Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2024

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

In that case, I will let him continue. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This motion will see to it that there is the transparency that Canadians deserve by ensuring that documents and other communications involving the NDP; Minister LeBlanc and his staff; the Prime Minister's Office; the Prime Minister's department, the PCO; and Elections Canada are produced. Then we can understand how the clause that moves the date of the next election back was incorporated, can get an understanding of exactly what these unusual discussions between the NDP and the Liberals were and can hear from Daniel Blaikie, the co-author of the bill.

We heard from one of the two co-authors, Minister LeBlanc. I think it's important that this committee hear from the other co-author of the bill. Mr. Blaikie is certainly someone who has a great understanding of the Canada Elections Act, in my experience. I think he served on this committee for some time, so it would be good to hear from him so he can give his insights on this bill, address some of the issues we see with it and, most importantly, explain how and why he was working hand in hand with the Liberals to push the date of the next election back.

It's important to ask who first decided to incorporate this clause into the bill. Was it the NDP or was it the Liberals? We know that they're both desperate. We know that the Prime Minister and Jagmeet Singh are very unpopular. We know that Canadians are excited about defeating both the NDP and the Liberals in the next election. They know that so many of their MPs aren't coming back and won't qualify for their pensions, so it would be very interesting to know who raised the pension issue. That's part of what this motion seeks to get to.

When we had the Chief Electoral Officer appear before committee, he was asked whether the issue of Diwali—the fact that the current fixed date conflicts with Diwali—was brought up, and he said it was not brought up. If the government's pretext for changing the date was Diwali and this is the true basis on which they have decided to push the date of the next election back, it is rather surprising that it would not have come up with the Chief Electoral Officer. Then again, it's not surprising, because we know that the real reason for changing the date of the next election and pushing it back, is to secure pensions for soon-to-be-defeated Liberal and NDP MPs and to pad their pockets, which is going to cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

With respect to this motion, it's important that we get all of the documents, but the motion specifies not only that we get all the documents but that we get all of the documents on an unredacted basis. This government has a history, and not a very good history, of responding to motions passed by parliamentary committees, including this committee, and by the House of Commons itself by saying, “Here are the documents”, but they're all full of black ink. They're blacked out and full of redactions. I can only presume, based on the track record of this government, that anything less than demanding that documents be turned over on an unredacted basis would result in documents being blacked out. I have to say, I'm not optimistic that if this motion were adopted we would see all of the documents, but we need to see all of the documents.

This committee passed a motion for the government to turn over documents relating to the APT31 hacking incident. It was passed in June. The order of this committee was for the government to turn over all relevant documents by August 9. It's now December 3, and we still don't have all of the documents. In fact, the understanding I have is that a sizable number of documents still haven't been provided to this committee. That speaks to a level of contempt, or certainly a lack of respect, on the part of this government for parliamentary committees and orders of parliamentary committees. That is in respect of a matter that should concern all members of Parliament. Members were targeted by a Beijing-based regime.

While I'm not optimistic that if this motion passes the government will turn over all communications, I would say that if the Prime Minister were true to his word, sunshine is the best disinfectant. If there truly is one big misunderstanding, as Jagmeet Singh and the NDP would have Canadians believe, about the fact that this bill pushes the date of the next election back very coincidentally to a date that secures the pensions of his soon-to-be defeated NDP MPs and many soon-to-be defeated Liberal MPs, then the NDP and the Liberals would support this motion. They would support transparency, they would support the release of the documents and they would support us hearing from Daniel Blaikie.

With that, I welcome any other comments, but I hope we can get this to a vote so that Canadians can get the transparency they deserve and we can get to the bottom of what happened. Was it the NDP or the Liberals who asked for the pension clause to be added to this bill?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Turnbull, you're next in our speaking order.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

That's wonderful. I was beginning to give up hope that I would get a chance to take the floor today, and I'm glad I get the chance.

I'm glad Mr. Cooper has finished his filibuster and is finished, hopefully, delaying getting to clause-by-clause, which was scheduled today for our committee.

Our time is precious. It hasn't felt that way for the last almost two hours, but I feel like my time is precious. I don't know about Mr. Cooper, but I see him smiling over there. I'm sure he doesn't mind wasting the committee's time with long, arduous filibusters that we all have to listen to while witnesses are sitting here painfully waiting to get on to the clause-by-clause analysis.

As I said in one of my points of order, which was probably not exactly in the Standing Orders, but at least I got to make a small interjection to give Mr. Cooper a chance to sip his coffee.... The Conservatives say they want an election. They want an election right now. They want an election tomorrow. They want an election yesterday. What's interesting is that Bill C-65 deals with a whole bunch of things that Conservatives, even though they want an election, don't want to deal with. They don't want to deal with the fact that the very thing they keep pointing to is in an amendment the NDP put forward to remove the fixed election date and revert it back to the way it was before.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Turnbull, I have a point of order from Mr. Calkins.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Oh, that's wonderful. I hope he cites the standing order.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Chair, could you advise the committee as to the status of amendments and their confidentiality prior to their being moved at committee? Mr. Turnbull just addressed an amendment that has not yet been moved and I wonder if he is in violation of our Standing Orders.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Give me one moment, please.

I'm not sure, Mr. Turnbull. I didn't catch if you were referring to your own amendment or if you were referring to another one, so this is a reminder to colleagues about the rule cited by Mr. Calkins a moment ago. We have to be very careful about the way we reference amendments that have been presented but not moved.

Thank you, Mr. Calkins, for raising this.

Mr. Turnbull, the floor remains yours.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I know that other members in this committee have spoken about amending the very thing the Conservatives have claimed to be so concerned about, which was the subject of at least some of Mr. Cooper's filibuster today.

Let's just be honest. The point is moot because they won't get to the substance of the bill. Why? It's because they would rather keep their false narrative alive than get down to the substantial considerations of a major piece of legislation.

This legislation deals with the very issue that they've talked about and deals with a whole bunch of other issues that historically Conservatives don't want to deal with, such as voter disenfranchisement and participation—

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I'm sorry to cut you off, but I have a point of order.

Mr. Berthold, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As Mr. Turnbull himself mentioned in one of his interventions earlier in the meeting, imputing motives or comments to a colleague is not permitted. However, he has just done so by saying that we are perpetuating a misleading narrative. That's not true. What we're submitting here is our thinking on how we should act with respect to Bill C‑65. I would therefore ask him to choose his words carefully.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Berthold.

I don't know that I completely agree, but I'm going to be flexible with the opposition members. I will continue to listen carefully to what is being said.

Mr. Turnbull, you may take the floor again.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

That's duly noted, Chair. I wasn't even close to the line though in expressing myself with my parliamentary privilege, which I have every right to do. We've just listened to Mr. Cooper make all kinds of false claims for the last two hours in his diatribe, in his false narrative, claiming all kinds of things about colleagues of mine, all kinds of things about the Prime Minister and all kinds of things about our party that are all false.

They're all false statements, Mr. Berthold. I sat here and listened to them, so you can listen to me now, just as I did respectfully to you and your colleagues.

Let's just be honest. The Conservatives don't seem to want to deal with helping our seniors. That's what the substance of this bill does. It helps seniors at long-term care facilities access their right to vote in the federal election and makes campus voting for students a reality, ensuring that those things become permanent. There are all kinds of other aspects to this bill that increase voter participation, something that historically Conservatives don't like to support. As we've seen, they seem to always vote against or try to cut down things that increase voter participation. They'd prefer to have people disenfranchised so that their likelihood of success is improved somehow.

Let's also be honest about the news breaking yesterday on foreign interference in the Conservative Party leadership race. I'm sure that's why the Conservatives don't want to deal with the substantive issues in this bill that deal with foreign interference. There are numerous aspects of this bill for that, including a ban on disinformation intended to disrupt the conduct of elections and removing the time frame limit for offences involving impersonation and false statements. Boy, that would open the Conservatives up to a number of different infractions.

The bill ensures that malicious actions using artificial intelligence are captured. It also safeguards against untraceable and difficult-to-trace foreign donations, prohibits aiding or abetting a violation, and other things. There are a number of other ways in which this bill deals substantively with foreign interference.

Putting safeguards in place should be of interest to all of us, but of course the Conservatives would rather do something else, which is go on a fishing expedition. They don't want to deal with the substantive issues that this bill includes. I wonder whether a ban on disinformation is really what they're concerned about, because that seems to be what their entire narrative is based around. Everything that seems to come out of the Conservative Party these days is based on disinformation.

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Turnbull, I have a point of order from Mr. Duncan.

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

It's on the decorum of the committee. I'm not offended; I don't spread misinformation. It's his colleague Mr. Gerretsen, a member of this committee, who has had to pay a $1,000 fine and admit to and apologize for spreading misinformation. Mr. Turnbull shouldn't—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Duncan, that's not a point of order.

The good news is we're out of time, colleagues.

The meeting is adjourned.