Evidence of meeting #13 for Public Safety and National Security in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
If we had some kind of a meeting, it could be a subcommittee meeting to talk about where we go from here. That might make sense.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
The first hour would be a subcommittee meeting. Do you want to still use the second hour?
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Well, could we do something with that motion? Could we have a look at it? I don't know if we need a referral from the House or anything to do that. We can just look at it ourselves, can we not?
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
John, I think we could just do a subcommittee meeting and try to get a work plan done for going forward.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Is there actually a referral from the House, or is it just a motion that was adopted unanimously?
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
I don't think it was a referral. It was just a motion.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
It was just a motion that was adopted in the House.
We have other things on our agenda that we carried over from last fall and our last meeting before Christmas. The clerk could certainly give us a list of what those things are, including the decision to have the commissioner of the RCMP and the public safety minister appear before the committee on the implementation of their Merlo Davidson settlement agreement. That is something that was on our agenda, and I think there are a few other things that we need to deal with. We have a lot that we can actually deal with. It's just a matter of agreeing, like you said, and asking the subcommittee to deal with it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
That is the problem: We have lots. If we ran through all 20 witnesses on the parole study, we'd be here until March. If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
At least the first hour will be devoted to committee business with the subcommittee, and the clerk will send out notice to that effect. I hate to lose an hour.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
John, is there any appetite to have someone appear to let us know what the state is in terms of how hate groups are listed in Canada?
I'm not talking about the minister, but somebody from CSIS or somebody from public safety who could just give us a briefing on how that whole process works. I think it's timely. I think Canadians are interested and really concerned about groups like Proud Boys. It's just using an hour for a briefing. It's not a study. It's just a briefing on how this process works, how it's determined to label an organization as a hate group and how they're listed as terrorists. It's just a one-hour briefing.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
I'd be in support of having someone talk about this issue. I know Mr. Lightbound's motion is close to this, but if we could have a briefing from someone—and it may not be public safety per se, although we're talking about hate groups and organizing things on the Internet—on how the Internet is controlled, what options there might be for having some control over what goes on, how they organize on the Internet and how these things are dealt with.... We need some briefing, because it may be another committee's work, but there is the aspect of whether or not you have to designate them as terrorists or find some other definition to be able to control them.
If somebody could brief us on that, if we could identify someone in the next 24 hours perhaps and see if we can get someone lined up for Wednesday, I'd be in favour of that.
Liberal
Joël Lightbound Liberal Louis-Hébert, QC
I will be brief, Mr. Chair.
I agree with Ms. Damoff and Mr. Harris. If we could use this time to have a briefing—perhaps officials from Public Safety Canada would be available—it could better guide us when we get to the study that I have proposed in my motion. I think it would be relevant to the committee, but it would not directly engage us in this study.
Conservative
Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB
There's certainly value in what Pam, Joël and Jack are all saying, definitely, in advance of moving into that study. However, why don't we, again, attempt to do first things first and actually close off work, instead of playing leap-frog over our own work and dragging out the timelines, and seek to actually invite the witnesses who remain on the list for the Levesque study for that second hour on Wednesday? That seems to me to be the proper order to do things in to actually complete our work. Other than that, as all three have said, it is important and will be valuable for the committee when we're on that issue.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
It comes down to this: The first hour is subcommittee. For the second hour, do you want a briefing from officials, or do you want the clerk and I to start picking witnesses out of the 20 witnesses that are there?
Conservative
Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB
Especially since it's all electronic anyway, this may be the only happy coincidence or serendipitous thing, that we don't expect people to travel from all around the country or do that kind of thing. It actually seems to me that it should be fairly possible to get one or two of the witnesses who remain on that list to participate by Zoom on Wednesday afternoon in the second hour. I would say that would be a good “first things first” effort.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
I think the subcommittee needs to get together first and figure out our work plan, and if we're not going to do that I say we cancel the second hour. I think we could get a briefing. I think it's pertinent to what's going on in the world right now, and I think it's really important for Canadians to know how the groups get listed. It would be just an overview from public safety officials, and then once the subcommittee has met on Wednesday, we'll have a work plan and then we can look at inviting other witnesses for whatever direction we choose to go.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
I agree with that. I agree with what Pam is saying here. This is nothing against the wise choices that the chair and the clerk might make from the 20 witnesses, but we have no idea who might be available or who the priority witnesses are. I don't know if we want three or four more meetings. Maybe the people who want this study want to hear from only two or three more people. Let's figure that out first before we just fill up the time with whoever happens to be available on a Wednesday.