Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 9th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You can fully respond to that, Clerk. I have no idea. It didn't impact the decision I made, but if you want to read out the time sheet for the email you received from Mr. Perkins or his office....

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

All that matters is when I tabled it.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Ariane Calvert]

I received it at 5:15 p.m. today.

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

That speaks to exactly what I want to talk about, Chair.

We're talking about a motion of privilege wherein Mr. Perkins felt like his questions were not answered. They sent the motion in while Mr. Cooper was asking questions. This was premeditated by metadata. Time-stamps are there. I'm sure that if anybody wants to look—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It wasn't premeditated.

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

If anybody wanted to look into when this motion was created, according to the metadata, it was at 5:12 p.m. It was last edited at 5:14 p.m. Mr. Cooper was still talking during that time and still had the opportunity to ask questions of the witness.

What this says to me and what the consistency of the actions of so many Conservatives who are sitting opposite me here today says to me is that this is not a question of privilege. This is a mockery. This is a mockery of our parliamentary system. They're trying to use the system to create their partisan games, to push witnesses into character assassinations and to leverage the time that we have in this committee for their own partisan benefit.

I wonder how many dollars the Conservatives have raised out of clips today. Those dollars, from Russian Rebel News, are being collected on the backs of taxpayers. Let all of us be reminded that this committee functions on the backs of taxpayer dollars. Our Parliament functions on the backs of taxpayer dollars.

We are here in the public accounts committee to make sure that taxpayer dollars are used efficiently and effectively. The fact that Mr. Perkins would move a motion of privilege—before there was any issue of the exact same thing that he's trying to talk about in his bogus motion here, that his privilege was somehow impacted—on the backs of taxpayer dollars, raising Conservative fundraising dollars on the backs of taxpayer dollars....

Why can we not get to the work that this committee has been assigned to do? Why can we not get to the reports of the Auditor General? Why can we not talk about matters that are serious and that actually impact Canadians?

I really don't understand, Chair, why we're going down this route. I see each and every member of the Conservatives right now on their phones. I'm sure that they're tweeting something or other, again to put—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

[Inaudible—Editor]

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

That's awesome. How is she doing? Is she doing great?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Perkins, come on.

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

I'm so glad that Mr. Perkins has had a moment to connect with his wife. I'm sure she's a very lovely person, and I wish her the very best.

I also would like Mr. Perkins to use his time as a member of Parliament in a more judicious manner. I think that putting forward bogus and disingenuous motions like this has a negative impact on what this committee is assigned to do and what it should be doing.

I'm just going to read out the words of the motion. Excuse me while I enter my lengthy password here.

The words of the draft motion are:

That the committee instruct the clerk and analyst to prepare a report to the House, which the Chair shall table forthwith, outlining the potential breach of privilege concerning Navdeep Bains' refusal to answer questions which the committee put to him and his prevarication in answering others.

My English is not as good as yours, Mr. Perkins.

Given the fact that this motion was drafted before questions were even answered by the witness today, while the questions were in process and while each member of the committee had time to ask their questions—this motion was drafted way before then—really calls into question the motives of the Conservatives.

I, for one, do not want to sit here and let them play their games, because, quite frankly, Canadians deserve better than that.

What the Conservatives are doing—all six or seven of them at this committee today—is quite deplorable. I really think Canadians deserve better than to have their hard-earned dollars used for the purpose of partisan hack games.

I've had enough of this, Chair. I don't think this is a legitimate privilege motion. This is premeditated and being used to raise fundraising dollars for the Conservatives, delay important legislative work in the House of Commons, delay important committee work in this committee and agitate.

We are not in the business of agitation here, Chair. We are in the business of trying to make sure Canadians understand how their tax dollars are spent and have the ability to review how we can improve the process of...Canadian dollars in our government and democracy. For us to be sitting here debating a bogus motion like this for the sole purpose of agitation, delay and fundraising dollars.... That is quite the slap in the face of democracy in our democratic institutions.

I can hear Mr. Perkins snickering right now. It's very unfortunate, because he knows exactly what he's doing. What he's doing is agitating and using Canadian taxpayer dollars to raise funds.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

[Inaudible—Editor]

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

I'm sure Mr. Cooper does not have the floor, Chair. I'm sure the floor is mine, currently.

I encourage all of my colleagues to think about what they are doing and why. This is not how we govern. This is not how we should be conducting ourselves as parliamentarians. This is a very.... I'm defining my words so that I'm using parliamentary language: This is an attempt to take us away from the work of the committee. I think we are above that. I really do. I'm sure Mr. Perkins's wife would appreciate him doing the right thing.

[Some hon. members]

I have a point of order.

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

I hope Mr. Perkins acknowledges that this is not a motion of privilege at all. This is a motion of agitation and trying to use taxpayer dollars for the political gain of the Conservative Party, trying to stop the House from functioning, trying to stop committees from functioning and trying to raise money for the Conservative Party using clickbait for Russian Rebel News or what have you. It's not right. I encourage Mr. Perkins to “back off, man”. This is not the right thing to do. We have better things to get to in this committee. I don't think this motion is in order, at all.

“I have sat on a lot of committees,” said the experienced litigator. In my nine years as a member of Parliament, I have listened to a lot of testimony from witnesses. We do not get to decide what the witnesses we invite to this committee have to say. We can ask them for clarification in writing. We can subpoena them to come to committee and answer questions.

Chair, it is your call how the committee functions and what a witness is able or not able to say at committee, so this should be just as much of a concern to you as it is to me right now. Your privilege and order as chair are questioned.

Also, what is the purpose here? Are we setting a precedent where every single witness who comes to committee, across the entirety of our committees, is now going to be judged on whether they have answered a question or not? To whose liking is that question going to be answered? I'm sure Mr. Perkins, even after being appointed to the BDC, would love to sit there and judge whether a witness has actually answered a question to his liking.

This reminds me of Trump, to be honest, when he decides whether something is foreign interference or not, or democratic or not, based on where somebody is on the political spectrum and whether they support him or not. This is the exact same thing. If we pass this motion today—if we even entertain this motion today—we are giving in to the politics of agitation here today. I do not think that is the right way for us to approach our democratic institutions or the way we should function here as a committee.

Chair, I will park my comments there, but I would like to get back on your list, at the bottom. I'm letting you know.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have been added to the list.

Ms. Bradford is next.

You have the floor.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I must say that I'm a little alarmed that you based your ruling, that this was actually a breach of privilege, on Mr. Firth. There is no way that Mr. Bains could possibly be put in the same category as Mr. Firth, who as we all know is in a class all by himself.

I was here at this meeting, and I found Mr. Bains to be a very credible, respectful witness. In all of our committees, we ask questions. Usually, when we ask the question, we don't already know the answer. Sometimes we do, but sometimes we don't, so we have to accept the witness's answers as given, even if we don't like the answer.

What I observed before, while the opposition was questioning this witness, as is often the case, was that the witness wasn't even given a chance to respond. They were constantly interrupting. He would try to say something, and he would be interrupted constantly. There is a certain level of rudeness with that. We invite people here to testify, and we should give them a chance to answer the questions. Unfortunately, I find that it wasn't the case today. Now the opposition is complaining that he didn't answer the questions. He needed some airtime in order to do that, without being constantly interrupted.

This goes on and on. It's a very bad reflection on this place and on the people who serve here.

One of the things that I would like to point out.... I was elected in 2021, and I was appointed to this committee by the whip. I remember the whip telling me, “You are going to love serving on the public accounts committee, because you're going to learn so much about the operations of government because you review the Auditor General's reports.” The Auditor General examines many different things. She decides what she wants to look at and reports back with inadequacies, and there's learning to be had from that. I wish that's what this committee was doing.

I would say, for the last eight months, that we haven't had the opportunity to review reports. We haven't been tabling reports from this committee in the House, because we're no longer reviewing the Auditor General's reports. Instead, this committee, like most parliamentary committees, is being held up with motions, whether they're privileged or not, brought forward by the opposition. They're always the same motions on four different committees, looking for a smoking gun, on some kind of a witch hunt. The prize would be to tar a cabinet minister with some wrongdoing, and there's nothing to see, but it ties up very expensive resources.

I want Canadians to know that these committees cost thousands of dollars every time we meet. If we're talking about wasting taxpayers' dollars and being judicious about taxpayers' dollars being spent fraudulently, or not in a good way, what's happening at our committees when every committee is dealing with the same motions?

This committee probably had 25 meetings on ArriveCAN. Do Canadians care about ArriveCAN anymore? There were 25 meetings, and each meeting probably costs $10,000 or $15,000, when you think of the analysts, the clerks, the interpreters, the catering and all the resources...for nothing.

Now we're going down the same rabbit hole, but this time with Sustainable Development Technology Canada. It's the same thing. There are multiple committees looking at this. What is it for? The problem has already been resolved. We know there was a problem, but when it was brought to light by the Auditor General's report, immediately, the current minister decided to transition it over to the NRC and appointed a temporary brand new board of three, and it'll be transitioned by the end of this year to the NRC. The funding will resume. It's under control.

Therefore, really, when the problem has been taken care of, I don't know why we persist in continuing to find faults that no longer exist. It has been dealt with.

I find this a very frustrating process.

There is a letter that I would like to read into the record from our Auditor General, because, again, I remind everyone that this is the public accounts committee. We are supposed to be reviewing the Auditor General's reports and looking at her work. We shouldn't be doing anything that impedes her work. However, I want to read it into the record, because I think it's an important document.

It's a letter to our chair, Mr. John Williamson, dated June 10 of this year.

Dear Mr. Williamson:

I am writing further to the motion in the House of Commons seeking the production of documents regarding Sustainable Development Technology Canada. I understand that it will be considered by the House of Commons this afternoon.

I wanted to ensure that the Standing Committee on Public Accounts is aware of some of the short-term and long-term impacts of this motion. ln my view, the requirement to produce my entire audit file to the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel compromises my independence, and is also likely to discourage departments, agencies, and Crown corporations from providing me free and timely access to the information required for my audits going forward.

The objective of this motion appears to be about ensuring that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has access to the information in my audit file. ln cases where the RCMP has engaged with my office, we have always cooperated in a timely manner. Doing so has always involved direct communication with the RCMP investigators and a timely response by my office to production orders from the RCMP. lt is unclear to me why the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel should be part of this established process with the RCMP.

I believe that it is also important to inform the Committee that there will be considerable expense to my office to produce our entire audit file to the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. Our understanding is that translation of all documents would be required. The budget for my office's resources does not include such expenses. We would need to divert financial resources that would otherwise be used to produce audits for Parliament.

Yours sincerely,

Karen Hogan...

Auditor General of Canada

Clearly, the point our Auditor General is making is that this request or demand is compromising her work and her future work. It would cause great disruption to her department. It would take them off the work they would normally be doing. It's a great expense she doesn't have a budget for, and all for what? It is to do something that shouldn't be requested in the first place because it not only compromises her, but it would also compromise the independence of the RCMP.

I do have really grave concerns about this privilege motion and about why we have to debate it. I don't think, just because some of the MPs didn't like the answers Mr. Bains, our witness tonight, was giving when he had an opportunity to speak—which was very limited—means that somebody's privilege has been abused.

We called him here. He was quite prepared to answer. Yes, maybe sometimes he did use the phrase, “I don't recall”. We often hear that. You have to consider the man left the position as the minister in January 2021. That'll soon be five years ago. How many of us can remember every conversation and meeting that we had four and a half or five years ago? I know I don't. Maybe some of you do. I don't think it's reasonable to expect anyone to. I think if they say, “I don't recall”, that's very likely an honest answer.

Those are the points I wanted to speak to on this. Thank you for giving me time.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You are welcome, Ms. Valerie Bradford.

Now it's over to Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is something that's important to me. Right now, a government member is rejecting the premise that the witness's answers were wholly unsatisfactory. I'll get back to that. The government member believes he is entitled to criticize the questions committee members ask the witness. I don't think he understands how committees work. The premise of the question is established by the person asking it, and the answer is based on the question being asked. The witness is expected to answer in good faith.

Here's a good example of a question that the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology did not ask. It ties in with my initial questions to the former minister regarding his meetings with Amber Batool when she was chief of staff at SDTC. Mr. Bains said at first that he had met her maybe once or twice. Then he said that he had met her a few times. When I asked him to give me an idea of how many times he had met Ms. Batool while he was the minister and she was the chief of staff at SDTC, he said he wasn't sure whether it was once or twice, or 10 to 15 times.

That is absolutely impossible. It shows that the witness is acting in bad faith. Anyone here would be able to ballpark how many times they had met someone over a given period of time.

I could tell you how many times I had met most people. At the very least, I could provide a ballpark number. Not being able to provide such a number shows bad faith. That is unacceptable.

Mr. Bains didn't answer a single question committee members asked him, even though they were put to him calmly and respectfully. That is shameful. The work we're doing matters. The Auditor General flagged a number of very problematic issues in her report. Mr. Bains was the minister in charge of SDTC when the situations described in the report occurred.

He should therefore have been able to answer our questions, but he didn't answer them. He had numerous opportunities to do so today, but he didn't. That is on top of the example I gave. All of that shows his lack of good faith and plain refusal to answer parliamentarians' questions. That, in my view, is a breach of parliamentary privilege.

I'll leave it there. I hope we can proceed to a vote as quickly as possible to ascertain whether it does amount to a breach of parliamentary privilege. As far as I'm concerned, that's exactly what happened today.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Joining us online is Mr. Erskine-Smith, please.

You have the floor.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I have a couple of things on this, but it is I think virtually impossible, given where we are right now in the process, if we were to report back to the House on this question, that the Speaker would find a prima facie case that their privilege has been breached here.

We have a situation where a witness said they didn't recall in a couple of cases and where the witness was repeatedly cut off in the midst of answering a question. I take the point of Nathalie that she didn't feel that her questions were directly answered in a way that she was looking for. The witness is still in the midst of.... From what I heard from the chair very clearly at the outset and then again when he excused Mr. Bains, there was an understanding that he could come back and he was willing to come back.

I've said previously that it was premature, but if we were to report it at this time, it very obviously would not be a prima facie breach of privilege. Not only does it not amount to anywhere close to the Firth precedent, which is a deeply concerning precedent, but this is no different from any number of instances of testimony I've heard over the years where we don't get the yes-or-no answer we demand from a witness, perhaps, but there's still an answer, whether we like it or not.

I should just note, because there have been many aspersions of criminal conduct on Ms. Verschuren by Conservatives, that in the midst of answering a question about Ms. Verschuren and the point that she was appointed by the Harper government initially on a board.... It would be worth understanding. I don't know if the Conservatives fully understand her history. We know that the Ethics Commissioner has found a couple of violations—for example, she should have recused herself instead of abstaining. In a second instance, she voted for a bundled approval in keeping with legal advice and ultimately that was incorrect advice to follow. This isn't a criminal character or criminal conduct here, despite what Conservatives allege.

If we had allowed Mr. Bains to finish his answer, we would have learned, for example, that she began her career as a development officer with the Cape Breton Development Corporation. She then worked with the Canada Development Investment Corporation. She then worked at AMASCO. She launched Michaels of Canada—for those who know and I have kids who enjoy arts and crafts—and then she landed the CEO role at Home Depot, where she grew Home Depot Canada in a significant way.

She has been appointed to a number of government advisory roles, including the economic advisory council during the economic crisis in 2008, the Canada-U.S. Council for the Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders and the advisory council for NAFTA. She recently participated in government round tables on climate action decarbonization. She is the chair of the MaRS Discovery District board. She's on the board of the Ontario Energy Association.

In 2011, in the Harper tenure, she was honoured as an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contributions. She was appointed in 2010 as the co-chair of the Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference—

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

I have a point of order, Chair.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'm sorry.

Yes, sure. What's the point of order?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Yes, I do have to get to it.

Go ahead, Mr. Genius.

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

This is not relevant to the question of privilege regarding Mr. Bains' non-responses to questions—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Yes, it is. Mr. Bains was cut off by Mr. Perkins in answer to a specific question about Ms. Verschuren when he was starting to articulate her long-standing record of public service and contribution, including the fact that she was appointed not only by Mr. Harper but by Mr. Flaherty. That answer is relevant because he was cut off in the course of answering it.

To be of assistance—and I'm almost done, Garnett—in 2010, she was appointed co-chair of the 2012 Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference, Canada's premier leadership training event, and she was honoured by the Canadian Business Hall of Fame in 2019. Cast criminal aspersions as you like, but definitely do it with parliamentary privilege at your back because it's defamatory outside of the House of Commons. There is no criminal conduct here—on behalf of Ms. Verschuren—and there's a long-standing record of contribution to Canada.

Keep in mind here that, yes, I'll be the first to criticize the conduct of SDTC in relation to its conflicts mess. I'll be the first to criticize the fact that it was following incredibly bad legal advice. I'll be the first to criticize ethics violations where a recusal should have been necessary instead of an abstention. Of course, they should not have bundled approval, where they were considering past conflicts as sufficient. They should have declared continued conflicts. Of course, that is the case. That is why major action has been taken to clean up that mess.

However, to suggest criminal conduct, to then cut off former minister Bains when he's in the midst of answering a question about her character, and to then further claim that your privilege has been violated because questions weren't answered, answers that you previously cut off, is laughable. We can invite Mr. Bains back because my understanding is that his testimony wasn't over.

I'll be voting against a privilege motion because this sets a terrible precedent. If this is a violation of privilege, any witness who comes and doesn't give us an answer we like ends up being in violation of privilege. A violation of privilege is something that we should take very seriously. We should not lower the standard in a laughable partisan way.

The second thing I will say is that I will guarantee you that, if we report this back to the House, it will be dismissed by the Speaker because it is impossible to think that, on such a low standard, which would apply to so many witnesses that we've seen come to this committee and many other committees.... When we get an answer that we don't like, such as, “I do not recall”—and you might not like that answer, but that's an answer, Mr. Perkins—it's certainly not going to be found to be a prima facie violation and breach of privilege.