Evidence of meeting #55 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Jody Thomas  National Security and Intelligence Advisor, Privy Council Office
Shawn Tupper  Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Cindy Termorshuizen  Associate Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Alia Tayyeb  Deputy Chief of Signals Intelligence, Communications Security Establishment
Tara Denham  Director General, Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Adam Fisher  Director General, Intelligence Assessments, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Clerk of the Committee  Ms. Miriam Burke

6:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

Thank you, Ms. Normandin.

Go ahead, Mrs. Sahota.

6:20 p.m.

Liberal

Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON

Thank you, Madam Chair, for this opportunity.

I've been listening to all of the debate. It sounds like all of us, or at least the various parties right now, have some amendment or another to be moved or made. Some have been put on notice. I want to thank Mr. Julian for putting his thoughts on notice as well, and perhaps encourage Madame Normandin to also, if she wishes, maybe put her motion on notice too so that we can have some clarity as to what that might be.

I have some comments to make to the substance of what we've been talking about, but before I get to that, I thought I would just put it out there and suggest that perhaps, given that we're on so many different wavelengths and paths right now, we adjourn for today. We are going to come back tomorrow anyway for a three-hour panel meeting. We can at that time, or at least in between now and then, have some conversations and see whether we want to move to a vote on this amendment, or perhaps there are other things we could discuss and come up with given the fact that a lot of this is just new to maybe many of our members right now.

It's hard; I wish I was in the room and I could tell by the faces if there's some nodding or agreement to what I'm saying.

I'm looking to you, Madam Chair, to maybe let me know if you could get an idea as to whether there would be consensus to this suggestion, or not, at this point. If not, there are some remarks that I would like to make on the substance of the amendment.

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

Mrs. Sahota, based on what I see in the room, and what I'm hearing, there is not consensus.

The clerk is asking, just to clarify, are you moving adjournment or are you wanting to hear where other people are on that?

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON

I hadn't formally moved; I was looking to do it in a much more collegial way and see if we could be given some time in between today's meeting and the next to see where we might land on these four different motions and three different amendments that have just been brought up in today's discussion.

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

Okay. So I'm not hearing you moving it.

Are you finished sharing your comments on this, or did you want to continue? There is no consensus to adjourn.

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON

Okay.

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

Would you like to continue speaking?

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON

Sure. Absolutely. I have some thoughts to share, so I might as well share those while I have the floor. I'm sure this could go around in circles for a while, so I can always get back in line to share some more, but I want to give my initial thoughts on what's happening.

I was pleased with today's meeting. The motion that Mr. Cooper has brought forward and now the amendment that Mr. Turnbull has brought forward are giving me déjà vu. I'm sure they're giving the same feeling to many others in this room in that we're having a very similar discussion.

I know that the motion Mr. Cooper has brought forward is slightly different, but in essence, it's not all that different from the one we were discussing about a week ago. At that time, this committee came to a decision to move forward with studying and shedding more light and transparency on the issue of foreign interference. At that point, we voted to move forward and bring a whole bunch of witnesses to this committee.

Mr. Turnbull's amendment includes bringing Morris Rosenberg, who has just authored the “Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol”. That is a very interesting report, by the way, which was made public just a couple of days ago. In that report, they've done a lot of work. In essence, that report has, I think, shed a lot of light on what has happened.

Mr. Cooper talks about sunlight and all of those things, but in essence, it seems to me that Mr. Cooper is more interested in who heard what, and when, and the Prime Minister, and is wanting to create a big show out of our security agencies and out of our system.

What I am more interested in is continuing on with our meetings. Even in the last several meetings, we have discovered some really good information. We've been given some good suggestions and ideas, whether through the report that Mr. Rosenberg authored or through the witnesses we have seen.

I know many issues have come up, such as widening the scope that the SITE task force has so that it's not just during the writ period. That's a very interesting suggestion. We've heard time and time again that we should probably move forward with adding a registry of foreign agents. We've heard that Australia has been successful in doing so. We've heard a few other suggestions as well. I think those are all really great ones, and I think we can continue with the witnesses we have, because they are essentially the ones who are responsible for making these decisions.

We heard today from the national security advisor that they have all the tools and that CSIS has the tools that are needed in order to prevent or interfere when they have knowledge of an incident of foreign interference occurring. They have that capability.

I don't know what.... There's a discussion of a big public inquiry, and I see that there are obviously benefits to the public being aware about what is happening. We are in a public forum right now. I'm really hoping and urging that we can put the partisanship away and suggest how we can make this about our democratic system.

At this point, the SITE force has already assessed that the integrity of the 2019 and 2021 elections was not compromised, although they did it under a framework that perhaps Mr. Cooper is not happy with. Interference did not rise to the level that would have had an impact on the overall election outcomes. I believe Mr. Cooper has even said so in several interviews, and I think we have agreement on that fact.

I think there is this desire to drill into issues when we know, as my colleague Mrs. Romanado said, that we will not be able to get unredacted documents on some things. A lot of what is in that original motion is wishful thinking. It's never going to happen. We're not going to get unredacted documents. I don't even think the law clerk of Parliament has the ability to pass those on to us in that manner. There is a process, and I think we are confusing the public through a lot of this back-and-forth.

As responsible parliamentarians, we know that no party wants foreign interference to happen, whether it's by China or any other country. We know that many countries are involved in this type of activity in Canada and that it's happened for quite some time, not just in these last two elections. Our goal and our mission in this committee, within what we have control or purview over, should really be about strengthening our future elections. As the procedure and House affairs committee, we should be interested in this aspect, since it is within our mandate. It's not about dragging in staff members and dragging the name of the Prime Minister through what has been mentioned and whether he allowed somebody to run or didn't. It's really not about any of that. It's about protecting our democracy and our elections.

I think a lot of us already well understand the information and advice we've been given by our intelligence agencies and we understand what we should do in response. That's where I'm leaning.

Let's continue to have these meetings. We have a few more that are already laid out. After those meetings, we can see whether we're satisfied with the recommendations we can put forward at that point or whether we're not satisfied and there are other witnesses still to be heard from.

I'm sorry, but I think what the Conservatives are asking for is not for the greater good. It's about what happened in one particular riding, not about the overall election outcome. We've seen in the most recent report that it wasn't the case that this affected the general outcome of the election. Therefore, I think we should learn from what has happened. We should learn from all of the security agencies and the witnesses who are coming before us and we should take their advice. They see where the gaps are and they've been identifying the gaps for us. There are many other former intelligence officers we could also call forward to get their advice. Some have already come before our committee, and they've provided some good things.

I truly believe that if we put forth a strong report to Parliament, the government will be interested in acting on the advice of our committee and we could make a big difference through our work. If we want things to come off the rails and go sideways just so we can have a dog-and-pony show, so be it, but let's do this for the greater good and let's make a difference so we don't have to worry about talking about this again. We want to have transparency in future elections so this doesn't happen to any future candidates.

Thank you.

6:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

Thank you, Ms. Sahota.

Mr. Calkins, go ahead.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I listened to my colleague who just spoke and I couldn't disagree more.

I've been a member of Parliament for 17 years. I would hope that none of the work I've done could be referred to as a dog-and-pony show. This issue has captured the attention of the nation. This is the committee of the House of Commons that is charged with overseeing the integrity of our electoral system. The allegations are serious. The issues are serious, not only about the interference in the 2019 and 2021 campaigns most recently but even in nomination contests. They're two separate issues, but all have the same underlying problems.

It doesn't look like the third time is going to be a charm for the Liberals this time around. I would remind people who are watching this meeting right now that this is the third time my colleague Mr. Cooper has brought a motion like this before this committee. Once was on February 9. The Liberals and the NDP amended that motion to remove Katie Telford and others and remove the parts of the motion that dealt with the production of documents from that particular request on February 9.

Most recently, we did it again last week, and again the NDP and the Liberals amended the motion to remove Katie Telford and a few others, and again they removed the production of documents request from that motion. I am encouraged somewhat today by the change in tone from one of the parties here at the table that these kinds of amendments to basically water down....

If we took Mr. Turnbull's amendment, it would basically gut the motion. It would reduce the amount of work that this committee would do. It would remove summoning Katie Telford to the committee. It would remove inviting Jeremy Broadhurst to the committee. He was the Liberal Party of Canada campaign director for the 2019 election. It would basically remove the production of documents request and simply replace it with an ATIP request that any Canadian could do.

I think that undermines not only the intent of the motion but also the work that we do as parliamentarians. It continues to take this very serious issue nonchalantly. We're all supposed to sit here and just say that this Prime Minister and his caucus, his ministers....

They seem to be saying, “Just trust us. Everything's okay.” Everything's not okay. In the course of this meeting alone, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation returned $200,000 that it took. From the time this meeting started to where we are at right now, that has happened.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

It's an admission of guilt.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB

If we are to believe anything, it's that this issue is not going to go away. Gutting a motion and pretending that everything is fine, that there's nothing to see here, reminds me of Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun, riding a missile into a fireworks factory that goes off and explodes all over the place, and then he advises the watching public, “Back off, folks; there's nothing to see here.”

I doubt that Bob Fife and Steven Chase would agree. I doubt that Sam Cooper would agree. I doubt that Terry Glavin would agree. These are all credible investigative journalists who I think are doing yeoman's service on this issue.

I am glad to see the opposition members at this committee stand their ground, finally. The third time's a charm. Even though we haven't got a finalized agreement on what this motion will look like, at least this time—it appears, at least—the jig is up for the Liberal members at this committee to gut this motion.

I hope that all the opposition parties will work constructively to bring forward everybody and all of the information we need to make an informed decision and informed recommendations to the government, so that the people we keep summoning here—the people from CSIS, the people from the RCMP, the people from Elections Canada and the SITE task force and so on, the people who keep coming back here and saying that the current roles and the current protocols are not sufficient—can at least be provided with good information or good recommendations to their responses. This is what our job is as parliamentarians.

I look forward to continuing this conversation for as long as it takes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

6:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

Next is Mr. Fergus.

6:40 p.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank all my colleagues for taking part in this debate, as we have a motion and an amendment before us, in addition to the two notices of motion that were presented earlier.

First of all, I would like to say that this is an issue that concerns me. I sincerely believe that it is of concern not only to the members around this table, but to all members, because we are talking about reputations and interference in our democratic system. As the witnesses who have appeared before us have noted, we are dealing with foreign interference in elections, but foreign interference is not limited to politics. It is widespread in academia, in business, in the economy, and in all sorts of other areas. If you spread a rumour, it spreads everywhere. All of a sudden, we read about it on our electronic devices, it's picked up by the newspapers, and so on.

Today we heard testimony from people responsible for ensuring national security, and from a group of people responsible for ensuring the integrity of our elections and monitoring foreign interference. Unfortunately, their findings invalidate many of the points that are in the motion introduced by my colleague and friend, Mr. Cooper. I am always willing to have a frank and non-partisan discussion to examine these issues. However, when I look at many of the points in this motion and listen to the speeches of my colleagues in the official opposition, I find that they continue to repeat allegations that are not supported by the facts presented by the experts who have testified today. I therefore find it difficult to support the motion.

We sometimes jokingly say that our colleagues are very consistent in that they always believe the same thing, no matter what happens from week to week. However, we need to take into account the evidence we have heard here.

The main weakness of this motion is that it asks for top secret documents to be produced before this committee, which is a very serious problem. We know that a number of countries that are not our allies, if I can put it that way, are monitoring the electronic devices of members of Parliament and are looking for every opportunity to obtain information. I am not convinced that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in its current form is the appropriate forum to receive this top secret information. There is a committee of members of Parliament that is charged with examining all such matters in a transparent manner and has access to all unredacted information: it is the Committee of Parliamentarians on National Security and Intelligence.

If we insist on retaining the problematic points in my colleague and friend Mr. Cooper's motion, particularly point (f), it will be very difficult for me to support it. The motion as it stands would cause us serious problems. Indeed, Canada could get into trouble with its allies, especially those who work with Canada to guard against foreign interference.

We now have four different motions before us. I want to give my colleagues the opportunity to debate them. I hope that we can also find common ground. Once everyone has presented their motion, I hope that we will have time to think things through and have discussions among ourselves. I think we can find a way to proceed, ideally without partisanship. I hope that we are up to the challenge and that we act in the interest of Canadians and in the national interest of our country, rather than purely political and partisan interests.

I want to share my thoughts with my colleagues. I hope they are listening. I already proposed a solution for this evening. I hope we can apply it and come back tomorrow with an action plan to deal with the suggestions before us. That way, we'll be able to really do the work that Canadians expect of us.

6:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

Thank you, Mr. Fergus.

Mr. Gerretsen is next.

6:50 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Hello, Madam Chair. Can you hear me okay?

6:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

Very clearly, and maybe too clearly.

6:50 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Oh no. It's been a while since I've done this by Zoom. If I'm too loud for the interpreters, please interrupt me. If I need to adjust that, I'm happy to accommodate them.

I have a lot of notes here and a lot that I would like to talk about, but before I do that, I think I would like to reflect on the comments of my colleague Mr. Fergus, who spoke just before me and has raised a very good point.

Mr. Fergus, towards the conclusion of his speech—and actually at the beginning as well—spoke at length about the need for this type of work to be done in a non-partisan way, and I couldn't agree more. I think that at the heart of this we should all be very concerned about any foreign interference in our democracy. We all should look at ways to further enhance and protect our democracy, very much like this government, in my opinion, has done since 2015.

A number of things have been brought into play, some of which the Conservatives actually voted against. I will get to those in a bit, but I am specifically concerned about the partisanship in this issue.

The first thing that comes to mind is how deeply concerned I am with the comments made by a member of this committee. Mr. Calkins, a member of this committee who is sitting in the room right now, when he was in an airport on his way to this meeting, said in a video as he was talking about what he was coming to Ottawa to do and about going after the Prime Minister, “what the Liberals did about...one of their candidates being an agent for Beijing.” Mr. Calkins said that in a video and posted it on social media. He made that comment about a duly elected member of Parliament. I find that deeply troubling.

I mean, if I were Mr. Dong and I heard that, the first thing I would be doing is contacting a pretty high-profile lawyer to take on this case, because I think there is an incredible opportunity to go after Mr. Calkins for defamation in this regard. I think what we are witnessing coming from the Conservative Party and Mr. Calkins specifically in this regard is the story, in my opinion. That's the story of what's going on here. It's about Conservatives not genuinely caring about how we look at this in a non-partisan way and how we go about ensuring that our democracy is kept safe. Instead, it's about how we can turn this into a “gotcha, Liberal” issue. It's about how we can fundraise and how we can defame duly elected members of Parliament by calling them—and I quote—“an agent for Beijing”.

To the NDP and Bloc members of this committee, I ask you if this is what you want to be going along with. Do you want to be associating yourselves with those comments Mr. Calkins made on his way to this very meeting? I think you have to really stop and think about that, because I am fairly certain that the NDP and the Bloc are genuinely concerned about election interference, as they should be, and as all democracies throughout the world should be.

Going along with the Conservative approach on this issue and the comments by Mr. Calkins I find to be so incredibly troubling. To associate yourselves with them by standing and supporting motions that they bring forward.... I think the NDP and the Bloc either should reconsider their position or should go and talk to their friends in the Conservative Party about allowing comments like that from a sitting member of PROC and letting them stand.

I would really like to hear from Mr. Julian and Madame Gill whether they believe that Han Dong is an agent of Beijing. I'd like to hear from other Conservative members on this committee whether they think he is an agent of Beijing.

I'd like to talk about some of the stuff that this government has done and why I believe that Mr. Turnbull's approach is the right approach in attempting to make this as non-partisan as possible.

One of the things this government did very early on, which the Conservatives were actually against, was to introduce Bill C-76. Bill C-76 repealed a number of the initiatives brought forward in the so-called Fair Elections Act, which was introduced by no less than the member for Carleton, now the leader of the official opposition now. Another thing Bill C-76 did was to give and enhance the tools to combat foreign interference in elections. Conservatives voted against that. Conservatives voted against Bill C-76 despite the fact that they are using an opportunity now to grandstand on the issue.

I think it's important to look at what people are saying now versus how they were voting in the past and what actions they actually took. These Conservative members who are sitting on the committee weren't interested in putting resources into combatting foreign interference when it came to Bill C-76 in 2018; they actually voted against it.

The other thing this government put in place, which has been talked about a number of times—it was in place for the 2019 election and for the 2021 election—was the work to put in the critical election incident public protocol. This is a special committee of non-partisan experts, experts in the field of foreign interference, experts who come from our departments, public servants. They get together during the writ period and make sure they are ready to respond and have the authority to respond if any election interference is identified. They're also required to share that information with relevant parties when required. It's a tool that has been utilized in two elections, as I mentioned. Then, based on the information, reports are generated by a third party afterward. One of those reports regarding the 2021 election was tabled just yesterday. Those reports, both in 2019 and in 2021, indicated that the elections occurred in a transparent way and that there was no foreign interference, despite the fact that Mr. Calkins refers to the member for Don Valley North as an agent of Beijing. I think that's a very important tool. It's a tool that gives us the ability to have confidence in our democratic process and allows us to ensure there is accountability by non-partisan individuals and that a report can be generated after the fact, which we've seen.

The other thing, of course, that we have in place is NSICOP. I don't need to spell it out for you, because everybody on this committee knows what that committee is or what the acronym stands for. It is a committee made up of parliamentarians who have access to their heart's content to unredacted documents about these issues, what they need to look at, with the understanding that they have the classifications required to view these documents. The Conservatives have members on that committee when they decide to show up. Let's not forget that Conservatives used NSICOP as another political opportunity.

A number of times, Conservatives used NSICOP as an opportunity to politicize once again whatever their objective of the day was or whatever they were looking to fundraise off. The Conservatives did that.

The reality is that NSICOP is there for a reason. It's there to ensure that the members who are on that committee and have been appointed by the respective parties have access to that information. They have the ability to look at those completely unredacted documents.

Mr. Cooper, Mr. Calkins and the other Conservatives on PROC want to have a public inquiry. As we heard today from Jody Thomas, the national security and intelligence advisor for the PCO, a public inquiry isn't going to be able to have any more access to classified information than this committee. We know that.

It sounds good: “Public inquiry” sounds really good. I can understand why Mr. Julian and the Bloc would be tempted into wanting to do that, because it's sensational, but it's not going to do anything that this committee can't already do. We heard that from the experts. They are those who are in control of that very important and sensitive information.

What she said today at this committee is that the best place for that information was in NSICOP. What's going to happen? I can already tell you what's going to happen. We're going to have a public inquiry, or this committee will look into this stuff, and Mr. Cooper and Mr. Calkins will be throwing their hands up in the air and screaming bloody murder because there are redactions on the documents. Mr. Poilievre will walk out into a press conference and hold up and wave a bunch of papers that have blacked-out information and say, “Oh, look, they're hiding all this information from us.”

That's how you make it partisan. It's by doing things like that, and that's what you will do. That's what they will do, Madam Chair, if we get to the point of allowing this circus that Mr. Calkins and Mr. Cooper want to have. Quite frankly, that's where we're going.

It raises a question: Do we really want to get to the bottom of this so that we can protect our democracy and do it in a way that respects the classification of documents?

Why are these documents classified? It's because we don't want those foreign agents to know what's in them. That's why they're protected. That would never deter the opposition from taking an opportunity to exploit redacted papers with redacted information in them, saying someone's trying to hide something.

Mr. Cooper said it himself on a CBC panel just two nights ago. He said, “The Liberals will redact the documents. We don't trust them with them.” He knows full well the documents are not redacted by the Liberals. He makes it sound like it's happening in a political party's headquarters, with people sitting there redacting documents, but he knows full well the way that it really happens. It's done by the law clerk. That's not to say that they wouldn't jump on the opportunity to politicize the clerk's office either, from time to time, as we've seen, and those institutions that we hold to give us that information, because they've done that in the past.

If it's not about playing a political game and it's genuinely about protecting our democracy, why won't we listen to the experts who came to the committee today? They are the people who are in control of holding this information, I might add. Why wouldn't we listen to them when they say, “You discuss this stuff in public. We won't be able to give you all the information, because of the nature of it”? They're literally guarding our.... They're the ones who seem to want to protect our democracy more than Conservatives right now, so why on earth would we not listen to them? I mean, the NDP has representatives on NSICOP. Conservatives have representatives on NSICOP.

Madam Chair, I think I will leave it there for now, although I do have a lot more to add. I have a lot more notes here. Maybe I will get back on the list later.

I would really like to hear at some point soon, hopefully, comments from Mr. Julian and Madame Gill about whether or not they agree with Mr. Calkins that Mr. Han Dong, a duly elected MP for Don Valley North, is indeed an agent of Beijing. I would like to hear their comments on that.

7:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

Thank you, Mr. Gerretsen.

Madame Gill is next.

March 1st, 2023 / 7:05 p.m.

Bloc

Marilène Gill Bloc Manicouagan, QC

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I've just joined the committee, but I have been following its work with interest. With all due respect to my colleague Mr. Gerretsen, I'm a little bit surprised by his reaction to what my colleague Mr. Calkins said. I heard his whole statement. Basically, what he said was that, no matter our party, we were trying to politicize things. That is, however, pretty much what he himself did from the beginning of his statement. That is the subtext I heard. I understand that he is expressing concern. However, as noble and laudable as his words may seem when he utters them, these concerns seem rather personal, if not partisan, to me. At the same time, it is pure conjecture. It's science fiction. We cannot know what Mr. Poilievre or whoever else will do. I think it's quite a stretch to come here and talk about attacks.

We are talking here about protecting democracy. That is at the very core of all this, we all agree. I think that what we are asking for is also what our fellow citizens would want. I do not believe it would be a problem for a committee, a number of committees or a number of people to be given information, and I say this without specifying the nature of the information. It's also our duty. While there are experts who can look at this, at the end of the day, we are the elected members. Part of our role is to be accountable to the electorate, whether we like it or not, whether we are concerned about politicization or not.

Mr. Gerretsen said a number of times that much of the information is of a very sensitive nature. We are obviously talking about protecting the government and protecting Canadians and Quebeckers. At the same time, we were told earlier that there was practically nothing to worry about, that there wasn't really any need to worry, and that it therefore wasn't necessary to tell Canadians and Quebeckers about all this information. On the one hand, we are told it would be extremely dangerous and perilous to do so, and on the other, we're told there is absolutely nothing to worry about.

In short, I hope we will reach a consensus, or even unanimous agreement, on a motion so that the work can be done. All I see right now are attacks going from one to the other. We're told we have ulterior motives, myself included, when I don't see why I would comment on Mr. Calkins's statement. This is off topic, irrelevant, and we are being led down what could be a slippery slope.

We are not doing the work we are supposed to be doing, in my humble opinion. If the three or four meetings we want to add per week are actually going to be used to do exactly what is happening right now, that is, not say anything and not work for Canadians and Quebeckers, that's completely unappealing.

I hope this is a good response to Mr. Gerretsen. I hope we'll be able to move on to other things quickly, discuss the proposals in front of us and do something constructive. I think it's what people expect of us, instead of seeing members make a big fuss about partisan hypotheses that may not even happen.

7:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

Thank you, Ms. Gill.

Mr. Julian, go ahead.

7:10 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Madam Chair, I would like to ask, through you to the committee, whether we have unanimous consent to call the question.

7:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

You are actually my last speaker. I was going to call the question after you spoke if no other hands went up.

Are we okay to call the question?

We will call the question, and then I will go back to the list for the main motion, which I had kind of taken to the amendment.

Madam Clerk, we will call the question on the amendment by Mr. Turnbull.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

7:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger

On my list now, to bring everyone up to speed, as per the main motion and based on the members who are still with us, is Mr. Julian.

Mr. Julian, do you have your hand up because you're first on my list? Okay.

I have Mr. Julian, followed by Mrs. Sahota and Mr. Fergus. I will then take additional hands as they are raised.

Mr. Julian, the floor is yours.

7:15 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Thank you, Madam Chair.

What I'm going to do is move an amendment to the motion. This is the motion that the NDP distributed before the committee meeting this morning, so everybody has had it in their hands now for a number of hours.

However, as the amendment is a bit different from the main motion, our office is sending a minor modification around as I speak, but I will read it for the record. It begins with “That the motion be amended by deleting (b)”, which is the one that talks about holding three meetings in each House adjournment week.

I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting (b) and replacing the words in paragraphs (c) and (d) with the following:

(b) invite the following individuals to appear before the committee:

i. Katie Telford and Tausha Michaud, Chiefs of Staff to the Prime Minister and the former Leader of the Official Opposition

ii. Jeremy Broadhurst, Azam Ishmael, Hamish Marshall and Walied Soloman, national campaign directors for the Liberal Party of Canada and the Conservative Party of Canada during the 2019 and 2021 federal election campaigns

iii. Jenni Byrne, Leader of the Official Opposition’s senior leadership advisor

And by replacing the words in paragraph (f) with the following,

—this is on the production of documents—

order the production of all memoranda, briefing notes, and any other relevant documents, which are in the possession of government departments or agencies containing information concerning efforts by, or on behalf of, foreign governments or other foreign state actors to interfere in the 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2021 general elections, provided that

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 a complete package within two weeks of the adoption of this order with the Clerk of the committee to be distributed to all members of the committee in both official languages, and

iii. unredacted copies of all documents referenced in this paragraph be referred within three weeks to the ad hoc committee of parliamentarians which was agreed by the Government House Leader, the Official Opposition House Leader, and the House leaders of the Bloc Québécois and New Democratic Party on October 31, 2022, to review Public Health Agency of Canada documents related to the transfer of Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in March 2019, provided that those documents are to be reviewed and handled in the same manner as the documents originally referred to that committee.

That is the extent of the amendments.

Madam Chair, I believe it's quite extensive, so we may want to suspend until we're sure that every member of the committee has received the written modification. As I mentioned earlier, we did circulate this hours ago, prior to the committee hearing, so that every member of the committee would have the chance to look at the NDP's motion. This is a slight modification as an amendment to Mr. Cooper's motion.