Debates of March 25th, 2021

Opposition Motion—Instructions to the Standing Committee on Ethics and to the Standing Committee on National Defence

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an error I fall into on occasion. I apologize.

The Prime Minister defended the partnership, saying that WE was the only group with a countrywide network capable of operating a program on this scale for young people. That was not true. That was very clearly not true. As someone who has worked in the sector, I can tell members that there are a number of organizations that could have done that much better.

I can also tell members that the WE organization is not a good international development charity. There is a reason that it is not part of any charitable umbrella group. There is a reason that it is not seen as a player within the sector. It does bad development work. It takes advantage of students. To be perfectly honest, it is basically the Liberal equivalent of a charity: it is all glitter and no substance, or, as we say in Alberta, it is all sizzle and no steak.

There were many organizations that would have been capable of doing that work and developing that program really well, and there are tons of ugly details that I can get into, such as the unethical relationships and the extremely poor judgment that we saw from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, but I do not want to talk about that; I want to talk about students, because, like so many Canadians, I am weary of hearing about scandal after scandal by the government.

What I think has been lost in this discussion is that there was almost a billion dollars promised to help students, and it went missing. Nobody knows where that money went. In Alberta, there have been massive cuts to post-secondary education. Students and recent graduates are really suffering in my province and across the country. The Liberal government promised to relieve student loan debt; it has not done that yet. The Liberals agreed to my unanimous consent motion to halt repayments on student loans until after the pandemic, but again they acted in bad faith and have not done that.

We need to find out why they wanted this money to go to WE charity, because it is in fact a really bad organization to give money to, but we also need to know what we are going to do to protect students and how students ended up having to bear the brunt of these bad decisions by the Liberal government.

Now I am going to talk a bit about what happened with sexual misconduct issues in the Canadian Armed Forces.

As the NDP deputy critic for women, gender and equality, I am shocked at the allegations of sexual misconduct in the military. I have dedicated my life to international development, sustainable development and human rights, with a particular focus on the rights of women and girls in Canada and around the world, so I am deeply troubled by these allegations and the continued failure to protect women and to have a reporting mechanism in place that will protect victims.

For women to be able to serve equally in the armed forces, they have to have confidence that complaints will be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly, no matter who is the perpetrator. The Minister of National Defence and the Prime Minister knew about sexual misconduct allegations against the chief of the defence staff, General Vance, in 2018, yet they decided to leave him at the very top of the chain of command for more than three years.

I have to tell members that I had a phone call last week. One of the victims actually phoned my office and wanted to talk to me about what she had experienced. She felt revictimized. She felt scared of reprisal. She felt that the country that she had devoted her life to was not protecting her safety. It was a very difficult conversation for me to hear. For the government to say that we do not have the right to get the information to get to the bottom of this and to fix the problems within our military for women like the young woman who phoned me is an insult. It is an absolute insult. It insults women and it insults students.

The Liberals have tried many times here in the House and in many committees, and not just in the foreign affairs committee, to obfuscate and filibuster. They have worked to lead a conversation about what needs to be covered. They make excuses, they blame the Conservatives, they blame the provinces, they blame the processes in place, but they have the power to make those changes. They still have not come to terms with the fact that they have the ability to make those changes—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Cloverdale—Langley City.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would ask this. Does the member believe the Liberals have any credibility left as champions of women's rights, based on what has been heard at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I spoke to a young woman from the Canadian military. It was heartbreaking to hear how much she wanted to support the military and do her job, but under the current government she felt she could not do her job and was not being protected. To hear a proud member of our military say she was afraid and had been abandoned by the government gives me little faith that it is protecting women. That needs to change right now.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I understand and appreciate the member's desire to get the information she wants, but I appeal to her sense of whether it is appropriate to ask staff to come forward to testify at a committee. I know she used to be the executive director of an organization where she had staff below her.

Would it have been appropriate for staff to be called to testify or would she, as the executive director, have said that she would answer on behalf of her staff?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, the key priority here is getting answers, because that is what the opposition's role is. It is what the government needs to do and it is our job within the committees. I was the executive director of an organization and would feel it was my responsibility to speak on behalf of that organization, but I also had staff who were experts in particular areas and they would be the best people to ask. That is what I am saying. When we cannot get answers from the government, when it does not answer our questions in good faith, what are we meant to do as opposition? I am a new member of Parliament, but not so new that I do not know what my job is. My job is to hold the government to account. The government is making it very difficult for me to do that.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my good friend and colleague for all the work she does. She mentioned students, and when the government rescinded the $912 million it promised because of the WE scandal. The government failed students, even though it supported my friend's unanimous consent motion to have the loan repayment moratorium extended until at least May 2021.

Can she tell us about the NDP's plan?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for being such an important voice in Parliament and an important mentor to me.

We would like to see the government stop the interest on student loans, as it should not be profiting off the backs of student loans, and put a moratorium on repaying student loans.

Recent graduates are suffering right now. Let us give them the help they deserve: the same help we have given to other sectors. Let us forgive some debt. Our leader came forward this week and brought a plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt per student.

We should be working toward tuition-free post-secondary education. There are 24 countries in the world that have free post-secondary education. That is something we should be working toward.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is always a great honour to rise in the House representing the people of Timmins—James Bay. We are dealing today with another day of immature fighting between the Conservatives and the Liberals.

When the Conservatives were in power, their schtick was conducting everything in camera. Everything had to go in camera. The idea that we could have a public committee was outrageous. Everything had to go in camera.

On the other hand, if the Liberals do not like a question, they filibuster. We have a government actually obstructing its own committees, then the Liberals act like the whiniest picked-upon people. They have a new thing now: there is somehow a tyranny of the majority picking on the minority. The minority here is the Government of Canada.

The Liberals have been filibustering about the fact that the Liberal government is trying to stop accessing vaccines in the third world. They have been filibustering on that. They have been filibustering the very serious issue of sexual misconduct and the failure of the defence department to defend women in the military. Rather than get answers, they are filibustering.

Of course, they have filibustered in the ethics committee day in and day out for so long that, in terms of what is happening at the ethics committee, I think we know pretty much all that we are going to know about the WE group. We know that after eight months, we can honestly and confidently say we do not have a clue how this financial operation runs. This is such an obscure, massive system of all their real estate holdings, their private companies, their supposed public entities, their charities and their holding companies that we still have not been able, after eight months, to get answers. That is very serious. In fact, we just had a letter from their lawyer who is outraged that we are asking how many schools they actually built. Apparently it will take months to get an answer to that.

On the issue of what is before—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands has a point of order.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, on the issue of filibustering, I believe it is the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, an NDP member, who holds the record for filibustering in the House. Just—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

That is debate. The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay, please proceed.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, this is typical. The Liberals believe that if they act like sock puppets for the Prime Minister's Office they will get advancement instead of actually acting like parliamentarians. It is a typical example that they insult and shout, but then nobody is a victim like a Liberal is a victim. That is certainly something I have seen.

I will say that there is one thing Conservatives and Liberals agree on at committee. As the one member of the New Democratic Party, whenever I try to find a compromise, the Liberals and Conservatives absolutely agree that there is going to be no compromise. It is going to be a fight to the finish.

I have tried to work with the Liberals. I want to get this thing solved. The reason I want to get this solved is because these procedural games are interfering with some very serious work we need to do, so I would say a pox on both their houses. One of the things that we actually need to deal with is the study into Pornhub/MindGeek, which I am very concerned is not going to get finished. There are very serious issues here, and I do not see any interest in compromise from the Liberals or the Conservatives at this point so that we can get that study done.

We have received some extraordinary messages from people around the world who are looking to our committee to do something that has never been done before, and to shine a light into some very dark corners. However, there are powerful statements that might never see the light of day because of the filibustering.

I was astounded the other day that we actually got a message from Rose Columba. I had mentioned her, and she was the first one to come forward. She was raped and tortured as a child, and her abuse was posted on Pornhub, which is owned by MindGeek. The abuse that young child suffered was horrific, and she could not get it taken down. She wrote to us, saying she thought that it would be a monumental moment if we actually got the study done. She said that:

I was the first Pornhub survivor to speak out with my face and real name [that was] initially on social media... and then... [on] BBC World.

I learned of her story from BBC World, but I did not know that she is Canadian.

Her letter continues with:

...I was 14, I was raped, and my attackers videoed the assault and posted it. After my rape, I tried to commit suicide, and after I survived [I] struggled greatly to manage my life.... I was revictimized by the posting of the video on Pornhub where an unknown number of others could watch, download and distribute my assault.... Six videos of my rape at age 14, uploaded by...my attackers, stayed on Pornhub while they refused to remove them for over half a year. My cries to them where I begged them to take it down, stating that I was a minor and it was non-consensual, both of which were glaringly obvious, went unheard...while ads appeared [alongside] the rape video.

She has reached out to our committee and asked us to do the job that needs to be done in getting answers.

Here is another letter I want to read into the record. In case the filibustering goes on forever and we never get this done, it should be on the record. This is from a person who had worked in management at Pornhub/MindGeek. It says:

I fear for my safety and so I prefer not to give more details...[but] please investigate all the cam-girl sites that MindGeek runs. I am certain many of the “models” are being held captive in trafficking situations all over the world. For example, women trying to escape North Korea will be held captive and forced into the cam studios in China by their trafficker, who they just thought would help them get out.... This story repeats globally. MindGeek denies responsibility by separating themselves from the cam-girl studios. Instead, these companies are managed as affiliate relationships, marketing relationships, but MindGeek is making a lot of money off these women held against their will.

The letter continues with:

Ask MindGeek to provide all the financial records for all incoming and outgoing transactions in their affiliate networks for all business units. All pay sites. All Tube sites. All cam sites. All advertising networks like TrafficJunky. It will be very clear that the scope of the problem is much larger than anyone on the ethics committee or reporting in any mainstream media currently realizes. This problem is so much bigger than Pornhub.

This former manager also mentioned that he was:

...discouraged from contacting Interpol when I stumbled on child content by my superiors. I was not allowed to report this kind of content when it crossed my desk.

The issue that is before us is that we have a law in Canada, passed in 2011, that says if an online site has an allegation of child pornography, it has to refer it to the police.

Little Rose Kalemba, who was 14, was held and raped again and again and was physically tortured, when she went forward, she could have contacted Pornhub. It had a legal obligation to contact the RCMP and we would have a record of it.

Serena Fleites, who spoke to us, was sexually abused at age 14 and she begged Pornhub to take the video down. There should be a record. Pornhub said it could not find any record of Ms. Fleites. It was going to check its files. However, there is a law in Canada that says there is a duty to report.

The RCMP came to us, and told us it was difficult, that it needed more funding. We asked if it had ever dealt with Pornhub and asked it about compliance with the law. My understanding is that the RCMP said no. Then we read in La Presse that the RCMP went to Pornhub and asked about the duty to report, and Pornhub had said that it was not a Canadian company, that Pornhub, based in Montreal, is not a Canadian company, and the RCMP left.

We are now being told by the director of public prosecutions that it is really a provincial matter, that even though we have federal laws to deal with child pornography, somehow it is the provincial government's responsibility to do this.

These are the questions that we need to get to. We need to have the Minister of Justice come to explain whether or not we are going to have child pornography laws in this country that will be enforced or not enforced. We need to get to the study.

I am encouraging, asking, begging my colleagues in the Liberal and Conservatives parties to stop beating each other with these plastic sticks for the cameras and to get down to the work that we need to do at committee. I would like to move that we amend the motion, if my colleagues would agree, to replace “10:00 a.m.” in paragraph (b) with “11:00 a.m.”

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

It is my duty to inform hon. members that an amendment to an opposition motion may be moved only with the consent of the sponsor of the motion. Therefore, I ask the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes if he consents to this amendment being moved.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, while we are supportive of the concept, at this time we will not be able to support the amendment.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

There is no consent. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 85, the amendment cannot be moved at this time.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Cloverdale—Langley City

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Madam Speaker, having listened to this very passionate speech, I am very thankful for the member standing up and fighting for women in regard to the incredible tragedy we see happening with a company like MindGeek.

Does the member believe that the Liberals have any credibility left as champions of women's rights, based on what we see happening at committee?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, what concerns me at committee, and it is not separate from ethics, is what happened with the investigation after the military ombudsman brought forward an allegation of sexual misconduct by Gen. Vance.

The military ombudsman attempted to meet with the minister. The minister would not hear him. The next day, the PCO demanded to know the name of the woman complainant. Of course, in any case like this, it is the job of the ombudsman to protect a complainant. What concerns me is that Mr. Walbourne says that he was then forced out of his job, in what he said became an increasingly toxic environment.

We have to assure the women of our nation who serve our country and put their lives on the line that this nation will have their back against men who try to use their power to undermine them. I believe we could get to the bottom of what is going on in the military if the Liberals would stop obstructing that part and actually bring forward the witnesses we need so we can get a report for all the women in the military.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, notwithstanding the opening remarks about the Liberals and Conservatives, I agree with just about everything the member said in his speech. I know that he spoke very passionately about it.

I, too, would love to see committees doing this very important work. I am assuming that this member is supporting the motion too, because another NDP member indicated that they were. However, I fail to see how this particular motion does anything other than politically go after staff members.

If the member is very much interested in actually studying these very important issues, why would he support this motion that would only clog up the committee with additional partisan business, as opposed to getting to the important work that he talks about?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, if the member wants to talk about clogging up committee, I had to sit through 40 hours of the Liberals talking about the kind of underwear they bought while we needed to get to the issue of parliamentary business.

The Liberals are telling us these poor staffers come in to make the world a better place, but we are talking about political staffers here. When the Liberals were in opposition, I remember when they brought a Conservative staffer before committee in 2006. They were more than willing to bring a Conservative staffer to committee. However, now that it concerns the Prime Minister's Office, the Liberals are saying that they have to protect them, that this is terrible behaviour by the majority somehow. Yes, it is a majority. That is what committee is.

Whenever the Liberals do not get their way, they do not try to compromise or work out a solution. They just figure that they will talk about ridiculous things like the kind of underwear they bought. That is literally what they were talking about at our committee. They will talk for hours and hours. They wasted the equivalent of 20 straight meetings and then blamed us for all of the work that never got done. I would say to my colleague to just look in the mirror once in a while.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague from Timmins—James Bay for all the work he has done in the House of Commons.

Canadians have seen too many Liberal scandals over the past few years, like at the Aga Khan's island and the SNC-Lavalin scandals. The Prime Minister was found guilty of breaking ethics laws in both of those cases. Now we have serious allegations about sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces and, of course, we have the WE scandal.

Earlier today, the government House leader stated to the House that today's motion is nothing but petty partisan politics and that we are undermining the public service.

Does the member believe that we should just move on and that this is nothing but petty politics?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think the Liberals should stop their filibustering on vaccines and stop filibustering what is happening at the defence committee. I think the Liberals and the Conservatives need to work with us and get the ethics committee back on track so we can get to the Pornhub study.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Red Deer—Lacombe.

I am pleased to take part in today's debate on the motion moved by the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, and to point out to the House that we must once again expose the bad faith of the Liberal government, which is attempting to shirk its responsibility for answering to Canadians.

I have made several speeches condemning this matter and asked many questions about the government's judgment and rather elastic conscience. No one has shown more contempt for ethics and transparency than the Liberal government since it came to power in 2015.

Today's motion essentially seeks to compel the government to talk, something that is apparently easier to do in secret. The government often hides behind closed doors.

The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics would obviously prefer to get answers from the Prime Minister, who took an oath to serve our country well. At the very least, the committee would like to get answers from the people who have been summoned. Even that would be better than nothing.

I think it is worth repeating the motion.

That, with a view to support the authority of committees in their important inquiries of public interest:

(a) regarding the study on questions of conflict of interest and lobbying in relation to pandemic spending by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics,

(i) an order of the House do issue for due diligence reports, in the care, custody or control of the Privy Council Office, respecting the Canada Student Service Grant, and that these documents be deposited, in both official languages, with the Clerk of the Committee no later than Thursday, April 1, 2021,

(ii) Rick Theis, the Prime Minister's Director of Policy and Cabinet Affairs, be ordered to appear before the committee on Monday, March 29, 2021, at 2 p.m.,

(iii) Amitpal Singh, the Deputy Prime Minister's Policy Advisor, be ordered to appear before the committee on Wednesday, March 31, 2021, at 2 p.m.,

(iv) Ben Chin, the Prime Minister's Senior Advisor, be ordered to appear before the committee on Thursday, April 8, 2021, at 2 p.m.;

(b) regarding the study on addressing sexual misconduct issues in the Canadian Armed Forces by the Standing Committee on National Defence, Zita Astravas, formerly the Minister of National Defence's chief of staff and the Prime Minister's Director of Issues Management and currently the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness's chief of staff, be ordered to appear before the committee on Tuesday, April 6, 2021, at 10 a.m.;

(c) should the Prime Minister instead appear before the committees mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b), at any of the dates and times mentioned, for at least three hours, the witness otherwise scheduled to appear, and any other witnesses scheduled to appear before the same committee at a later time, be relieved of their obligation to appear pursuant to this order; and

(d) it be an instruction to the Chairs of the committees mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b) to convene televised meetings of their respective committee, at the dates and times mentioned, for at least three hours, for the purpose of receiving evidence from the individuals then ordered to appear or the Prime Minister, as the case may be, unless the individual has been relieved from attending under the provisions of paragraph (c), provided that the witnesses be required to appear until discharged by the committee.

As we heard during the debate, if the Liberals do not want to hear from those witnesses, I hope the Prime Minister would at least be wise enough to appear before the committees to tell the truth and shed light on these long-standing issues. A ridiculous amount of time and House resources were wasted when the Liberals filibustered. That is unacceptable. Making so many people work for nothing is a waste of time. Why are we being kept in the dark? What is so dangerous about all of this that the Liberals want to cover it up?

In a healthy democracy, governments need to be very transparent. This is 2021. Canadians have a right to know what is going on in Ottawa. They have a right to know what the government wants to do with their tax dollars. Why is so much being kept from us? Perhaps the Liberals are looking out for their close friends or are trying to protect certain people, but from what? What did these people do, give or get, and in return for what?

We simply want to get to the bottom of these events. If there is nothing to hide, the witnesses and the Prime Minister just have to show up and tell Canadians the truth. Then we can move on. However, the Liberals are dead set on hiding certain shocking actions that could hurt the government if Canadians were to learn about them before an election is called. I think that Canadians have the right to know what they are dealing with. They have the right to know everything before they cast their vote. They want to be confident in their vote for the person who will be representing them.

Unfortunately, this government is desperate to hide its close ties with friends who do favours for them. We do not understand what is going on, so we want to find out. In conclusion, the committees have to be able to do their job, and the filibustering must end. The time we are wasting is costing Canadians a lot of money. There is nothing to be gained by making us waste our time.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his highly speculative speech. I could feel his indignation.

On June 15, 2020, the office of the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth received an email from Helping Hands, which offered its services. These services happened to match the WE Charity program exactly. Did my colleague have the opportunity to ask questions in committee about the fact that WE was not the only organization capable of delivering this type of program, contrary to what was being said in the media?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, such questions were asked, and if memory serves, WE Charity was unfortunately the only organization that could implement this type of program. Therein lies the problem.

Why was such a major program, worth almost a billion dollars, awarded without a call for tenders? Any Canadian who wants to win a federal contract worth more than $25,000 normally has to respond to a call for tenders. In this case, a $1-billion contract was awarded without a call for tenders, simply by picking up the phone.