Evidence of meeting #106 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was subamendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
I believe what's being broadcast at the moment says, “in camera”, and I'm wondering if we could just quickly check that to see if—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
No, it's public. In the beginning, I said that we are meeting in public.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
It should be in public, as far as the clerk tells me.
Okay, I'm going to suspend for a few minutes to make sure that everything is in order.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you.
Before I continue, Mr. Chair, I don't want to start all over again, so can I confirm that my remarks as far as introducing the motion are public and publicly available?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Yes. That is my understanding. I have checked with the technical staff, and that is exactly what they have told me.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you.
I'll go back to where I was as far as the election was concerned. It was an unnecessary and expensive election from 2020-21 that interrupted our role in serving the people of Afghanistan, particularly the people trying to get to Canada from Afghanistan who had been allies of Canada in the process of attempting to bring more democracy and a functional government to Afghanistan, which failed in the summer of 2021...our inability to respond.
The issue with that is that Canada is a supposedly viable political entity that is respected less and less around the world, so our democracy, as seen as a rules-based order, is falling apart. This motion addresses that by holding people accountable for what was an effort to circumvent the rule of law and having some people have access to documents that allowed for the immigration of certain people from Afghanistan, who weren't authorized by the government and weren't permitted to come to Canada, but had behind-the-scenes access to documents that allowed them to come.
That was facilitated through the then-minister of national defence's office. The then-minister of defence has disavowed any association with the individual who proved to be responsible for that, who was his chief of staff.
I'm happy to have the support of the other opposition parties in this motion. I'm particularly happy to have the support of Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, who's very concerned, as we are, about the effects this has on international accountability around the world, and of Ms. Jenny Kwan, from the NDP. I will quote her support and her concerns about this from a previous meeting, when she said, “I don't believe that chiefs of staff act on their own without the authorization of their political master.”
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Excuse me, Mr. McLean. We cannot quote anything from the meeting that was held in camera. Please continue.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
I believe this is a public meeting. I'm quoting from meeting number 59 of this committee.
I'll double-check. I thought somebody double-checked whether that was a public meeting.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Because the public meeting is the.... Okay. That's fine. As long as you're fine. I just want to protect you.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
No. I don't want to be offside here. Can the clerk check whether meeting number 59 was a public meeting, or if I'm quoting something that shouldn't be quoted?
Liberal
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Let me reiterate the support of my colleague from the NDP here.
I don't believe that chiefs of staff act on their own without the authorization of their political master.
If you have correspondence to indicate that ministers were aware and knew this was all going on at the same time, that would be a pertinent piece of documentation we need to have—
I appreciate the support of my NDP colleague in this motion as well. It is well noted. In moving this forward, we have to make sure that we hold this government accountable. That's the role of all opposition parties: to make sure that all of this nonsense that goes on...that this government is actually very much held to account for that.
People talk about His Majesty's loyal opposition. This is what we do. We hold the government to account, and those people holding the government to account include the backbenchers of every party, not just the Conservative Party of Canada but also the New Democratic Party, the Bloc Québécois, and even, if you will—and I'm looking across the table here—the backbenchers in the Liberal Party of Canada. Malfeasance at the government level—that's Governor in Council—should be held to account in Parliament by all members of Parliament.
I'm happy that we're moving forward with this today, Mr. Chair, but I do want to talk about responsible government and what this means because there is, in the end, responsible government and ministerial accountability on the table here. That ministerial accountability can't just rest with the chief of staff. I appreciate that the chief of staff is the one who will have to be investigated by the RCMP if the RCMP determines that that person, Mr. George Young, chief of staff to then-defence minister Harjit S. Sajjan, was breaking the law in providing template documents for people to enter Canada from Afghanistan. That is something that we don't do in this committee. Our job here is to refer that to the people who will determine if charges should be laid, and those people, of course, are the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
I don't understand why this has been filibustered this long when it's something that should proceed as a function of normalcy in a democracy governed by the rule of law, with an arm's-length police body. This is something that we need to refer to them, and I'm pushing on how we can do that. I would ask this question to my colleagues on the other side of the table: If not this accountability, then what? This is clearly an infringement of the law. I'm not going to say whether this person is guilty or not. I am going to say something outside the process, the viable process that should have happened in a Canadian system of laws, was moved around here. Somebody worked around the system and provided some template documents so that some people were in line ahead of other people to get from a very troubled zone in the world into Canada, and that's not the way this country operates. We're a country with the rule of law.
The trouble I have with this is that 18 meetings, a basic filibuster on getting a letter out.... It's that whole concept of where there's smoke, there's fire. Is there a reason that my colleagues on the Liberal side of the table are moving heaven and earth to not have this paragraph in this letter to refer this to the RCMP to determine if charges should be laid against Mr. George Young, chief of staff to the Honourable Harjit Sajjan, the then minister of defence? It is something that perplexes all of us because it doesn't seem like—if I can say this—a hill to die on.
Mr. Chair, we need to move forward with this, but again, accountability.... I'll reference this whole accountability framework because this government came into power with the concept of accountability and transparency at the forefront. However, like many things I've seen with this government.... I know I've only been here since 2019—my colleagues will recall—but the Prime Minister came in 2015, and he was talking about raising the bar on openness and transparency in government. I suggest that exactly the opposite has happened, that this government is no longer transparent. It is opaque. It does not want to take accountability for any of its actions. It continues to put words on the table that it does not fulfill.
We have to move past this and actually get back to a plan where we have a government that functions the way it talks. Words on paper are one thing, but actually delivering against those words on paper is the role of the executive part of government. That is not being done right now.
The transparency act was introduced by the Prime Minister. The objectives were to achieve:
ending the secret nature of the House of Commons’ Board of Internal Economy and entrenching in law that all government information must be made both “open by default” and available in formats that are relevant and functional....We want a government that is more open after a thorough review and modernization of the entire Access to Information system; the elimination of all fees beyond the...$5 Access to Information request fee, which should be refunded in the event of delay; and for the Information Commissioner’s mandate to be strengthened by giving her the power to enforce information laws.
That was the intent of the current Prime Minister when he came into power in 2015. I suggest that nine years later, that intent is a joke. That has not been fulfilled at all.
Again, those are words on paper that this government is not abiding by. In finance we used to say that you're not eating your own cooking. Get back here, actually put these words down on paper, and recognize what they mean, even when it means asking the RCMP to investigate a chief of staff, the number one confidant of a minister in the government. That is incredibly important here.
Well, one of the things we're worried about here, and one of the reasons we think it may have been filibustered, as hard as it has been here, is the rush for people to get out of Afghanistan. People were in absolute misery. Their lives were on the line. That is something where you will do whatever you have to do at that point in time to get yourself and your family safe. Sometimes in those horrible situations, there are people in the mix who profit from the misery of other people. If somebody in this government has helped some third party profit from the misery that was being visited upon Afghanis at that point in time, then that's something the RCMP need to root out. They need to make sure that this “pay to play” that seems to happen so often with this government didn't get manifested in the evacuation of Afghani nationals who helped Canadians when we were over there and trying to instill a new form of government, a democracy for all Afghanis.
Canada is not a banana republic. We need a rule of law. We've had a rule of law. It is drifting down in the world, at this point in time. Nobody sees the rule of law in Canada being enforced anymore. This is one small example. Get this person examined by the appropriate authorities for doing something that he should never have done. Breaking the law does not go with impunity just because you're connected to the governing Liberal Party of Canada. You have to ensure that everybody has the same accountability, at the end of the day, and not just people who aren't your friends. Your friends have to meet the same bar of accountability here, going forward.
I can reference all kinds of instances, Mr. Chair. The SNC-Lavalin affair, of course, was the most pronounced where rules were broken. Cabinet ministers were effectively dismissed over what happened over a series of incidents. Jody Wilson-Raybould is no longer a cabinet minister with this government. She actually tried to speak truth to power and make sure there was some accountability for a mercantilist Prime Minister who was trying to make sure that a company where he had some connections didn't face the full consequences of the rule of law.
Again, part of what we're trying to enforce here is the rule of law applying to everybody and every entity. That's not happening at all with this government. Mr. George Young has to be held accountable for his actions here.
I would be remiss in not making sure we talk about how it's who you know in this government that gets you paid. I can tell you how many studies...and I was looking at another one last week. One of the government's friends is writing a report that is a nonsense report, but millions of dollars are being spent putting words on paper. The Auditor General herself brought forth the issues around the number of contracts of hundreds of millions of dollars that are going to McKinsey without any accountability for what's happening with those reports, at the end of the day.
Money is flying off the table. The government's friends are getting rich in the process, and Canadians are being ill served. Canadians are being taxed more in so many ways. The most egregious example, of course, is the raising of the tax that was introduced last week by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.
Even the Conservative side of this House—and I'm certain the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois as well—is dismayed at how our international reputation is in tatters because of the way the world views this mercantilist government. This is no way to run a country, and we need to move past it and make sure we start governing effectively.
McKinsey is one example. We have other examples. These are a lot of rich people getting richer with this government's actions. We govern for the people of Canada, and we need to know that. The people of Canada elect us to come here and to make sure government is held to account so that this money doesn't slip off the table the way we've seen happen here.
I will talk about the greenwashing, of course. We can go through all kinds of that. However, there are all kinds of people around the world who are benefiting from this government's actions, actions for which they are unaccountable and that are leading us nowhere.
I'll go into the other two apparently offending parts of this committee report that don't seem to be seeing the light of day just yet. I'm hoping we get some consensus around the table that these are all the applicable paragraphs. Number 19 says:
During its study, the Committee was informed that IRCC, GAC, and DND had each conducted internal investigations and reviews regarding the issuance of “inauthentic” facilitation letters to third parties. In October 2022, IRCC concluded that the letters at issue “did not come officially from the Government of Canada.” The department was unable to determine the exact number of “inauthentic” letters that were circulated, and referred the matter to law enforcement in February, 2023. Former IRCC deputy minister, Christiane Fox, denied having found any evidence that Senator McPhedran had sent any documentation to IRCC staff regarding her actions. In March 2023, GAC conducted an internal investigation on the matter. In November 2023, DND informed the Committee that, through its own internal review, the department had concluded that none of its officials or those of the CAF were involved in the production or transmission of facilitation letters and that no staff were aware of third-party distribution.
There's nothing wrong with that paragraph, and yet it has not passed this committee yet.
Paragraph 20 says,
The Committee remains unclear as to how relevant officials and ministers were not made aware of Senator Marilou McPhedran's actions during the evacuation, and did not respond to them, especially since she was in direct contact with the DND chief of staff at the time. [The chief of staff in question was Mr. George Young.] As such, the Committee recommends that all notes, records, and reports from the investigation into fake facilitation letters be provided to the Committee upon conclusion of these investigations. The Committee hopes that such disclosure will shed light on any integrity issues within government evacuation processes, and that any issues identified will be resolved in the event of future humanitarian crises.
There's nothing wrong with that paragraph, again, Mr. Chair.
I read out the parts there, but I do want to get the timeline here so that people are aware of what we're talking about. The Special Committee on Afghanistan started its report shortly after the disaster that happened with this country and the people who were our friends in Afghanistan who were not assured that they could be evacuated in an orderly fashion from Afghanistan.
That committee started hearings on December 13, 2021. The new government came into being in October of 2021. That committee reported on Wednesday, June 8, 2022, and the response from the government was on October 6, 2022. These are normal timelines in terms of the way committees respond and report. Then the IRCC committee, this committee, started looking at this in February of 2023.
Here we are, over a year later. As I said, there have 18 meetings of filibustering on what should be a pretty routine, transparent process to move this along. We've heard from 26 witnesses. We need to make sure that we continue to get this letter in front of the appropriate authorities so that people are held to account. It's about accountability. It's about transparency.
I've said a lot here today, Mr. Chair. I hope my colleagues around the table will support this motion, get this letter completed today and move it toward action items that will hold somebody to account.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Thank you.
I have Mr. Chiang and then Mr. Maguire.
Mr. Chiang, please go ahead.
Liberal
Paul Chiang Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning to everyone here in the room. I hope you all had a good weekend.
I want to thank Mr. McLean for his words on his motion.
Like you, I have been here since September. With regard to the 2021 election, I personally think it was a good thing, because I got elected in 2021. It gave me the opportunity to be here, to sit across from all of you, to be your colleague and to be able to do the work of the government.
It was also a good year for me because it was the year I retired from the police department. The important word is “retired”. I was never kicked out. I never quit. I went through everything and I retired after serving for 28 years. It was a marriage of service for 28 years.
I learned a lot in the 28 years I was there. One of the things I learned is that the police are an independent agency. They function on their own. They're accountable to themselves and they're accountable to the police services board that governs them. They're not accountable to the government of the day or to the mayor. In the U.S., where the system is different, the mayor of the city dictates what the police service does.
However, in Canada, and especially in Ontario.... I cannot speak for other provinces in Canada, because policing is a provincial matter. Of course, the attorney general is the person in the province who's in charge of the police department, but each police service has a police services board that is made up of civilian, provincial and city-appointed personnel that governs what the police service does. It's not the mayor or the councillors in the city; it's the police services board, and it is important for us to know that fact.
The reason it's so important is that we, as a government, cannot tell the RCMP what to do. As a government, we cannot tell the OPP what to do. As a government, we cannot tell York Regional Police or Toronto police what to do, because they're independent.
The reason I'm bringing that up, and why it's so important that members across from me know this, is that because of those rules, we are not a banana republic country. Because we have independence, we are not a banana republic. Our head of state cannot dictate to the police service what to do, how to do it, how to investigate and who to investigate. It is crucial that we understand those things.
I'm not sure what backgrounds or what professions the honourable members across have come from, or whether they from the legal profession or some other profession that may not have had any dealings with the police department. Hopefully, none of them have been arrested before or had any dealings with the police service.
I had the misfortune last night of having an accident while driving to Ottawa. The misfortune for me— it was a minor misfortune—was hitting a deer on Highway 7. Unfortunately for the deer, it did not survive, but I was fortunate. I just have some aches and pains, but I'm here, and the reason I'm here is the important work we are doing here. That important work is why I want to be here to serve alongside you all.
The challenge for me last night was that I could not tell the police what to do. They still have to do their job. They came; they investigated and they gave me a police report.
I'm here. I'm lucky to be alive. I'm 64 years old and I've been driving for the last 46 years of my life in Canada. This was not my first accident. Hopefully it's my last accident. I don't want to have an accident.
It was my first time hitting a deer in my life. I never hit anything else except for a car, and thank God for that. I'm fortunate because my staff wanted me to bring something to Ottawa for this last week of Parliament, something that was important for them. I could not carry it on my motorcycle. Usually I come to Ottawa on a motorcycle. If I had been on a motorcycle last night, I might not be here with you this morning.
I'm so grateful that I'm here with you this morning. I was driving an SUV that sustained quite a lot of damage, but I'm here.
I haven't told my wife yet. You here are the first to know what happened last night. If I tell my wife, she's going to be upset at me because I was driving her car. That's the challenge for me, but I will tell her in my own way.
Liberal
Paul Chiang Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
I want to go back to the part where we are not a banana republic. I want to make sure that the people out there understand that we are not a banana republic. We will not go under that banana republic label, because we are a country with a rule of law. We are a country that respects the law. We are a country that understands what law is all about.
Why do people come to Canada from all across the globe? They want to come to Canada because we are a democracy. We follow the law and we respect each other's freedom, rights, religion and sexual orientation. We respect what food you eat, where you live and who you hang out with.
I choose to hang out with my colleagues across the aisle here. I'm so happy to be able to hang out with all of you. Nobody made me do this. I worked hard to be here.
I'm so happy that I'm able to see all of you here today, because if it weren't for my quick thinking and a little police motor vehicle manoeuvre, I might not have been here with you this morning because of the accident I had last night. If you want proof, I do have a police report to show that I was in an accident and that the car was damaged quite extensively.
Anyway, going back to democracy, we are living in a democracy, and I firmly believe that we should leave the police to do the job they are paid to do or they are entrusted to do or they are sworn to do. They are sworn to secrecy. They are sworn to confidentiality. They are sworn to fulfilling their duties as police officers. It's the highest honour.
Being a member of Parliament is such an honour for me. I get to be in a place where only 338 members get elected to be. Some 128,000 residents live in my riding of Markham—Unionville. It was good enough for them to think that I deserve to be here, that I should be here, because I represent them.
One of the reasons I am representing them here is that out of the 128,000 people in my riding, 66% are of Chinese descent. That's the largest Chinese population in any riding right across Canada. For me it's important to reflect the community that I live in and I represent.
Apart from speaking four dialects of Chinese—Mandarin, Cantonese, the dialect of Hubei and Hakka—I also speak Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi and a little bit of English. It helps me to communicate and meet with my residents and to help them in the best way I possibly can, to advocate on their behalf and make sure they understand that I will take their voice to Ottawa, because for me, together we achieve—
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Mr. Chair, this is just on the issue that the debate is supposed to be germane to the discussion.
I appreciate and I'm very happy to see that my friend is here from Toronto all safe and in one piece—minus his wife's SUV. I'm sure she will pay him back for doing that. Maybe she'll take his motorcycle out.
That said, I don't believe this debate is germane to the Afghanistan letter that we're trying to complete and the three paragraphs that my colleague read in.
I also suggest that at the next meeting of this committee, we have deer too.
Liberal
Liberal
Paul Chiang Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you, Mr. Kmiec, and thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am coming to my discussion on the motion that Mr. McLean has brought up. The reason I want to speak about the banana republic and I want to speak about being here in Parliament is to bring about honouring Canada's legacy in Afghanistan. We responded as a government to the humanitarian crisis. We helped people reach safety.
I was fortunate to be able to be at Pearson International Airport to welcome the last flight that came in from Afghanistan and to see the faces of the people and the family members who were on the ground waiting. I met with many of them. I spoke with many of them. There were families there who had waited seven years to reunite with their brother, their mother and the extended family they brought along with them. To see the relief, to see the happiness in their faces—it was priceless. Just like the Mastercard slogan, it was priceless.
“On August 15, 2021, the government and security forces of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan collapsed. Panic took hold in the streets of the last territory that had been under its control”. The panic was so extensive that the capital of Kabul was under siege at that time. Returning to power via military force was the Taliban, a group whose repressive rule had horrified the world in the late nineties and who had harboured the al Qaeda terrorists who carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001.
I remember that day very well. I distinctly remember September 11, 2001. I was standing at the corner of Trench Street and Major MacKenzie Drive in the city of Richmond Hill, directing traffic right outside of Mackenzie health science centre, the hospital there. My colleague Darryl Rice and I were standing there directing traffic that day when the plane hit. People who were driving by asked us if we'd heard about it. We were flabbergasted at such a horrible turn of events happening in New York City.
The republic’s collapse unleashed shockwaves within Afghanistan and around the world. It signified the abrupt end of a nearly 20-year effort, which had seen hundreds of thousands of international coalition troops serve—with thousands fallen or wounded —as well as billions of dollars spent on security force training, reconstruction and development. As the situation on the ground unravelled, a multinational air bridge was formed. Many were rescued amid volatile and dangerous conditions. However, when the final evacuation flight departed Kabul at the end of August 2021—