Transport Committee on May 4th, 2023

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Please—I have the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Dr. Lewis does have the floor.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Please do not interrupt me when I have the floor. Thank you.

We did not have notice. I would like to confer with my colleagues for a few minutes to speak about the procedural path forward before we decide what to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Would five minutes suffice, Dr. Lewis?

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I will suspend the meeting for five minutes to allow members to discuss the matter further.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting back to order.

We will resume discussion on the topic we left off with.

I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Strahl, followed by Mr. Bachrach

They will be followed by Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

Mr. Strahl, the floor is yours.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you very much.

Having conferred, we agree with the Liberal additions of Patrick Brown and Lisa Raitt. We would like Michael Sabia to remain in the motion. He's agreed to come, but there's no timing. If the timing changes.... You know, if he's already agreed to come, the summons will be redundant, but it will be there to ensure that he does appear.

Again, we talked about amending the date, which did not happen, because we ran out of time at the last meeting. We are trying to give the chair and the clerk maximum flexibility, recognizing that this is the study that we are prioritizing right now. If it helps to remove the date and just give the clerk and the chair discretion, we can talk about that, but it certainly can't be May 11. There's no time for that many meetings. While that date was part of an original motion that was tabled in April, we're now several days past that, so we need to be flexible. As I said, we also need to recognize the business that is coming down the road for this committee.

We think it's reasonable to keep Mr. Sabia in, add Mr. Brown, add Ms. Raitt and adjust the date. That's what we'd be prepared to support. I think we'll all get where we want to be if we do that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Strahl. Do you have a date in mind that you would like to propose, perhaps?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

The date we have in mind is by June 8.

I don't want that to become a stumbling point, but we can't propose four meetings in (c) and still keep a May 11 date.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to move that the committee resume debate on Ms. Lewis's motion of May 2, as amended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, you have the floor.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Chair, is the amended motion the one that I have in hand or the one that was read out?

I am having some difficulty following along, especially because the motion I have in my hands does not say the same thing in French as in English. There are differences between the two—so, if we have to vote, I'd like to make sure I know what we will be voting on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

To clarify, my motion is to resume debate on Dr. Lewis's motion, which was discussed at the May 2 meeting. It's not the paper we have in front of us. This is something different. It's the motion as amended that we finished discussion on when we adjourned the meeting the other day.

I think that's where we need to pick up, since the motion in front of us on paper does not have 48-hours' notice, nor does Ms. O'Connell's motion, which she described as a amendment.

There's nothing to amend because there's no motion currently on the floor at this meeting. I think that's where we start.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

There's a procedural move that we need to make.

Are all in favour of resuming debate on Dr. Lewis's motion as amended?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Now we're officially able to do it.

Ms. O'Connell.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

With that being said, I would like to move the following amendment. Here's a spoiler: It's going to be the same one. Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Orders 108(1) and (2), in relation to the committee’s study examining the role of McKinsey & Company in the creation and beginnings of the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB):

a) summonses be served on Dominic Barton, past Global Managing Director of McKinsey & Co.; Andrew Pickersgill, past Managing Partner of the Canadian Practice of McKinsey & Co.; Janice Fukakusa, Inaugural Board Chair of the CIB; Bruno Guilmette, past Interim Chief Investment Officer and Board Director of the CIB; Steven Robins, Head of Strategy; Bill Morneau, former minister of Finance; Patrick Brown, Mayor of Brampton; and Lisa Raitt, Vice-Chair of Global Investment Banking at CIBC, requiring each of them to appear at dates and times to be fixed by the Chair;

b) the Committee strongly urges Annie Ropar, past Chief Financial Officer of the CIB, and the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Infrastructure; and Aneil Jaswal, Director, Sector Strategies, to appear; and

c) That the study comprise a total of four meetings in addition to the Tuesday, May 2 meeting, with a maximum of six witnesses per meeting.

If that is in order, I would like to speak to it very briefly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Looking around, I don't see any objections.

Go ahead, Ms. O'Connell.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

The two changes I made were that I left the dates out because with Mr. Bachrach's previous amendment, which is also built in. It's a maximum of four meetings.

I recognize that, if the Conservatives or the movers had timing in their previous motion, once they moved it on the floor, it was untenable. That's fine, but now we have a structure and a format of a maximum of four meetings.

I did not include Mr. Sabia. Again, if that's a hill the Conservatives want to die on for a witness that has actually already agreed to appear and does not require a summons.... If they want to take that heavy-handed route, I think it's really unnecessary.

I'm not prepared to add Mr. Sabia. My colleagues think that, if we're going to go down this route, we should respect witnesses who have agreed to appear here. There shouldn't be any sort of shaming or embarrassment of a witness who has already agreed.

We've incorporated the timing flexibility and everybody's motions. I hope this will bring it to a close, so we can get to the important study before us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Ms. O'Connell.

I think there's some general agreement for this. The one thing I was asking Mr. Strahl off-line was.... I think there's a certain level of agreement that we want to do right by witnesses who have agreed to appear. However, there is a strong argument that's being put forward that, if they change their minds, we don't want to leave the clerk in a situation where she's unable to have them appear.

Is there some form of wording we can use that says, perhaps, that if those who have agreed to appear and are on the priority list later decide not to, they then can? Can we do this, so we would achieve what we would like to achieve as a committee, which is having them appear before the committee, but also do right by them because they have agreed to appear without a summons?

Does that make sense to everybody?

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Mr. Chair, can I just comment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Yes, Ms. O'Connell.