Evidence of meeting #35 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farmers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
For the information of the committee, the draft should be coming out within the next hour or so. If we don't get it while we are meeting here, Lyne informs me that it will come to your offices today. Then you can review it for Wednesday's meeting. That's just to give you an idea.
Ms. Brown.
Liberal
Bonnie Brown Liberal Oakville, ON
I'm having trouble getting really excited about this. There was a time in the early days of my tenure here when a committee report was almost a sacred thing. The committee worked very hard, finally gave birth to it, and felt a great sense of relief and accomplishment. If anybody breached that confidentiality you felt very betrayed. That happened on very few occasions. So this is not unknown in the history of this place.
But what is unknown is that as the committee is working really hard and trying to achieve as much consensus as they possibly can, if a consensus begins to emerge, the whole sacredness of committee reports is now being undermined by the Prime Minister. We had a report coming out of the agriculture committee about labelling of food, “Made in Canada”, etc. They were achieving a high degree of consistency and consensus, and two days before it came out the Prime Minister--I guess somebody on your side told him what was going on--pre-empted the work of the committee and made the announcement.
Today we have another example. One of the committees has been studying the free trade agreement with Colombia. They even travelled to Colombia about ten days ago. A lot of Parliament's money was spent to send the whole committee to Colombia. They are on the verge of reporting, doing the best work they can for their colleagues in Parliament, and yesterday the Prime Minister announced that we're going to have a free trade deal with Colombia.
I'm about to throw my hands up and say “Perhaps the Prime Minister has already decided, and two days before we table our report in Parliament he'll make an announcement, so what are getting all excited about?” The sacred traditions of this place are being eroded, and we should be awake to that. Each one of us gets paid to be a member of Parliament to participate in the ways that are open to us and put a serious attempt into our work. When somebody else is scooping our work, then all the work we're doing here on whatever study we're doing becomes less valuable, and one has to wonder if one is wasting one's time.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
The issue is the leak that occurred at this committee, so I hope we're going to stick to that in our discussion.
Mr. Brown.
Conservative
Gord Brown Conservative Leeds—Grenville, ON
The committee does not have a monopoly on all issues and topics the government happens to deal with. However, what is being referred to is that someone who is party to this study we are doing has spoken to a reporter. I can understand how it happened. If someone around here has done it and they're not going to admit to it, hopefully they will know again....
I know how a member of Parliament could fall into this, but it's not fair that others don't get an opportunity to speak to this. If there's a panel that happens to be on today, members are free to voice their own opinions about the way things are to go, but not to speak specifically about what a committee may or may not be doing in an in camera study. That is why I brought it up. It has nothing to do with what might have happened on food or a free trade agreement. It's something that happened in this committee. I don't think we need to go for another half an hour, but it's a caution to everyone to not do this again.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Right. You've all heard that. I concur. Let's let it go. Hopefully this won't happen again.
Before I came to this meeting I talked to somebody, and they had not yet heard what's happening tomorrow. You should have all been informed that our meeting tomorrow will be with the RCMP and Mr. Michel Juneau-Katsuya. So the RCMP will be here from 3:30 to 4:45, and Mr. Juneau-Katsuya will be here from 4:45 to 5:30. Hopefully we won't have any votes interrupting that.
Liberal
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Roger Préfontaine
When I left my office I was still waiting for an indication from the RCMP of who the officials will be. In light of the lateness of the situation, I sent out a notice indicating only RCMP officials.
I've been assured by them that this is coming. I will send out an amended notice, if it hasn't already been done by my assistant. Perhaps it's at your office now. If not, it will be done shortly.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
We will suspend and go in camera to discuss future business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
