Evidence of meeting #69 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was meeting.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
A “yea” is a “yea” as far as I'm interpreting. We're not going to get into the fine print of somebody withdrawing a motion.
Is it on this point?
3:55 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Chair, I'm asking you hypothetically. I can place the motion if you wish, but I'm trying to save time to get a sense of where you're at. I was asking—notwithstanding all of this about the four members signing and all that other—if there's a motion duly put and passed by the majority of the committee to hold this hearing on Thursday of this week, will you accept that motion and respect the will of the majority of the committee?
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
3:55 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Yes, if there's consent of everybody on the committee....
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
3:55 p.m.
NDP
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Yes, there's unanimous consent, if we can discuss the people who will be on the witness list.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Fair enough.
I seek unanimous consent to place a motion regarding this meeting we're talking about.
4 p.m.
Conservative
4 p.m.
NDP
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
Is there any objection? Are people in unanimous agreement with the motion that Mr. Christopherson—
4 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Chair, I just want to make it clear, this is on the condition that we discuss who will be present at the meeting.
4 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
It's a motion and it's amendable anyway.
The point is, unanimous consent makes it clear for all of us that we're deciding today when the meeting will be, who will be there, and I suspect Thursday is the earliest date that's available to us. So it's just a straight-up motion, and at that point if any member wants to amend the motion in any way, including who's coming, it's certainly in order. The majority decides.
4 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I have a motion on the floor that we hold the meeting on Thursday, with the witnesses as outlined in Mr. Wrzesnewskyj's—
4 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
You said we were going to be discussing the witnesses.
4 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I said we're going to have the meeting on Thursday, but my motion has to include—
4 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
My motion will include these people. You can amend it. You have the right to amend it, but it has to have it in the main motion.
So the main motion would be for these witnesses, as circulated in Mr. Wrzesnewskyj's letter--on Thursday we would hold the said public meeting.
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
Are all the members in agreement with Mr. Christopherson's motion?
(Motion agreed to)
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
We did really well there, folks. We got to the second hurdle here. We have a meeting. Now we've decided when we're going to hold the meeting.
Now we're going to get to the cart. We've dealt with the horse, and now we're going to get to the cart: What are we going to do at the meeting? So let's get on with that.
Pierre.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
That's right, and I think Mr. Christopherson has found a solution to get on with it. We all want this meeting to happen. This meeting has to happen; obviously there needs to be some follow-up on the report that's gone out, but there are two parts to this whole sordid affair: one is what happened, and two is what we're going to do about it.
We've had numerous witnesses appear repeatedly. That's nothing new. When I look at the list of witnesses we have here, we have Mr. Zaccardelli, who has already been before the committee. I don't have any problem bringing him back, but what he is here to discuss is what occurred, what happened--in the past tense--because he is condemned in the report by Mr. Brown.
If we are going to have him, then we should have the minister who was responsible for that portfolio when the wrongdoing occurred, and that minister, of course, was Anne McLellan.
We've learned in the report that Mr. Zaccardelli conducted himself in an unacceptable manner. We also know that the minister of that time, when asked about it at the beginning of the criminal investigation, stood up and prejudged that criminal investigation by declaring that Mr. Zaccardelli had no conduct whatsoever that needed to be investigated. That's in the parliamentary records. It's been read into the records of this committee.
I think it's only fair that she be asked to come back and explain why she absolved Mr. Zaccardelli before the investigation was even allowed to go ahead and before any findings were allowed to be reached. That is especially important now because we have the findings of Mr. Brown, which suggest there was plenty of conduct on the part of Mr. Zaccardelli that would have needed to be investigated.
Second, what we have learned throughout these proceedings is that the Treasury Board approved increase after increase in allotments to cover the pension and insurance outsourcing. All of that had to go to Treasury Board, and it was approved by Treasury Board members.
The person who is responsible for the Treasury Board is the president. That's the minister who is responsible for explaining the conduct of that board. When we last had him and Ms. McLellan, we did not have all this information. We did not have Mr. Brown's report explaining that there was conduct on the part of Mr. Zaccardelli that needed to be investigated. We did not have all of the information on the Treasury Board submissions that were ultimately approved by the members of that board.
Now that we do, I think it's only appropriate that we bring back Mr. Alcock and Ms. McLellan, who presided over this affair and were the political actors responsible during the time that it occurred. None of this occurred after they left; all of it happened when they were there. At the same time, we have a former Liberal staffer as the CFO under whom all of this occurred and a Liberal MP who was actively involved in the contracting, so I suspect there should be no opposition whatsoever--if the Liberals are willing to be accountable--to support the addition of Ms. McLellan and Mr. Alcock.
These hearings have to happen. Do we have unanimous consent for Ms. McLellan and Mr. Alcock to be added to the list, or do we just add it?