Public Accounts Committee on April 4th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I would add that, obviously, when we discuss witnesses in the subcommittee, there is a process, as you all know. I won't get into the details, because the meetings are in camera, but there's give-and-take among members. Given the formality of yesterday's motion, I see that we now have kind of an allotment per party. We haven't discussed this yet, but let's say we agree to a meeting and that the government members have so many witnesses. If they don't provide witnesses, the meeting will still go ahead. We can't have a situation in which if someone doesn't provide a witness, a meeting will stop.

Given the Standing Orders, I see as entirely appropriate that today's motion will supersede anything. If this committee decides to hear from this witness, the clerk will immediately, without my direction, move to invite that individual. This could also be dealt with in the subcommittee, which would then bring it back to the committee, so it seems, one way or another, we're going to be dealing with this, but this would provide a decision today.

If it passes, I should say, the clerk will move to find a time and location to have that meeting because of the seven days' notice.

There you go.

We'll turn now to Mrs. Shanahan.

I'm just going to see how this goes. There is still a government member to hear from, and Mr. Nater has just under two minutes on the clock. If this is going to go on for a while, I might come back to members about excusing the witnesses, but we're not there yet.

Mrs. Shanahan, you have the floor. Go ahead, please.

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

I want to speak further to the motion, because there seems to be a misapprehension about yesterday's motion, which was adopted. Members had ample time to discuss it then.

Meetings will be scheduled with the consultation and consensus of the subcommittee and committee—however this committee proceeds under your guidance, Chair. Because we were venturing into these unknown waters as far as the public accounts committee is concerned, having numerous meetings and witnesses from outside the scope of the usual Auditor General officials and government departments, each party had the opportunity to invite witnesses. You, with the clerk, have already provided us the opportunity to do that in this scope, with ample lead time to April 10.

What I'm concerned about in this motion that is before us today is it constricts the time to “within seven days”. We already have a work plan, and we discussed yesterday how important it is for all members to have an established work plan so that we can plan our own work, instruct our staff, do research and prepare ourselves adequately for each meeting. Now it looks like we're going to have to have an extra meeting to accommodate this request when it could be accommodated very easily within the normal practice used by other committees, which was adopted in yesterday's motion.

Chair, please tell us what this would mean for our work plan schedule, because we were very pleased to receive that work plan yesterday at 8:43 from the clerk.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

I am trying to stay out of this as much as possible.

Mrs. Shanahan, it's not uncommon for committees to have all kinds of schedules and work plans, but if a motion comes up and is passed, that will obviously change a work plan that was set. That's the reality of this and any motion.

I certainly don't believe that yesterday's motion suggests that members from the various political parties can't bring forward motions for this committee, in particular, to study because something is thought to be an issue. I think it would set a very dangerous precedent if that right was withdrawn. Therefore, as chair, if this motion passes, I will view it as a direction from the committee.

Again, I don't believe yesterday's motion ever envisioned that consensus should mean unanimity on anything; rather, it's an ability to structure witnesses...from all the political parties. In fact, I think it was you, Mrs. Shanahan, who said this is not about a veto; this is just about greater input.

On that, I'm going to step back. Again, this motion is certainly in order, given the Standing Orders.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank Mr. Nater for this motion. I believe it's an important piece of our work, and I think we have to invite Mr. Imraan Bashir in consideration of the questions we heard today from KPMG. He is the individual—we know that following my question about a discovery meeting—who actually met with GC Strategies at the time of contract discovery.

I think it is part and parcel of this work and very important to this work that we invite him, and I support the motion in principle.

The part that I'm confused about—I think we'll probably have to go to the subcommittee on it—is related to the witness being “scheduled to appear within seven days of the adoption of this motion.” We reviewed the calendar just yesterday morning, and we have scheduled a subcommittee meeting on Tuesday. I'd really seek your advice, Chair, on how you want to do this properly, considering that we have a draft agenda now.

This is an additional meeting request. We have only a few days. This motion demands “seven days of the adoption of this motion.” Would this mean that whatever work we've done to summon witnesses for our ArriveCAN meeting, this would join that list of witnesses for next week, or would this mean that we would have to postpone the meeting you intended to have for ArriveCAN next week?

I don't know how much work you've done on next week's meeting schedules and witness invitations before making this kind of decision. I'm sorry, Mr. Chair; I think you understand the procedural difficulty this presents.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

There are obviously challenges that I share with the clerk. As you know, I try to be conscientious of the clerk's ability to bring forward witnesses as quickly as possible.

I don't have a complete answer for you, Mr. Desjarlais. I don't want to presuppose the outcome of this meeting, but I'll try to answer your question. Should it pass, one option I would give this witness would be to join the Tuesday meeting. The invitations are well on the way. I believe we're just waiting for the paperwork before the notice is sent.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Do you know who is going to be present? That would affect my decision. If it's someone else really important to the ArriveCAN study, I wouldn't want to divide my time amongst multiple witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

On Tuesday of next week, they are other contractors, so this person would fit nicely with that.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Do you know which contractors you invited?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

It's on the calendar. I don't have that in front of me right now, Mr. Desjarlais. I believe there are three others.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Have they confirmed?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Two of three have confirmed.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

So we'd have four witnesses?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

We expect three, so one option would be to add KPMG here.

It would not be my intention, Mr. Desjarlais, to upend the Thursday meeting on the indigenous issue. This motion would probably force me to try to find another time.

Having said that, as well, the committee has always been gracious with both the clerk and the chair, in that if seven days does not work for the witness, I have the flexibility to find another time. Obviously, the Tuesday deadline could be too tight for this witness, and if that were the case, I would then find another time. I would take the seven days as an indication this is pressing, but given the work that we have, given the schedule and given the resource availability for Parliament, it might fall outside the seven days. I would certainly try to do it, but the committee has granted me leeway in the past to schedule meetings outside the seven days should there be a resource challenge or a witness challenge.

Does that help, Mr. Desjarlais?

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

It does help. I'll probably have more questions, but I will reserve them.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Just to answer Mr. Desjarlais' questions, I have the work plan right in front of me. The witnesses invited for the next meeting on April 9 are Amazon Web Services, Inc., Microsoft Inc. and BDO Canada LLP.

Chair, I understand and appreciate what you're saying. There is a lot of confusion. I'm trying to resolve this as quickly as possible. One option would be to amend the motion to delete the reference to when those witnesses would be invited. Then, the second is that perhaps we can leave this motion be, and perhaps pick it up again at the subcommittee meeting, where members can actually just go in and have that discussion and answer any of the questions they need to have answered in order to move forward.

There's not really that much of a time difference between today and the subcommittee meeting. I think it's better that we proceed and that we understand fully what it is that we're doing, rather than passing motions when we're not really sure how they would impact the rest of our work plan.

Also, as you've said, Chair, there has been a lot of work that has already been done by you and then by the clerk in inviting witnesses, so it doesn't really make sense, I think, for us to rush through this. I think that in principle we all agree that these witnesses perhaps should be invited. I do think that this is a question of timing, and that should be better addressed through the subcommittee as opposed to putting it in a motion. I think we're all on the same page here in terms of where we want to go with the study, and it is part of our study. It's not a one-off. That's why I think this issue is better addressed within the subcommittee and the list of witnesses as opposed to a stand-alone motion.

I don't know if I'm interpreting this properly, but that's kind of where my headspace is at. Again, I would like to hear from colleagues as to what they're thinking.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. Khalid, let me respond to some of your points.

First of all, there is no subcommittee meeting scheduled for next week at this point. Ms. Yip, rightly, asked that I return to the full committee with the subcommittee report, which will be at the end of the meeting time on Tuesday. That time, as of right now, will be very short, because I was expecting to hear about the subcommittee meeting. I could endeavour to find time, but again, that's a question of House resources.

Ms. Khalid, I am not in a position to withdraw the report; I think you understand that. What I hear is more the sentiment, which I think is directed to the mover of the motion, who will consider that.

On your third point, you might want to either consult with the mover or consider an amendment, because you mentioned changing the date, if there would be consensus to do that. That might be a possibility. I won't speak to it, but I will flag that this is certainly within your right.

Ms. Khalid, why don't I come back to you, if that's okay. Is it? Okay.

It's Mr. Nater, Mrs. Shanahan and then Ms. Khalid.

You have the floor, Mr. Nater.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

In an effort to move this along, perhaps I could seek unanimous consent. Obviously I can't amend my own motion, but I would seek the unanimous consent of the committee to pass the motion and just take out the “within seven days”, and then leave it to you, Chair, to schedule it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I can't call it. There are still speakers, but I hear you on—

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I'm asking for unanimous consent to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Is there unanimous consent to eliminate the time and to pass the motion calling this individual in at a future meeting?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

All right. I deem the motion passed then, with the removal of the “seven days”.

Thank you.

Questions are now moot.

Mrs. Shanahan, your hand is still up. I will recognize you, but I do want to get back to the witnesses. We have about seven minutes with them. Mrs. Shanahan, do you have anything to say?

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

Chair, I move to now adjourn.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

All right.