International Trade Committee on Oct. 7th, 2024

[Ashlyn Bernier]

It's an awareness issue. We're less than a hundred people. Our competitors are a thousand. They have big budgets to spend on marketing. They have lobbyists. They're working with agencies. That's why we're asking for support and initiative from the government to help us get into those conversations. We don't necessarily have the means that our competitors do to force our way in.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

All right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to our witnesses. It's a very exciting study that we're doing, and your information this morning was invaluable. Thank you very much.

We will take a short break.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I call the meeting back to order.

First, I have to introduce in paper form, in English and in French, the motion submitted by Mr. Savard-Tremblay last week, so that we know exactly and clearly what we are currently dealing with.

Before we open that up for discussion, I need to read you the following procedural information to help the committee as we move forward.

Before moving to the consideration of the motion on the reception of documents from CBSA, I need to take a minute to go over what was already provided to date. As you will have seen, CBSA provided an additional update this morning on the documents—I assume everybody saw the letter from CBSA that came in this morning. Thus far they have provided the committee with five documents, made up of 16 appendices, totalling 290 pages. This does not include documents received on October 1 and October 7. As they noted in the updates, the remaining documents are not tied up with the department but with translation. In total, there are over 30,000 pages to be translated, which is a lot of work being undertaken by, apparently, a limited number of people.

I also suggested to the clerk, when he finds the opportunity, to invite the manager of the translation services to the committee. I think it would be helpful if the committee got a better handle on just how many people work in that department and so on, if that's okay with the committee. At a later date, we'll have the manager come in for a few minutes.

They also provided an update on when documents will be ready. Later today, if not already, CBSA will have provided the first package of documents responsive to part (a) of the committee's March 19 motion and all outstanding documents responsive to the committee's March 21 motion. You should have all received that already or will be receiving it today.

The next thing we would be looking for is a disclosure package responsive to one of the two remaining March 19 written undertakings in the next week; a series of disclosure packages, as translation is complete, responsive to part (a) of the committee's March 19 motion, to be provided as quickly as possible; second, disclosure packages responsive to parts (b) and (c) of the committee's March 19 motion, to be provided as quickly as possible; and a disclosure package responsive to the final outstanding March 19 written undertaking, again, to be provided as quickly as possible. CBSA also reiterated that they can prioritize any documents remaining that the committee would like them to.

At the end of last Wednesday's meeting, Mr. Savard-Tremblay presented a motion that, having now had a chance to look at it more closely, qualifies as a question of privilege. Namely, he's alleging that the committee's privileges were breached through CBSA's delay in providing the requested documents within the requested timelines. The power to send for papers and records is among the powers of House committees, so I agree that this relates to parliamentary privilege and that members are free to discuss that matter.

That said, I draw the members' attention to page 986 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, on the matter of refusals to comply with an order for papers and records, which states:

In cases where the author of or the authority responsible for a record refuses to comply with an order issued by a committee to produce documents, the committee essentially has three options. The first is to accept the reasons and conditions put forward to justify the refusal; the committee members then concede that they will not have access to the record or accept the record with passages deleted. The second is to seek an acceptable compromise with the author or the authority responsible for access to the record.... The third option is to reject the reasons given for denying access to the record and uphold the order to produce the entire record.

While this is not a one-on-one comparison, as CBSA is not refusing to produce the documents, I think it is relevant to the matter at hand. It is well within the committee's rights to report to the House if it decides that this is the best course of action in this instance. However, while the documents have yet to be produced, CBSA has been responsive when asked about them. Based on what we've heard, they have been working to co-operate with the committee's request, but translation is what's preventing them from providing the documents. As previously noted, there are over 30,000 pages currently being translated. They have also offered to prioritize the translation of specific documents at the committee's request, an offer that we as yet have not taken advantage of.

Therefore, I would seek the committee's direction on how you would like to proceed with this matter. I would like to think that we could find a compromise on this question, but I will leave it in the committee's hands.

Now, we'll move on to the motion from Monsieur Savard-Tremblay.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you.

As in any field, in politics, there are some pills that are bigger and harder to swallow.

I'm glad to know that most of the documents will be tabled, but my point remains the same. We got a verbal commitment here in March that all documents would be tabled. I must admit that I'm surprised that a government agency such as this doesn't already have a French version of these documents on hand.

We passed a motion, and we were clearly told that these documents would be delivered within two weeks. That's what they said, not me. I wouldn't have proposed something unrealistic. Agency officials told us that it was possible. Then, in April, if I'm not mistaken, a delay was announced, which will almost bring us to the imminent implementation of the new system. In your update, you said that we would receive the last two documents requested shortly, and we still haven't received them today.

There's a difference between saying that we may have miscalculated the time it was going to take and that two weeks may be a bit tight, and saying that it's already difficult to produce these documents in six months. I find it hard to believe that such an experienced agency would commit to this in front of everyone without having any idea how long it would take to produce such documents. In fact, this isn't the first time they've done this.

Although we'll continue to ask that all of this be given priority, I think we should still point out this complete failure and this erroneous commitment that was made to us, the members of the committee, so I'm going to keep my motion as is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I have Mr. Sidhu, and then Mr. Cannings.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm not sure if all committee members got the printout of the amendment on their desks.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Grant McLaughlin]

We don't have enough copies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

They're running them off right now. They'll be here in a minute.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

I can speak to it in the meantime, but I did give you enough copies for everybody.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Can we get what we have distributed? If necessary, we will wait a minute until the clerk gets the copies.

You can speak to it, Mr. Sidhu.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

I think most of my colleagues have the document in front of them.

I hear where my colleague is coming from. I think it's important that we be respectful to both official languages. If we wanted it in one language, it could be ready, but I think it's important for our two official languages to make sure we have documents in both official languages.

As we've heard, there are over 30,000 pages. That would probably take someone close to 600 hours to review. If Mr. Savard-Tremblay wants to prioritize certain documents that he wants to look for, I think this amendment will help with that. It's about transparency, and I think the government wants to be very transparent in terms of what's presented.

As you can see in your original motion and in what the chair said, documents have been provided to us by CBSA, but this is not with CBSA. This is with the translation bureau, with the officials there, and they have to take their time to make sure the documents are translated properly.

I have a few amendments here. I'll read them into the record:

the CBSA continues to provide the committee with the requested documents as they are translated and has written to the committee on April 11, April 19, May 1, October 1 and October 7 requesting guidance from the committee; and

the CARM technical specifications alone exceed 30,000 pages, which need to be translated;

That the committee respond to the CBSA's request to indicate prioritization of the material to be translated and submitted to the committee.

We cross out the last section there: “as the committee has not received all the documents requested, the Committee report these matters to the House, so that the House may take the measures it deems appropriate with regard to parliamentary privilege.”

I think this is an amendment to take Mr. Savard-Tremblay's considerations very seriously. I think that when we prioritize the documents Mr. Savard-Tremblay wants, he'll see that he can go through the documents as he wishes. Again, reviewing over 30,000 pages and getting them translated.... For someone reading at an average speed, it is going to take 600 hours to review 30,000 pages. I'm not sure what we're getting at here, but I think that, in the spirit of transparency, this is a good remedy for Mr. Savard-Tremblay's motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I have Mr. Cannings and then Mr. Savard-Tremblay, Mr. Williams and Madame Fortier.

Go ahead, Mr. Cannings.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thanks.

I just wanted some clarification here. I'm not an expert—even after being here for nine years—on the definition of privilege and things like that. I would assume, as I think you were outlining at the start in your comments.... I think one of the main questions here is this: Do we think CBSA is delaying this on purpose, gumming up the works because it doesn't want to answer and because there are damning things that it's hiding? That's the spin that some around this table might want to put on this. Is it simply an issue of translation getting requests like this, not just from this committee but also from others perhaps, that is putting them behind schedule? Is CBSA doing this on purpose, or was it just wildly optimistic when it promised us documents in two weeks or a month or whatever it was?

There was an assumption, which I just heard from Mr. Savard-Tremblay, that this is a government agency, so perhaps you would think that translation wouldn't be needed and that it was already done. I'd like to find out if these contracts with Deloitte were only in English. What are we looking at here?

I just have one question on the motion. It says in the third paragraph, “adopted a unanimous motion indicating that the CBSA had not received the requested documents”. Is the CBSA waiting for something? Is it waiting for those documents from translation? What is it waiting for? Is it its problem, or is it somebody else's delay?

I have all of these questions before I can make up my mind whether this is a question of privilege and whether someone is actually thwarting our efforts to get at the answers, which I think are important. I would agree with Mr. Sidhu. I have one staff member here; we're not going to look at 30,000 pages of documents. I would be happy if other people around the table did, but that's their issue.

Again, to me, it's a question of whether we believe that someone is deliberately trying to hide something here. I haven't seen any evidence of that so far. There's a slow co-operation being shown here. You might want to read reluctance into that. I don't know. I'd be happy to prioritize things so that we could read these on a timely basis as they come in and could see what they say.

Those are my comments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Savard-Tremblay.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Basically, I would like to raise three points.

Mr. Sidhu said that the problem was related to translation delays and that, if we wanted the documents in English only, we would have them. That's not true.

According to your update, documents are still pending. I'd like to remind you that we were supposed to receive the documents two weeks after the motions were put forward, in March and April. Some documents haven't been submitted yet, so it's not a matter of translation delays. Some documents haven't been sent for translation yet.

Again, there's a difference between saying that the documents will be sent maybe in two weeks—which was an ambitious timeline—and saying that they will be sent in six months. I think the difference is quite significant.

That said, Mr. Cannings talked about the agency's intentions. I don't think we're here to assess the intentions of the agency. I, for one, am not attributing any harmful intent to anyone. We're here to evaluate the results. A commitment was made, but the commitment wasn't kept. More than six months later, as we speak, we still haven't received the documents requested. The assessment and revenue management system is going to be implemented, and we haven't been able to do our work on it yet.

I also agree with the idea of giving priority to certain documents, except that I think it's a completely different matter. That would have to be a separate motion.

The purpose of my motion is to find out whether the agency provided the documents we requested, in other words, whether it did what it committed to doing. That isn't what we're asking them to do now. It's something else.

I have no problem with providing a list of documents that we would like to prioritize. I agree with that. However, being told in committee that you're going to provide us with the documents in two weeks, when we haven't yet obtained them, is what's wrong.

Let's not confuse the issue. This motion isn't about the documents requested. It isn't a motion to request documents. The purpose of my motion is to come back to the issue of the documents that haven't been provided. I think this is a rather serious failing, and unfortunately, this isn't the agency's first misdeed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

If we look at the correspondence we received from the department, CBSA provided the documents. They are still in translation, and the department is waiting for them to be returned.

Go ahead, Mr. Williams.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Obviously, I was not part of this committee in March, but I have looked at the facts. Thank you for presenting what you have. I have a major concern with the response that we're waiting from translation regarding the documents. The Official Languages Act states that all documents for any government organization need to be in both official languages.

Perhaps we can get a response from the government. If CBSA has documents, including CARM, that aren't in both official languages, why is that? We have borders and systems that are in Quebec and the rest of Canada. Why would we be waiting for translation? They should have been translated. That would be a bigger question of privilege to me. If we didn't have these documents already in both official languages from a government agency, I think there's a bigger issue here. There's some head-shaking, so maybe I'll get a response as to what the issue was.

Second, we've seen this multiple times. We're seeing it in different instances. If a committee asks for documents and it's been voted on, it is the privilege of the committee to get those in a timely matter. If the organization was here in March and said “a few weeks”, it is the privilege of the committee to get those in a few weeks, or we should have had ample communication that said that we couldn't get them and we weren't going to get them. Two weeks is one thing. Having amendments on this maybe in two months would be a separate thing. Six months later is unbelievable.

Even if we don't have them, or if they're not there, I think it would be prudent for this committee to pass the original motion, at least to say to the House that this committee is serious about getting those documents.

I guess the procedural question, Madam Chair, would be this: If we pass the original motion without the amendment, and if CBSA did get the documents before it came to the House, would that mean that the motion would be deemed moot in the House? Otherwise, I don't see anything wrong with this committee pushing a little harder to say that this has been a breach of privilege and that we've had far too much time now. It would almost be that a limitation would be six months, no matter what the committee. Six months is way too long to wait for documentation that was asked for, because soon enough, we'll be in 2025, and that will be a year. That's much too long, but that's where we are.

Hopefully, I'll get some other answers, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I would just add that in the 25 years that I have been a member of Parliament, this is the first time there's ever been an issue at committee with not receiving documents as requested.

To go back to the issue, I think we need to invite the manager, or the head of translation, to come to committee—not to do a dressing down of translation, but to get a better understanding of what kind of workload they currently have. Is it very different than previously? For the future, we should know what's going on. If they are understaffed, they should make an attempt to get the staffing required. However, when the committee requests documentation, it needs to see it in order to be able to do the work that's necessary.

Next, I have Madame Fortier.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm a Franco-Ontarian and very proud of it. I worked extensively on the Official Languages Act. Unfortunately, as we know very well, only documents that are public in nature or that must be tabled in Parliament are subject to the requirements related to both official languages. Internal contracts therefore don't have to be drafted in both official languages. It's in cases where, at a later date, a request is made to do so, as is currently the case for a number of the documents, that it actually has to be done.

Of course, we wouldn't have this problem if all documents within the government, whether public or related to the work of internal employees, were produced in both official languages. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

I'd like to reiterate the importance of inviting someone from the Translation Bureau, as well as a representative from the Canada Border Services Agency, to explain why we are where we are today. That might give us some direction.

I also support my colleague's amendment because it would make it possible to prioritize the documents and, as a result, know what we need to answer questions. I can tell you that it won't be my team members reading 37,000 pages either. Much like Mr. Cannings, we don't have that option.

It's nevertheless important, as a matter of principle, to give priority to certain documents that Mr. Savard‑Tremblay referred to so that they can be translated.

I therefore support my colleague's amendment. I think that passing it will allow us to move forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Before I go to Mr. Savard-Tremblay, I have a document. I'm not going to mention what's been completed but what is partially complete.

They were asked, on March 19, to produce both the external review results and the internal review results of CARM phase two. That was 300 pages. It is partially complete.

Another one was to submit documents—ITPRs—from Gartner and BDO on CARM readiness. That is 80 pages. It is partially complete. The independent third party review was sent on May 1.

Another one that's in progress is the 31,000 pages of material that has been collected in response. It is in translation and ongoing, and packages will be provided to the committee as they become available.

Another one is “the deliverable establishing the link between the detailed functional technical specifications of the system and the business needs”. It is in progress. It's 2,100 pages. It is in translation. The material will be provided as it's ongoing.

Another one is “all documents demonstrating which business needs from the Statement of Work the Agency considers to be met by the current solution”. That's in progress. It's approximately 200 pages. Again, it's in translation.

Those are the five relating to the March 19 request.

The March 21 request was “to produce, in both official languages, unredacted copies of the contingency and disaster recovery plans and the transition plan for importers who are not registered with CARM by May 13”. That is approximately 50 pages of material.

The June 2023 system outage contingency plan was provided to the committee on April 11. Some ongoing material to do with that request will be provided to the committee, and maybe that's one that's being provided today.

Out of those five that are partially complete, I'm told from CBSA documents this morning that two of them will be provided to the committee today, which would mean that there are three reports outstanding, one of them being the 30,000 pages referred to.

Mr. Savard-Tremblay.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I want to emphasize again the issue of prioritization. Actually, that's a separate issue. If there were a motion on the table about that, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I don't think we're there yet. We're talking about a commitment that hasn't been kept. In your opening statement, Madam Chair, you yourself said that there was an apparent breach of parliamentary privilege.

I'd like to remind you that these aren't my requests for documents, but rather the committee's unanimous requests. I think that's a pretty important distinction.

That said, I move that we vote on the motion as soon as possible, if not immediately.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Sidhu.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

With regard to Mr. Cannings' point in terms of getting some clarity from the translation bureau, it might be helpful for all of us here to hear from them.

I moved the amendment. Maybe we can vote on the amendment and then go to the main motion. I think that's how it works.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You've moved the amendment. Yes, the amendment will get voted on first.