Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 29th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Yes, we can.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Chair, we don't need to suspend. This motion was put on verbal notice prior—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I appreciate it, Mr. Genuis. The clerk is just checking to see if your team has sent it in both official languages.

Okay. We do have it.

We'll have it out to you very shortly.

Yes, to answer your question, I will suspend for about two minutes here—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Chair, can I ask a quick question?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Pardon me, Mr. Masse. You had your hand up before. I didn't hit the gavel yet. You were fast on the draw there.

Go ahead, please.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt.

The practice of the industry committee from all parties is that we usually invite a witness first and then summons later. I'm just wondering—and I'm a guest to this committee—whether this committee requested the person already.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm sorry. What was your question?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Has this committee already requested Mr. Yeo to come? We just summonsed the CEOs of Telus, Rogers and Bell, because they were asked. We always ask first. If they don't come or they refuse, then we summons.

I'm just wondering if this was asked before. I'm sorry for my ignorance on this.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I think that's a valid question, Mr. Masse.

We don't have that protocol. It might be worth exploring it. I will allow the motion to stand and we'll debate it.

It's been sent out, so I don't need to suspend. We managed to....

Well, I'll still suspend for a minute, just to give members a chance to look at it. Then we'll jump into it.

Mr. Weber, I do apologize for this. I am anxious to hear questions around your statement, but I am a servant of this committee. A motion has been moved. I hope we can deal with it quickly.

We'll come back in a minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'll bring the meeting back to order.

Mrs. Shanahan, you have the floor.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I don't know if Mr. Masse still wants to say a few words, but I certainly appreciated what Mr. Masse had to say about the usual practice of committees when having witnesses appear before us.

I wish to apologize to Mr. Weber. When we invite a witness, we actually take the time to ask questions and hear what the witness has to say. However, here he is being subjected to a member interjecting—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Genuis, what is the point of order?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I want to clarify the process. If we proceeded—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

No, you don't need to do that, Mr. Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

—with the vote, we would go directly back to the witness.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Genuis, that is not a point of order.

Mrs. Shanahan is entitled to her rhetorical flourishes, and I will turn the floor back to her.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Indeed, our normal practice, especially in this committee, public accounts, which is a committee that has historically worked on a consensual basis.... One long-time NDP member, Mr. Christopherson, used to say that you should not be able to tell, when a member of the public accounts committee was asking a question, which party they come from, because we're doing the work of examining the public accounts of Canada as they are put forward by the Auditor General's office, which is tasked with the job of not only presenting the financial statements in accordance with the usual accounting procedures, but also doing—and I think it has evolved in the last 30 years or so—the performance audits, the value-for-money audits of different departments.

Because we study the work and reports of the Auditor General, it's normally pretty straightforward who we have—Chair, you'll agree—at our meetings: the Auditor General and her team, with the relevant department officials and the deputy minister of the department who is the subject of the report. Those are our witnesses. They are asked to appear. There's no summoning of witnesses, because they are asked to appear. They're happy to appear. Our committee team works out the times and the modalities of those appearances.

We have seen in this session of Parliament a trend towards asking for witnesses outside of those parameters, yet it has still been the practice of this committee to request. I would think the current witness was requested. He was not summoned or subpoenaed to come to this committee. It's only a matter of respect for the people who appear before this committee that we do so.

In this case, I'm looking at the text of the motion that we have before us:

That the committee issue a summons for Mr. David Yeo to appear before committee within seven days and for at least two hours.

It was sprung on this committee that this is of an urgency to do. There was no prior consultation with the committee. I find it very interesting that the member is very keen to have this person here, as we are all just learning about who this person is. Apparently, this employee of the Department of National Defence materiel section, having started or gotten involved in this company, Dalian, also had other activities. Apparently, he was active in political life as a candidate for the People's Party of Canada and was very outspoken about his anti-vaxx views. He was somebody who had a very public persona.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't welcome the chance to ask this gentleman some particular questions, but I find it very interesting that my colleagues, who have been trying to paint this whole ArriveCAN situation, which is very serious business.... We've been hearing from the proper witnesses in procurement, the Auditor General's office, public procurement departments and so on about how procurement should take place. My Conservative colleagues have been saying “Liberal insiders”, yet here we see that David Yeo is anything but a Liberal insider. In fact, I wonder if he's a future Conservative candidate. I don't know, but I would be curious to question this person indeed.

However, even this gentleman should have the respect of this committee if we ask him to appear. It could be that he would be very eager to come and speak to this committee. It could be that he's just chomping at the bit to do so. He may have lots to say, but it's something that should be done within the normal scope of the work we do here, which I agree has now included us having multiple meetings during constituency weeks.

The work of the nation must be done, and we're certainly here to do it. You'll appreciate, Chair, that we won't always be here in person, but we know that you will be here, faithful to your post, making sure that all of these questions are being put to all these people so that we can in some ways.... I'm always concerned, just to be serious, that we undermine the serious work, the objective professional work, that is done by people like the Auditor General and the procurement ombud by running a sideshow that's feeding media headlines and really running up the tab, I would say.

This committee has always worked in a very orderly and systematic manner, making sure that we cover all the bases in the work we have to do. These meetings will now occur during constituency weeks and will require travel. I know our Conservative colleagues are very diligent to their posts and will come in person. With the travel costs, the cost of having staff here and the cost of operating a meeting, I heard it's somewhere around $10,000, excluding individual costs, per meeting. This is on top of all of the money we're very much concerned about that has been wasted on ArriveCAN.

I am curious. We heard the opening remarks from our witness here. I would have very much liked to question him about the employees who had to deal with the ArriveCAN app to see how it actually operated in real time. I'm sure there are colleagues who want to express themselves on this issue, but again, going back to this motion, I cannot support it as it stands because—

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Just one second, Mrs. Shanahan.

Mr. Masse, I do see you there.

Mr. Brock has a point of order.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

If Mrs. Shanahan was sincere about her desire to get to the ArriveCAN issue and allow Mr. Weber to speak—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Brock, I will put you on the list to speak. That is not a point of order. I will put you down after Mr. Masse.

Mr. May, was that a wave or a request to speak? Okay, you're down as well.

Mrs. Shanahan, you have the floor.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

It's the wording of the motion that I object to. It's regarding this summons. It's the dramatic summons of this person. This is not becoming of the procedures and processes that this committee usually undergoes. We had a motion, just previously, presented by Madame Sinclair-Desgagné from the Bloc Québécois.

I will speak in French for a moment. I see that my colleague Marie-Hélène Gaudreau is with us. We were able to talk about the motion that Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné wanted to move. That's the proper way to do things in committees. We exchange views, even if we don't always agree.

We don't always agree, but at least we have a discussion. That way, we can achieve an outcome that suits everyone. But that is not really what is happening in the current situation. Mr. Genuis, who moved the motion, is trying to rush things. He thinks that we've fallen asleep on this side of the table, but we're wide awake.

As I already said, it may be a very interesting meeting, but you have to send a request to the person. I remember—I think that Ms. Gaudreau was present in those circumstances—the way witnesses were sometimes treated by certain members of the official opposition during meetings of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. The way these individuals who came to testify were treated was shameful. They were being threatened and harassed at home. Their privacy was invaded. It was really disgusting.

With that, Mr. Chair, I'll pass it on.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Very good.

I'm going to look for agreement. I can see where this is going. I am inclined to excuse Mr. Weber, because it is coming up to suppertime. Is there any objection to that? I see none.

Mr. Weber, I'm going to apologize. Personally, I was looking forward to hearing from you, and I'm going to ask the clerk to work with you to see if there's another time we can ask you to come back. It's not a summons.

I live in a border community, and I know the good work that your officers do day to day and did throughout COVID, so I was very curious to hear your thoughts on this. I have spoken to some of those officers directly and have a sense of some of the things you might have said, but I wanted to hear it from you.

With your indulgence, I will excuse you and work to have you back very soon, if you're inclined to do so. Again, I appreciate it. I do apologize for this, but I hope you understand that this is sometimes how democracy works.

[Mark Weber]

Thank you—anytime.