Evidence of meeting #136 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sdtc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
I'm not sure why we're going past the assigned committee time. We've been in this committee since 10 a.m. It's now 2 p.m. We have another meeting on Thursday. I'm sure that we can resume debate on this on Thursday, given that I would have appreciated a little bit of extra time.
I do have some other obligations I need to attend to, and given that we have been here for four hours talking about this, I would appreciate it if we could have a little bit of leeway here.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
All right. How about we meet halfway, then? We will pick up this debate on Thursday after the meeting—of course, after the witnesses. Is that fine?
All right.
I still have a short list of other people who want to speak to other....
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
No, I have a few other hands up. Yours was one, but it sounds like you're satisfied. Is that correct, Ms. Khalid? Do you have anything else to add?
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
I'm going to move to the next person on the list, but it sounds like you're done for now.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
For now, yes, but I'd like to be added to the bottom of the list.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
I'll look for you before I do anything.
Mr. Genuis, you have the floor, please.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Chair.
My understanding is that there was consensus in the room. I'm remote, so if there was consensus in the room that we have the debate on Mr. Perkins' motion on Thursday, that's fine with me.
I wanted to raise the issue of ArriveCAN that you spoke about, Chair, which is the motion that we adopted. We had made two specific requests. One was a request for a response from Mr. Firth. We were somewhat specific in what we were looking for in that response. I understand from you that the response was provided on time, but obviously we need to wait for translation. That's part of the process here. We'll be able to look at Mr. Firth's response to the motion that was adopted asking him for information in response to Ms. Daly's testimony. We'll be able to look at his response to that and then decide what kind of follow-up, if any, is required on that.
The other part of this is that Ms. Daly repeatedly referred to a lengthy interview she did with CBSA that clearly will have a lot of information in it that points to whether or not her claims are credible and correct and whether there were, in fact, issues of intimidation and even interference from the government in terms of the process of that investigation. We had requested that interview based on, I think, the normal committee timeline of three weeks. That time has elapsed.
I would just underline that we had requested that information not from Ms. Daly, who said she didn't have it; it was an interview with her with CBSA, which she said was recorded. The government has the recording. We were quite specific. In fact, the motion says, “the committee order the production from the government of the recording”. It does seem that with the time that has elapsed, the government is now in breach of that production order.
I think it might make sense to kind of explore this item, but by way of discussion, without moving any motion on it, because I would like some clarity. Has the government provided any kind of information—i.e., “we're working on it, we're thinking about it, we're in the process of finding it”—or has it just been crickets in response to our request? I think having that information will give us some sense of what we should do going forward.
I don't know, Chair, if you or the clerk can provide some more colour on that. It was very clear in the motion that we were asking for this not from Ms. Daly but from the government. The government has an obligation to comply with the committee's order for that information within three weeks. That time has elapsed. If they've come back to us and asked for a little bit more time, that's different from ignoring us completely, but I'd like to get a sense of where we're at.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
To my understanding, it's been radio silence over the summer. We sent another email today to remind them of the committee motion. I would recommend that now that they've been sent a follow-up, we give them the 48 hours for the next meeting. If we get nothing back then, or we get an answer that we don't agree with, we could consider taking steps as a committee. That's what I'd recommend doing.
I think it's a bit rash to jump right into it. Of course, the committee can do so if they wish, but let's see what answer comes back to the email that was sent this morning and then assess the situation on Thursday.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Chair, I'm happy to proceed as you've suggested, but I think it would be valuable if today I just verbally—I hope some other members will join me—put the government on notice that this is an extremely important recording. Ms. Daly had absolutely explosive allegations in relation to the fact that she perceived she was being pressured to blame certain individuals for what happened with ArriveCAN and that there would be consequences for her if she didn't blame those individuals. I think this is the first time we potentially have access to a recording that would shed light on this really intense conflict within the senior public service over who was responsible for certain decisions around ArriveCAN. This is a critically important recording for actually answering the questions around who is responsible.
We need this full recording to get to the bottom of it. The committee was unanimous in ordering the production of it. I find it pretty surprising that we would get radio silence to that kind of request. It's not unusual, sadly, for there to be delays past the timelines we've asked for, but it's not very common, even from the government, for them to just ignore the request completely. This is very serious.
Sure, let's give it 48 hours, and then we'll see where we are on Thursday, but I do hope that members will join me in insisting that the government adhere to their obligations and provide this recording to the committee.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Yes, Mr. Genuis. I won't survey the committee on that. I'll take it upon myself to express my view as chair that House of Commons committees do have the authority to request this. Of course, if governments refuse, we have steps to take that this committee has taken before, and we will do so again if collectively we feel it is important to do so.
I think your points are valid and I'm sure they're shared by at least some of our colleagues on this committee. I personally view the rights of both committees and Parliament to seek information as ones that are very important for us to both safeguard and enforce when necessary.
On that, Ms. Khalid, you might have had something that you wanted to say. If so, it's over to you.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
No, Chair. I think that's a very reasonable approach that you have with respect to the concerns raised by Mr. Genuis. I'm looking forward to the conclusion of this meeting.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Let me check my notes to make sure there's nothing else I'm missing.
Before I seek your agreement to adjourn the meeting, we'll see you back here Thursday morning at 10 o'clock. You can expect some additional time to be added to the Thursday meeting to deal with Mr. Perkins' motion.
On that, I will adjourn the meeting.