the NDP. You even said at the press conference that you gave in response that the Prime Minister and Mr. Singh agreed to these important measures.

Whose idea was it? Was it a Liberal idea or an NDP idea to change the date of the election so that dozens of soon-to-be-defeated NDP and Liberal MPs would be guaranteed their pension?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Chair, allow me to correct some of the falsehoods in the premise of that question.

You referred to a “coalition”. I know your leader's office wants you to keep using that word. We don't have a coalition with the NDP. It's called a supply and confidence agreement. Mr. Blaikie wasn't the “lead negotiator”. I'm surprised you're using union terms, Mr. Duncan. It's great to see the Conservative Party embracing the labour movement. Mr. Blaikie was a partner with me as we developed this legislation—something our leaders agreed to transparently, through a supply and confidence agreement that was posted on the Internet. I know you look for secret meetings. The Valentine's Day dinner was so secret that we posted it on Twitter. Our leader—

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Minister, here's the thing: We got information just minutes before this meeting started, in fact, about secret meetings that took place. It was only after Conservatives asked. We found information that, on January 25, there were NDP headquarters representatives having a meeting with the Prime Minister's Office, staff from your office and Elections Canada, in order to get information and briefings behind the scenes. It was only revealed afterwards.

Do you think it's appropriate that, on two different occasions, NDP headquarters staff—not just MPs—got access to the Prime Minister's Office and Elections Canada in order to get briefings that were not offered to any other party? I don't think Canadians find that very funny. It was secret until we asked for details.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Again, you're a very experienced sleuth, Mr. Duncan. I congratulate you on that investigative work.

This is absolutely normal. Do I think it's appropriate? Absolutely. Do I think it's normal in a Westminster parliamentary system when there's a supply and confidence agreement? Of course it is. These were routine meetings among senior officials of the Privy Council Office. Mr. Sutherland was in some of these meetings. I was in meetings with Mr. Sutherland and the Chief Electoral Officer himself—with Mr. Blaikie present—so we could understand the advice of both the Privy Council officials and Elections Canada as we worked together to develop this legislation.

You find it shocking that parliamentarians work together in a collaborative way. We think it's something Canadians would find very positive.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

What Canadians would not find positive is that NDP headquarters staff were invited to and attended those meetings. What happened there was completely inappropriate. One political party was given access to information and documents, and crafted a bill.

I'll go back again.

The whole point the NDP absolutely wants to ignore and forget about is the changing of the election date.

Was it a Liberal idea or an NDP idea to move the election back by a week so it guarantees any defeated Liberal and NDP MP their pension? Whose idea was it, the Liberals or the NDP?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Again, you just got a very clever clip for some post you may do later.

However, I think it's important for people to understand that pension entitlement has nothing to do with the decision to move the date. I'm lucky enough. I was elected in 2000, so it certainly wasn't my idea to be concerned about pension entitlement for myself. We think Diwali is an important moment for a very significant community in Canada. There are municipal elections in Alberta on that date. We worked with Elections Canada on a number of different scenarios with different dates.

As I said, Mr. Duncan, in order to reassure you that the little premise of your question—which you fabricated—wasn't the case, we welcome this committee's judgment in moving the date. When you get to clause-by-clause, feel free to work with colleagues, if you're so outraged. If you want to explain why Diwali or the municipal elections in Alberta aren't important, go ahead.

Any time you move the date, you're going to bump into a problem somewhere.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Here's the thing, Minister. It's not about Diwali. What happened was that, when you moved it back a week, it then coincided with a territorial election and overlapped into Quebec. What you could have done was move the election earlier, if that were truly the reason. It's not. It's about securing pensions through the election happening a week later. People know that. Just last week, when we asked your own officials why they didn't call it earlier, including into the summer, we heard, “the sorts of considerations that were made.... You wouldn't want a break with summer holidays through Labour Day”. That was the reason your officials gave for it not getting moved earlier.

Minister, I'll ask you this: You don't want to have an election that coincides with Labour Day. When was the last time that happened?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I haven't taken note of every election. I remember one—

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Let me answer for you, Minister. It was the last election.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Duncan—

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

The Prime Minister called it when it was opportunistic for him, and now suddenly you've forgotten when the last election was called. That's interesting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Duncan, this is the second time today I have had members around this table not respond to my intervention. You guys are going to flip out in 45 minutes from now, or in 40 minutes or 30 minutes, when I try to end this meeting, because you'll say there wasn't enough time for the minister.

Respect the authority of the chair to try to operate the meeting in an effective and efficient manner.

Minister, there's no time left for a response. There's no time left for a question.

Mr. Turnbull, the floor is yours for six minutes.