Evidence of meeting #34 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, committee members. The committee is resuming.
We are proceeding with debate on the amendment by Ms. Falk.
I have three speakers on this new list to speak on the amendment by Ms. Falk. I'll begin with Madame Larouche and then go to Monsieur Joseph and Ms. Fancy.
Go ahead, Madame Larouche.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Mr. Chair, I'll be brief.
Anyway, Mrs. Falk did a good job of explaining things. I think there is indeed a connection, because we're talking about housing here this morning. I also spoke with Mr. Watts, who said that seniors' fixed incomes are a problem, particularly when it comes to paying for housing.
The goal is certainly not to block Bill C‑20. The Bloc Québécois will support it, as the Liberals are well aware. I reminded Mr. Gascoyne about what's in Bill C‑20 and I also reminded the folks from UTILE, who are still here. My colleague, Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, can back me up on that. It's a terrific bill. We're going to make sure that Bill C‑20 progresses. We're aware of the issues around social housing and homelessness.
I support my colleague's amendments to obtain documents.
In conclusion, we have a situation this morning, but it's not because we want to block Bill C‑20 and filibuster. I have to do this again this morning is because, yesterday, my colleague, Sébastien Lemire, tried to get this information at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. I ran into him after his meeting, at an event, and he told me that he hadn't been able to get the information because the Liberals filibustered.
That's why we find ourselves in this situation this morning. I have no choice but to ask for this information again because it was requested last night, and that held up the work of another parliamentary committee.
I just want to remind the witnesses that we support them, that we want to find solutions to social housing and homelessness issues, and that we're here this morning trying to get information. This will not block or delay debate on Bill C‑20, especially not if people work together.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you.
As chair, I will advise the witnesses that they can leave. We have multiple debates on amendments to the motion. I'm unsure as to when we'll return to the agenda.
At this stage, the witnesses can be released.
Monsieur Joseph, go ahead. This is on the amendment by Ms. Falk.
Liberal
Natilien Joseph Liberal Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Mr. Chair, I don't want to be brief, but I may be.
This is the second time I've seen this kind of thing in committee. Surprisingly, it's because of the Bloc Québécois even though witnesses from Quebec came all the way here to talk about homelessness and affordable housing. You know, Quebec has tremendous expertise. It was a golden opportunity for them to share that expertise and for Canada to benefit from it.
I can hardly believe that the Bloc Québécois is preventing witnesses from Quebec from speaking in committee. Last time, I told Ms. Larouche that she missed a very good opportunity by voting against the 2025 budget. Here in committee, she applauds all of the programs and measures funded in this budget. I'm not going to use the word I have in mind because I'm in committee and I have a lot of respect for her.
Thanks to the Bloc Québécois, the witnesses from Quebec also missed a good opportunity this morning, a golden opportunity to speak on behalf of Quebeckers and to show them that the Bloc Québécois really stands up for their interests in Ottawa. That's not my own opinion. The Bloc Québécois has just proven to Quebeckers that it doesn't really stand up for their interests in Ottawa. Indeed, if I were from Quebec and a Bloc Québécois member was preventing me from speaking in committee, I would have questions.
I'm going to talk about Ms. Larouche's motion. This motion calls for the production of several thousand pages of documents from several departments. A similar motion was moved yesterday at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, where members are currently debating an amendment. It could cost millions of dollars, and it wouldn't be doable in the time frame proposed by the motion. It's not realistic to expect that many documents to be produced by the suggested deadline. Public servants would have to sift through millions of documents across several departments.
That would have consequences. Every dollar spent on compiling documents is a dollar not invested in services to Canadians and, above all, Quebeckers. Canadians and Quebeckers expect timely services, but this motion would take public servants' time away from processing applications.
Our priority should be improving service delivery, not creating an administrative burden for public servants.
The rules say that committees have the right to request information, but such requests must be focused and reasonable. If this motion were to pass, it would set a precedent for unlimited and overly broad applications. That's important. The work of gathering up documents from all over the government would be for nothing. It's not important.
Parliamentarians know we have to use committee resources wisely. I'm a Quebec MP who serves on a committee in Ottawa, but if I were a Quebecker currently in Quebec and I saw this kind of thing, I would have some questions and, when the next election rolls around, I would give the Bloc Québécois the boot, because people need to respect Quebeckers.
The Bloc Québécois says that it's here in Ottawa to represent and fight for Quebec's interests. This isn't how you fight for Quebec's interests in committee. These witnesses are Quebeckers. They're experts from Quebec who are here to talk about housing, homelessness, Build Canada Homes, Bill C‑20 and the continuum concept that includes services and transition houses with services.
Make no mistake: I am stunned and shocked. If Quebeckers knew how the Bloc Québécois is behaving in Ottawa and especially in committee—and they will know, because I'm here now—they would never vote for the Bloc Québécois.
I'll give someone else the floor.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mr. Joseph.
Next on the speaking list is Ms. Fancy, and then I have Ms. Falk currently on the list.
Liberal
Jessica Fancy-Landry Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you very much.
I didn't think this is where we would be this morning. As my colleague just talked about, having expert witnesses with testimony in regard to Build Canada Homes and creating this new Crown corporation that's going to highlight all the good work, collate it together.... People travelled from all over the country to be witnesses here today, and we just dismissed them because of a motion that we've already been trying to work out.
I'd love to ground this discussion today in what's actually being proposed within this motion. As it stands, this is not a modest request. The motion itself has five different subsections, and each of those is for very complex sets of documents to be produced within 30 days. I'm looking at this and the hours that it's going to take; not that it's not an important thing, but this is not a modest request. It's going to require production of what could be millions of pages of documents across multiple federal departments. Think about that.
We are not going to talk about a discrete set of briefing notes or a defined dataset. We're going to be talking about an enormous volume of materials—potentially years' worth of internal communications, analyses and records—that would need to be identified, reviewed and redacted, because of necessary legal arrangements, and then translated and, finally, compiled.
To put it plainly, this is not a small administrative exercise. This is an enormous undertaking. We forget about how important this particular committee is. We have an umbrella of five or six different ministries, and we already have a very busy schedule. We are dealing with some of the most vulnerable people in our country within this committee, so when we have these little willy-nilly....
I shouldn't say willy-nilly.... Well, it is willy-nilly. When we have motions like this that come out, wanting us to produce all of these different documents, we could be better focusing a lot of time, money and energy into the vulnerable people we're trying to help serve. I did not come to Ottawa to worry about all of these different, unnecessary amounts of documents that the Bloc and the Conservatives are trying to get us to produce right now.
I feel like this is a last-ditch grab, because of our newly formed majority, as a way to get us to—
Conservative
Liberal
Jessica Fancy-Landry Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
No, we're not against producing documents, but doing so in 30 days, under multiple different ministries and multiple different platforms, is way too much.
It's also worth noting that a very similar motion was introduced publicly in the public accounts committee yesterday. They're currently debating it to bring that request into a more workable and realistic scope. That's something we should be doing here. That context matters. It shows that even in another committee, one that routinely deals with larger volumes of documents, there is a recognition that requests of this magnitude are carefully collaborated in, with partnerships forming.
I'd also like to talk a bit about the feasibility of what this motion suggests. The timeline simply does not align with the reality of how government operates. Producing this volume of material requires public servants to comb through millions of documents in multiple departments. This is not a process that can be completed in a matter of days, or in this case, 30 days.
This brings me to the financial implications. I don't think we can ignore the fact that this kind of request could potentially cost millions of dollars to fulfill. Every hour spent on a public servant's trying to review these documents is an hour funded by the Canadian taxpayers. When you multiply that across teams—in this case, across departments and across weeks—the cost very quickly escalates.
It's not just financial. There's also a very real opportunity cost. The opportunity cost is what we saw today with the witnesses. We had almost a dozen people lined up to provide testimony on Build Canada Homes, the report we're studying right now. That's lost. For every dollar spent and every hour dedicated to compiling documents such as these, that's time, money and resources wasted when we could be working on some of the things we had previously, as a group, agreed to work on.
When Canadians are rightly expecting timely access to benefits, faster processing of applications and responsive government services, this motion counteracts everything you're trying to do. It redirects the public servants away from those core responsibilities. Let's think about that for a moment.
On top of that, during question period our minister diligently reported multiple times that they are working with the groups of people who might have been affected through this technology—people 60 years old, whom they are now trying to onboard and realign. They said that if any of us, the 343 members of Parliament, have constituents and seniors in our ridings who are affected by this, we should reach out.
We're also asking the same public servants who at this time process EI claims, who support seniors accessing benefits, who help newcomers navigate immigration systems and who ensure that programs are delivered efficiently to pause and do this work. Making them do this is not efficient. At the least, it's significantly slowing down other services in other areas in order to sift through millions of pages of records.
That's the trade-off. It's what they're asking for today. I don't think Canadians would support this trade-off right now. Our focus as parliamentarians, in this room and on the Hill, should be on improving service delivery, on ensuring that government works better for people and on holding the government to account in a way that is effective and proportionate. Our team went through the motion. In its current form, it does not achieve that balance. Instead, it creates an administrative burden that risks undermining the very services that Canadians rely on.
Let's be clear: Committees absolutely have the right to request information. This is a fundamental part of the role in ensuring transparency and accountability. However, with that right also comes responsibility, which I don't think they've taken into account today. In terms of making requests that are targeted, relevant and feasible, this motion does not meet any of those standards. It is not targeted. It does not clearly define the scope in a way that would allow departments to respond efficiently. Instead, it casts an extremely wide net, capturing vast amounts of material that may have only a tangible connection to the issue at hand. That lack of focus is not a practical problem. It's a procedural problem. That's a huge concern.
If we adopt such motions without careful consideration, we also risk setting a precedent for unlimited, unfocused document demands across government. Today it is this file; tomorrow it could be another. Over time, this approach overwhelms the system, making it harder, not easier, for committees to get information they actually need and to hear testimony from experts to develop and strengthen our programs that we need.
A well-crafted request that zeroes in on specific documents or a specific time frame, working with all committee members and our public servants, will provide information that a blanket demand for everything under the sun.... That's what this motion is. A well-crafted request allows departments to respond quickly and more accurately, and it enables committees to do their work more effectively.
That's the standard the people in this room. It's especially important to keep that standard in mind when we consider the work that we're doing and that's also been done on this file already, such as what our ministers talked about when the Bloc was broaching the subject of Cúram.
Multiple times since way back in October, our minister has said that, yes, we are onboarding a program that is old with new technology. I believe it's 30,000 or so people right now—of the millions of people who were being onboarded—who are affected. She said, to all 343 MPs and reaching out to our senior populations, that if there is anybody who is still affected by this, they can reach out to the minister directly. This is something she has said diligently, multiple times, during question period in public for everybody to hear and see.
There has already been quite a bit of transparency within this engagement. Minister Hajdu has appeared before committee. Minister Lightbound has also appeared. Officials from their offices and from relevant departments have already provided testimony and have answered questions. I'm wondering if my Bloc member was actually there before initiating this type of motion.
If they've already offered technical briefings to critics and have already offered to ensure that members have a detailed understanding of the issues, I don't see why producing millions, potentially, of documents and large amounts of paper is going to do anything except prove a point: that, at the will of whoever wants to, they can stall our public service.
At the request of the committee, officials have also been provided regional breakdowns and costing information into this program. That's not insignificant either. That is substantive. It is detailed information that helps inform our understanding and that supports our oversight role here as a government. The idea that there has been a lack of transparency simply doesn't hold firm.
There has been engagement. There has been disclosure. There has been a willingness to provide information and to answer questions.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
The member seems to be reading notes from her phone. It might just save the filibuster if she produced those notes for the committee members to read themselves.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mr. Seeback. That's not a point of order.
The member has the floor and is debating the amendment to the motion.
You have the floor, Ms. Fancy.
Liberal
Jessica Fancy-Landry Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
I'd really like to commend my colleague over there very quickly for realizing that I am a good reader and that I am also a really good note-taker. Thank you for that, colleague.
Would this be meaningful to enhancing our understanding of the actual problem at hand, or is it simply to create overwhelming volumes of material that is difficult to navigate, time-consuming to produce and costly to compile? In this motion, you want all of that done within 30 days of adoption.
I would argue the latter, and that's why I believe that we need to approach this a lot more thoroughly and work together as a team. Yesterday, our Prime Minister talked about how important it is to work as a team within government and create those partnerships and a lack of transparency barriers. Let's ask for the documents that are directly relevant to those concerns without a defined timeline or in a way that's feasible for departments to deliver.
I don't think this is working as a team. Just to let my colleague know, I did not read that off my page.
Let's talk about how we strike the right balance between accountability and practicality. At the end of the day, our goal is not to generate paper. It's to generate insight, and it's to ensure that we have the information we need to do our jobs effectively without imposing unnecessary burdens on that system or diverting resources away from Canadians, which is what we're doing right now.
We had all of these witnesses here today to talk to us about the implementation of Bill C-20 in the building of Build Canada Homes. We had them all here, specialists in their area, some of our top-notch people—only to say that they could come here, pay the money to come as a witness and then have to go home before our first round even got finished.
If you talk about people who are facing real challenges, they're also navigating affordability challenges, accessing services and relying on government programs. They expect us as parliamentarians to be responsible stewards of public resources and to prioritize outcomes that make a difference in daily lives. A motion that would cost millions of dollars of taxpayer money, that would take months and months to complete and that has to be done in 30 days.... I don't think this motion helps to prioritize outcomes or makes a difference in daily lives.
This makes us go to our constituents to say that, unfortunately, we are onboarding a brand new program that's been almost 60 years in the making of change and implementation, and if we have any vulnerable people in our constituencies who are affected by this, to help work with our constituents. It's our job to help our constituents. It's not to try to get tons of papers, when Minister Hajdu has already provided information and transparency about this, as has Minister Lightbound.
It might sound like some strong accountability but, in practice, this also risks being counterproductive. I would encourage colleagues to take a step back, consider a more balanced approach and recognize the work that's already been done. Let's acknowledge information that's already been provided, and let's focus on identifying any of the gaps that remain. This would allow us to address them effectively without creating undue burden. That could mean amending a motion to narrow scope or specifying particular documents or specific time periods. It could also be about setting a more realistic timeline that reflects the complexity of this task. There are options to this motion.
Maintaining the motion as it currently stands, in my view, is the right path forward. It's about how we as a committee choose to exercise this type of authority. It's about setting a standard for how we balance that transparency with practicality, with accountability and then with responsibility. We have the tools that we need to do our work effectively. This is a question, I believe, of whether we do this wisely.
In this case I would suggest a more targeted, realistic and proportionate approach that would serve both this committee and Canadians and that would help us deliver what's currently being proposed far better.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
I wanted to respond, through the chair, to some of the things I have heard. Mr. Joseph commented about how this would set a precedent. I don't think that's true. There have been production orders requested over many different Parliaments, whether in the House or in committees, and they have been produced. I don't think that is a factual argument. It isn't something that will set a precedent, because it's been done before.
As for Ms. Fancy's point about vulnerable people, I would argue seniors are a vulnerable population and many weren't receiving their OAS given this system changeover. I also see a contradiction in that. Our committee is responsible for a lot of different things. What we're responsible for is maybe a debate for another day, but at the end of the day I know that this has been brought up in other committees. It's interesting to me that the Liberals are filibustering at different committees.
We're hearing a lot about how we're not listening to the witnesses. If the Liberals would stop filibustering and stop talking, and stop doing whatever the PMO is wanting them to do, then we would pass this and move on. They can start, whoever it is in the department, getting the things that are being asked of this committee so that we can be here for those we represent, which is also our seniors, some of whom aren't receiving their OAS payments.
At the end of the day, it's Liberals who are obstructing, they're filibustering, they're delaying, and they're avoiding transparency. To say that the minister has done everything she can.... We never suggested it would be millions of pages or cost millions of dollars. If the Liberals are saying that, it makes me wonder what they are hiding. What is being hidden when it comes to the benefits delivery modernization? Cúram is just one aspect, and we're here wanting to know why. These are pretty simple questions.
The Liberals need to stop filibustering, stop delaying, stop obstructing and vote for this amendment so that we can be transparent with Canadians and effective for Canadians, and at the end of the day, serve them in the best of our capacity to do the work here.
Pass the amendment. Let's move on and let the bureaucracy do what they need to do, which is to produce these documents, and then we can get to the work that Ms. Fancy so urgently wants to do.
I would say that she should encourage her whip's office and the PMO to stop filibustering this at both committees in which this is happening and let this pass so that we can move on to finish our housing study and other studies that we have on the docket. I look forward to the Liberals' yes vote on this.
Thank you.
Liberal
Liberal
Annie Koutrakis Liberal Vimy, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's quite interesting to hear how the Liberal government is being accused of not being transparent, when we all know the work that has been done to date. Both Minister Hajdu and Minister Lightbound, as well as their officials and offices, have appeared on the issue. The officials have provided a technical briefing to critics. Officials provided the committee with regional breakdowns and costing at the request of the committee. There has already been significant transparency and engagement on this file. For months and weeks, we've heard over and over questions in question period about the Cúram system from all the opposition parties. I don't know how anyone can think that's not being transparent.
As my colleagues have mentioned, this motion is requesting millions of pages across multiple departments. This could cost millions of dollars, and it would not be completed within the time frame suggested in the motion. A 30-day timeline is completely unrealistic, especially when we've already heard the opposition members say that our seniors are a vulnerable population and they need to receive their OAS payments on time. That's exactly what the department is trying to do, to make sure that they do serve the population not only for the OAS, but also for so many other programs that are being delivered through that department.
There are 40,000 employees working in ESDC. It's one of the largest ministries that we have in government. I always say that from the moment someone is born to their end of life, all the programs in between come through that department.
To think that 30 days is a reasonable amount of time to ask for all of this documentation is completely unrealistic. Everyone watching us today, Quebeckers and Canadians from coast to coast to coast, must be scratching their heads and thinking that if there really is a problem with this system and there are kinks or issues that need to be resolved, how is it helping by wasting the time of this committee, which is working on so many other important studies and legislative pieces that Canadians rely on? One of them is Bill C-20, on delivering affordable housing in a timely manner. I'm sure many Canadians who are watching are scratching their heads today.
This would require the public service to comb through millions of documents across multiple departments. Although we haven't seen the estimate of the costs, you can imagine if you've been in private business.... When you are using resources in the department in this way, work in other areas that needs to be done is not being done. It costs money. Resources cost money. They're not free.
Every dollar that we are using is to make sure that Canadians are delivered the services that they expect. Canadians expect timely service. This motion would redirect public servants away from the processing claims. I don't see how this motion deals with the concerns that are being raised.
Our focus should be on improving service delivery and not creating an administrative burden. Having been in the private sector for many years, I can tell you this is not the correct way to use money, whether it's in the private sector or in the public sector. This is not what Canadians are expecting us to use their taxpayer dollars for: to produce more papers, to sift through more papers, and to take up committee time—not only our committee time, but the time of other committees that are looking at this very same issue.
I think our government, the ministries involved and the officials have provided more than adequate information. If there is any reason more technical briefings or explanations are required of the officials, I am sure they would be more than willing to meet with HUMA committee members to provide them with any additional information they have, to better understand how complicated it is to replace a 60-year-old system with a new modern system of delivering benefits. It's really not an easy feat. I'm sure everyone around this table agrees with that, but we are where we are.
It's not an easy time. I understand that opposition members may be frustrated. Perhaps things will change in the near future, and this is their way of showing how unhappy they are. I really do understand that.
If we're going to continue to work together and deliver for Canadians, we need to take a step back and ask ourselves if we are really using the time in this committee and other committees to do what Canadians expect of us. Isn't it a shame that we couldn't continue listening to the witnesses who were invited here to discuss Bill C-20? Here we are talking more about answers that we've already been given by officials and by the ministers.
As I said, for queries that are still unanswered, I am certain that any information that committee members need would be given within a time frame that is feasible.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Madame Koutrakis.
My speaking list moves next to Madame Acan.
Liberal
Sima Acan Liberal Oakville West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I would like to tell Mr. Seeback, through you, Mr. Chair, that I'm going to be reading from notes. Those notes were prepared by me while listening to the debate—which is actually debate, not filibustering.
The motion presented by the opposition requires a technical and administrative undertaking that is functionally impossible within the mandated 30-day time frame. As a person with an electronics background married to a brilliant mathematician who is a successful IT person, and for whom IT is daily life in my house and at the family table, I argue that a request for all emails and electronic communications since January 1, 2017, across five major departments and the Prime Minister's Office, involves the retrieval and processing of massive volumes of unstructured data spanning nearly a decade.
From a technical perspective, fulfilling this would require the following.
First, for data retrieval and discovery, we'd be running keyword queries across the servers of six distinct entities to capture every communication regarding the current platform and the BDM's performance. For a project of this scale, a conservative estimate is that this could be 500,000 to one million individual records.
Second, the motion explicitly requires redactions in accordance with the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act. Based on standard industry benchmarks for legal document review—I am drawing from my general IT project management knowledge—a manual or even AI-assisted review for sensitive or personal identifiable information takes approximately two to three minutes per page.
Third, there are human-power requirements. If we process 500 pages at an average of two minutes per page, the task requires 16,666 man-hours. To complete this within a 30-day window, the government would need to immediately divert approximately 104 full-time equivalent staff to work exclusively on this project for 40 hours a week, with zero margin of error or technical delays. In the technical world, we have margins of error and delays. Please do a simple calculation. Multiply these numbers by two or three if we are talking about one million pages of documents. Please do a further calculation if we are talking about 500,000 to one million individual records, where the number of pages could definitely double or triple.
Fourth, extracting data summaries and tracking processing times, backlogs and error rates in the current platform over a nine-year period involves querying legacy databases and normalizing data from different systems' iterations. Technically, this is not a simple export function. It is a very complex data forensics and semantics task that usually requires weeks of validation to ensure the accuracy requested by the committee.
Demanding this volume of audited, redacted and synthesized technical data in 30 days ignores the reality of IT architecture and data governance protocols. It is obvious that this motion and the Conservative amendment are without thought, in terms of technicalities, and without any calculation. Ultimately, the motion by the Bloc and the amendment by the Conservatives demonstrate a profound lack of technical literacy regarding the operational life cycle of a large-scale IT infrastructure project such as the BDM.
Demanding nine years' worth of granular system logs, performance summaries and unsiloed communications across six separate government bodies in a mere 30-day window is not a legitimate exercise in transparency. It is a deliberate attempt to reduce the administrative and technical capacity of the civil service. As a technical person, I see this for what it is: an impossible set of requirements designed to force a system crash—for it will definitely force a system crash—of the departments' work for political leverage. This is a transparently dirty game of procedural sabotage intended to paralyze the government's delivery of essential benefits before committee majorities can be established.
Canadians are smarter than the opposition thinks. They see that this isn't an oversight. It is a calculated effort to break the system from within, while ignoring every fundamental principle of data governance and system architecture.
Those are a few of my calculations and a few of my words to be considered. It is technically very difficult. It's impossible to do it within a 30-day time frame. Looking at all these documents is a risk for our system, so I would ask the opposition, both parties, to look at those words that they put outside.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Ms. Acan.
Before I move to the speaking list, I'm going to advise the witnesses that they can leave. It is unlikely that we will return.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Yes.
There was a motion moved, which was within the members' prerogative in their speaking time, that returned the committee to debate the motion. We're now in debate on the amendment to that motion, which is the prerogative of the members of this committee.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Order.
It is left to the witnesses. If they wish, they can leave.
The next speaker is Monsieur Joseph.
Please go ahead.