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

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Good morning, everyone.

I hope you've had a good start to your week.

I'm calling to order meeting 136 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Today we are beginning our clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-65.

Just as a reminder to our witnesses, when your earpieces are not in use, please make sure you place them on the stickers in front of you to avoid any injuries to our interpreters, who are working hard on our behalf.

Colleagues, I'll start by reading a brief preamble. For some of us, it's maybe been a little while since we've engaged in clause-by-clause. I'll read something that's been provided by the clerks to help bring clarity. Then we will get going.

I'd like to explain to the committee members how committees go about clause-by-clause consideration of a bill.

As the name indicates, this is an examination of all the clauses in the order in which they appear in the bill. I will call each clause successively. Each clause is subject to debate and a vote. If there's an amendment to the clause in question, I will recognize the member proposing it, who may explain it.

In addition to having to be properly drafted in a legal sense, amendments must be procedurally admissible. The chair may be called upon to rule amendments inadmissible if they go against the principle of the bill or beyond the scope of the bill—both of which were adopted by the House when it agreed to the bill at second reading—or if they offend the financial prerogative of the Crown.

Amendments have been given a number in the top right corner to indicate which party submitted them. There is no need for a seconder to move an amendment. Once it is moved, you will need unanimous consent to withdraw it.

During debate on an amendment, members are permitted to move subamendments. They do not require the approval of the mover of the amendment. Only one subamendment may be considered at a time, and that subamendment cannot be amended. When a subamendment is moved to an amendment, it is voted on first. Then another subamendment may be moved, or the committee may consider the main amendment and vote on it.

Finally, if members have any questions regarding the procedural admissibility of amendments, the legislative clerks are here to assist the committee. However, they are not legal drafters. Should members require assistance with drafting a subamendment, they must contact the legislative counsel.

Colleagues, if you intend to move an amendment from the floor, I would ask that before you move that amendment, you send it to the clerks, ensure that it's translated in both official languages and, to the best of your ability, get an opinion as to its admissibility. This is for the sake of efficiency and productivity.

With that, colleagues, we have some witnesses we would like to welcome back.

From the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, we have Robert Sampson, general counsel and senior director, legal services, and Trevor Knight, general counsel. Welcome back to PROC, gentlemen.

From the Privy Council Office, we have Rachel Pereira, director, electoral and senatorial policy unit, and Candice Ramalho, senior policy officer.

With that, colleagues, we will begin.

I see that Mr. Cooper has his hand up. I will turn the floor over to him.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to move a motion. I move:

That the committee shall not proceed any further into clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-65 until it has dispensed with the motion that was moved and debated on Tuesday, November 26, 2024.

To refresh members of the committee as to the motion put forward by me on Tuesday, November 26, it was a motion that called on the Prime Minister's Office, the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs and the PCO—essentially, this government—to turn over all documents and communications relating to the secret meetings that were held with the NDP in drafting what has been sold to Canadians as an elections bill, but what really is a pension bill in disguise, because it moves the date of the election back. As a result of doing that, it secures the pensions for MPs, many of whom are NDP and Liberal MPs who are likely to be defeated in the next election and who otherwise would not qualify for their pensions.

Mr. Chair, I'll seek your direction without ceding the floor. Would you like that the motion, as is the usual practice, be sent to all members? Then I can continue my remarks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Yes, Mr. Cooper. I would very much appreciate—as I'm sure all members would—that a written copy of the motion you've just presented, translated into both official languages, be sent.

Until that is completed, I'm going to suspend, at which point you will maintain the floor. You can speak to it once it has been presented in both official languages to committee members.

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

I have a point of order. Can I just get the confirmation of the speaking order after Mr. Cooper will have the floor again? I know that some hands have been up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

The speaking order I have is Mr. Cooper, Mr. Turnbull, Mr. Duncan and Mr. Calkins.

We are suspended briefly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Colleagues, I believe all members have now received and have had adequate time to consult the motion presented by Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Cooper, you retain the floor. I'll give it back to you so you can speak to the motion you presented to the committee.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will just put on the record the motion I put forward on Tuesday, November 26. It reads as follows:

That, given that the committee has learned that staff from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Office of the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs met with New Democratic Party (NDP) representatives, representatives from the Privy Council Office (PCO), and the Chief Electoral Officer on Thursday, January 25, 2024 on matters relating to Bill C-65, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, and that the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs, along with his Parliamentary Secretary and staff from his office and the Parliamentary secretary’s office met with NDP representatives, an NDP Member of Parliament, representatives from the PCO, and the Chief Electoral Officer on Saturday, March 30, 2024, on matters relating to Bill C-65, the committee:

a) order the Office of the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs and the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to provide the committee with all of the dates on which any representatives from the Liberal Party, including Party Officials, Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, Minister’s Office Staff, and Members of Parliament met with any representatives from the NDP, including Party Officials, and Members of Parliament on matters relating to Bill C-65, and the names and titles of the individuals who attended those meetings;

b) order the production of any documents under the control of the PCO, PMO, any Minister’s office, and Elections Canada, including any documents used as briefing materials in any of those meetings, and any records of conversations, including emails, text messages, or any other form of communication, about those meetings, and any records of discussions that took place at those meetings and/or decisions that were made at those meetings, and that these documents are to be provided to the Clerk with no redactions within one week of the adoption of this motion; and

c) invite Daniel Blaikie, former Member of Parliament for Elmwood–Transcona and former Democratic Reform Critic for the NDP and a co-author of Bill C-65, to appear before the committee on its study of Bill C-65.

It is important that we have from this government and their coalition partner, the NDP, transparency about what went on leading up to the tabling of Bill C-65, a bill that purports to be an elections bill but is in fact a pension bill in disguise.

This is a government that snuck a clause into this elections bill that pushes the date of the next federal election by one week. The basis upon which the date of the next election was moved back was purported to be that the current fixed election date conflicts with a holiday of cultural importance to certain diaspora communities in Canada. That was the pretext.

One may say the election could be changed in light of that. I don't object to that. In fact, we Conservatives have been calling for a carbon tax election as soon as possible so that Canadians can have an opportunity to go to the polls and replace a government that has for the past nine years been costly and corrupt, a government that really has lost, for all intents and purposes, the moral authority to govern, a government that Canadians cannot wait to see replaced.

Yes, we would like to see an election—not in October 2025, but as soon as possible. It's why, this week, we're going to be moving a motion of non-confidence in this government. It's so that Canadians can get the carbon tax election they want and the carbon tax election they deserve.

Be that as it may, going back to the bill and the purported reasons for moving the date of the next election back by a week, the Minister of Democratic Institutions, Dominic LeBlanc, asserted it was on the basis of avoiding a conflict with a cultural holiday for certain communities. The election could have been pushed ahead by a week, but we were told that would conflict with Thanksgiving. If the election were moved ahead a week prior to that, it wouldn't conflict with anything, as I understand it. If it were pushed ahead a week before that, again, I don't believe there would be any conflict.

The point I'm making is that there were plenty of options on the table for the government to accommodate Canadians who celebrate this particular holiday, Diwali, without selecting the date provided for in this bill, which pushes the date of the election back by one week.

One of the objections to moving the election ahead by two or three weeks instead of pushing it back by one week, according to an official from the Prime Minister's department, the PCO, when he appeared before this committee to speak on behalf of the PCO and therefore on behalf of this government, was that it would result in the election getting into the summer period and would conflict with the Labour Day holiday. I believe he said it was the Labour Day holiday.

[An hon. member]

The summer holidays.

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

It was the summer holidays or the Labour Day holiday. That was something the government wished to avoid.

I found it a bit unclear why the government would specifically want to avoid that. Many federal and provincial elections have overlapped with the Labour Day holiday. I can think of, for example, the 1990 Ontario election, when David Peterson, three years into his mandate, went to the polls. He had a big majority. I think the Liberals won 95 seats in the 1987 election. The 1987 election in Ontario was in October, so less than three years into his mandate, he made the decision to drop the writ in early August. It not only overlapped with the Labour Day holiday; it also overlapped with the August long weekend.

I stand to be corrected, but I believe the election was on September 6, 1990. That was when David Peterson was severely punished for calling what Ontario voters perceived to be an opportunistic early election. There was also a bad taste in the mouths of many Ontarians over the record of the Peterson government. A whiff of scandal and corruption surrounded that Liberal government.

If only the same could be said of these Liberals, that there is a whiff of scandal and corruption, because after nine years of this Prime Minister, it's far more than a whiff of scandal. What we have with this government is a culture of corruption that goes right to the top, right to the Prime Minister. We have a Prime Minister who has been found guilty—not once, but twice—of violating the Conflict of Interest Act. We have a Prime Minister who obstructed an RCMP investigation into his potential criminal wrongdoing, which included the fact that he may have obstructed justice, and likely did, when he completely improperly and likely illegally ordered his former attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to intervene in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

When the RCMP came before the ethics committee last spring, I asked them why they had suspended their investigation into the potential matter of obstruction of justice on the part of the Prime Minister. The RCMP, when I put to them whether it was as a result of the Prime Minister hiding behind cabinet confidence, whether that was a factor, essentially answered in the affirmative. When I asked whether lifting cabinet confidence might lead the RCMP to reopen their investigation into what happened during SNC-Lavalin, including the conduct of the Prime Minister, they said that was possible.

It's within the Prime Minister's right to invoke cabinet confidence. I'm not suggesting otherwise. There are legitimate reasons for invoking cabinet confidence. In this particular case, while the Prime Minister has the right to invoke cabinet confidence, given what transpired with SNC-Lavalin and what we know, I think Canadians can judge for themselves why the Prime Minister invoked cabinet confidence.

If the Prime Minister had nothing to hide and wasn't afraid that the RCMP could potentially lay charges against him for obstruction of justice, as well as potentially others in his office who were involved in putting pressure on Jody Wilson-Raybould.... There were many in his office, right to the top of those in his office, including his then principal secretary, Gerald Butts, who met with Jody Wilson-Raybould more than once, I believe. There was also Katie Telford, the Prime Minister's then and current chief of staff, and Mathieu Bouchard, among others. If the Prime Minister wasn't fearful that either he or the likes of Telford and Butts had done anything wrong, why would he invoke cabinet confidence? Why would he obstruct an RCMP investigation?

If the Prime Minister had nothing to hide, it follows that he would co-operate with the RCMP. He would let the RCMP do their job. He would let the RCMP follow the evidence and would respect the independence of the RCMP to make a determination about whether charges against the Prime Minister or anyone in his office are warranted for putting pressure on Jody Wilson-Raybould to shut down the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin and, in so doing, to obstruct justice, if the evidence demonstrated that it met that threshold.

I was on the justice committee during SNC-Lavalin. I was the vice-chair of the justice committee at the time. In fact, I can remember sitting down in the committee room below when Jody Wilson-Raybould came before committee and gave her powerful testimony, bombshell testimony, on the type of pressure—

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

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Cooper, we have a point of order.

Go ahead, Ms. Fortier.

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

I'm listening with interest to Mr. Cooper, but I believe he is no longer speaking to the motion. I'd like the debate to be directed back to the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Madame Fortier.

Mr. Cooper, if you can try to keep your remarks as close as possible to the nature of the motion, that would be appreciated.

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

I appreciate the comments made by Madame Fortier. If I may, before I continue, I will respond to her comments.

What I'm speaking of—the culture of corruption in this government—is pertinent to the motion. It's pertinent insofar as showing why, I would submit, there needs to be a carbon tax election, but it's also pertinent to the decision on the part of the Prime Minister, in collaboration with the NDP and the minister, to push back the date of the next election. We're lacking transparency. Essentially, the government tried to sell this bill as one thing when it in fact did another. I would submit that we're talking about a lack of transparency. We're essentially talking about presenting a fake bill to Canadians on the need for an election and the timing of the next election. That is pertinent to this very bill. The bill fixes the date of the next election. The record of this government, including the culture of corruption that the Prime Minister has set, is pertinent. There is, of course, wide latitude in these debates.

Continuing where I left off, I can remember the very powerful testimony of Jody Wilson-Raybould. I can remember how she was treated by Liberal MPs, including the member for Edmonton Centre, Randy Boissonnault. I will have some comments to make about him shortly, but I digress. The SNC-Lavalin scandal really shook public confidence in the Prime Minister and this government. After that, the Prime Minister sat at around 30% to 33% support, in 2019 and going into the 2021 election. Of course, support for this government has now plummeted into the low 20% area, and Canadians are eager to see an election called. That's why I will repeat that I think the government could have moved the election ahead to resolve the issue, or the so-called problem, that they asserted was the basis of pushing the election back. We're quite content to have an election as soon as possible.

Going back to the Prime Minister, this is a Prime Minister who has in his cabinet ministers who violated the Conflict of Interest Act. Dominic LeBlanc, for example, the very minister who introduced this bill, was found by the Ethics Commissioner to have violated the Conflict of Interest Act. Likewise, the Minister of International Trade was found guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act. Bill Morneau was guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act. The Liberal member for Hull—Aylmer, while he served as parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, was found guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act.

One must ask how ministers of the Crown who were found guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act are still in cabinet. In the normal course of things, I would submit that violating the Conflict of Interest Act is a serious matter and ought to result in the immediate resignation of a minister. Of course, for a Prime Minister who's been found—

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Berthold, you have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

As you mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, we have officials here to help us. However, I see a second row of people who have not been introduced to us. I was wondering whether or not these people were going to be called upon to answer our questions.

Would it be possible for them to introduce themselves so that we can know who is here to answer our questions? Are they government representatives, people from the NDP, or people who attended the secret meeting?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Berthold.

Go ahead on the same point of order, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Number one, that's not a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

That is correct.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Number two, I don't think it's appropriate for the Conservatives, as they filibuster their own motion, to ask to be introduced to witnesses who are sitting at the committee. Even implying that they intend to ask witnesses questions today is a false pretense at best.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Berthold, go ahead on the same point of order.

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

I was just asking as a courtesy. If you don't have an answer for me, Mr. Chair, I'll understand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I can't rule that a point of order.

I'd ask all members, when they're raising points of order, to ensure that they are in fact points of order.

Mr. Cooper, you retain the floor.