Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 9th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Ms. Blaney would like to huddle too.

Do you agree, Ms. Gaudreau?

We'll pause for a couple of seconds. If we could come back quickly, because we do have an informal committee—

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Madam Chair, can we release the witnesses?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

It was a pleasure to have the SITE task force here. I know you might want to stay because it's exciting. I see some nodding of heads in all directions.

With that, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for your service. We do appreciate all that you do. Have a great day.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I'm calling the committee back to discuss the motion that's on the floor.

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Madam Chair, I'd like to propose an amendment to Mr. Cooper's motion.

I'll read it into the record:

That, given the Global News report published by Sam Cooper on February 8, 2023, revealing that national security officials drafted a warning for the Prime Minister in June 2017, alleging that Beijing agents were assisting Canadian candidates running for political offices and included well-documented evidence of Beijing's efforts to infiltrate “all levels of government,” the Committee,

(a) add additional meetings as required to its study on foreign election interference; and

(b) invite the following witnesses to testify in public on the contents of the report: Michael Wernick, Former Clerk of the Privy Council; and Daniel Jean, Former National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

There is an amendment on the floor. We want to focus. Let's do this quickly.

The amendment on the floor removes the first name from (b) and all of section (c). I want to make sure we're all on the same page.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I say, without hesitation, that I oppose this amendment, which would significantly water down the motion.

Katie Telford, chief of staff to the Prime Minister, is a material witness to the report and memo. She is the person who reportedly requested that the memo be prepared. It is also unclear, from the report, whether that memo was completed, date-stamped and sent to the Prime Minister, or whether he was made aware of it. In order to get to the bottom of the memo and what the Prime Minister knew—whether he failed to act—it's important that we hear from Katie Telford.

It's similarly important that, in order to ask questions of the three material witnesses, we have a production of documents to inform our questions to those witnesses.

This is just an effort to—let's say it for what it is—cover up the facts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

With no other people on my list, I am going to call the question on the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I'm frustrated that I didn't get a chance to speak.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I was looking around to get a signal for names. I apologize for that.

We'll go on to the main motion as amended. Is there debate on the main motion as amended?

Go ahead, Mr. Nater.

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

It's disappointing to see the motion effectively gutted, including all the relevant documents. I'm just putting that on the record.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That was before the vote. I wanted to try… We're looking for consensus, we just talked. I had good arguments, but there you go. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

The question is on the motion as amended.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

I understand from the analysts that we anticipate the draft report in both official languages coming to us hopefully late tomorrow, and then hopefully next week on Tuesday we can get into looking at the draft report for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Stay tuned. If it's not here to us by late tomorrow, then we'll revisit next week's schedule.

With that, we have an informal committee visit. I look forward to seeing you all.

Have a good weekend. Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.