Public Accounts Committee on March 5th, 2024

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Chair, every committee member should receive the motion and the amendment in both official languages, not just Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That is correct.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

That needs to be clear.

I agree with suspending the meeting until the motion and the amendment have gone out to everyone.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That's precisely what I was about to do.

We will now suspend for a minute or two.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'll call the meeting back to order.

You will all have, in your email boxes, the motion in the two official languages. The amendment we're debating is to add Mr. Yeo and the minister as witnesses.

I see that Mrs. Shanahan has put her hand up, but first I have Mr. Brock.

I'll turn the floor over to you, sir.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm listening to my colleagues from the Liberal Party, and what makes me so curious—not only in this committee but in pretty much every other committee studying the arrive scam app and all the other scams that this Trudeau government is facing—is how quick they are to defend the ministers. They speak about ministerial accountability, but those are hollow words, because at the end of the day, the buck stops with the minister—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

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

—and the buck stops with the Prime Minister of Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Just one second, Mr. Brock.

Ms. Khalid.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Just going with the rules of this committee, it is not normal for us to have ministers appear before public accounts, and I think that—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. Khalid, you're welcome to put your hand up to raise this. It is not a point of order. While it is not practice, it is not unheard of as well.

I'll turn the floor back over to Mr. Brock.

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

As I was indicating before the interruption, Mr. Chair, the buck stops with the minister in charge and ultimately the buck stops with the Prime Minister of Canada. What I have been seeing over the past several months among my Liberal colleagues, as we have literally pulled away layer by layer of this proverbial onion to discover the true rot of this particular scam, is the concept known as “plausible deniability”. We've heard from presidents and we've heard from deputy ministers that notwithstanding the raging fire that was the arrive scam app within their various departments, no one felt it prudent enough to inform ministers—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I'm so sorry, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. Khalid, you can be as sorry as you want, but what is your point of order?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Mr. Chair, this is a respectful parliamentary committee meeting, and it's not fair for members to be calling other members names and basically maligning their character. This is absolutely unfair, and I think you should have intervened.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Brock, I would ask you to get to the point of the intervention addressing the amendment.

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

My point is that the Canadians I'm engaging with, Mr. Chair, from coast to coast are wondering why there's a proverbial firewall between the scandal and the government—the Prime Minister and the ministers.

This emphasizes the point even more that we definitely need to hear directly from the ministers, because all we're hearing in the House are the ministers repeating the same line over and over again: “I didn't know. I wasn't informed.” That's not good enough.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mrs. Shanahan, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Chair.

My first intervention was on the amendment. You clarified that. Frankly, we have had ministers on an exceptional basis at this committee.

I'm always concerned about precedent for future public accounts. What we do here matters. We should not let deputy ministers off the hook—definitely not—because we're really talking about a problem in the civil service. I'm confident it's just a few bad apples, or insufficient processes and a lack of.... As the Auditor General pointed out, yes, it was an emergency situation, but that doesn't mean the rules are thrown out the window.

I know we're going to get to the witness motion, as originally intended. I want to hear from our NDP colleague, but I have no problem with hearing from any and all on this issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Julian, you have the floor.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I really want to get back to questioning Mr. Weber. I know he has a lot of important information to give to this committee on behalf of his members, so I'll just say two things.

First, ministerial responsibility means that the minister should be appearing.

Second, in reply to my Conservative colleague, I lived through the Harper regime, and from 2011 to 2015, Conservative ministers never took responsibility for the various egregious scandals we saw—the ETS scandal and the Phoenix scandal that continues to reverberate today—and I don't want to go back to those days when there wasn't ministerial responsibility.

I believe it is incumbent upon this committee to have the list of witnesses who were involved. This is shocking. As a temporary member of the committee for today, I think it's absolutely essential for public accounts that we have the ability to question the minister, the deputy minister and the individual in question. That's why I'm supporting the motion and supporting the amendment.

I hope we can come to a conclusion rapidly so we can come back to questioning our witnesses, who have a lot of valuable information for this committee and for Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Very good. I'll move now to the motion.

Are there any speakers to the motion? I'm seeing none, so Clerk, could you please call the vote on the motion as amended?

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0)

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Very good.

We're now turning back to Mr. Weber.

Ms. Yip, you still have a minute left. Would you like to take advantage of that time?

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Yes.

Perhaps you could start by telling us about some of the strains that the pandemic placed on the CBSA frontline workers. I realize that you probably have about 45 seconds. Even if you just started your answer, that would be great.