Debates of June 16th, 2021

Government's Alleged Non-compliance with an Order of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this question of privilege, though not under happy circumstances as we find ourselves yet again with the Liberal government brazenly defying an order of the House in the name of a cover-up. The government operates in cover-ups, so we should not be surprised. Multiple times the Canada-China committee ordered documents from PHAC regarding the Winnipeg lab leak, and each time it was met with pages and pages of blacked-out documents that did not satisfy the order of the committee. Again, this was not much of a surprise. Blacked-out documents came nowhere close to satisfying the order of the committee, and that is why we find ourselves here today.

We have serious questions about what happened at the Winnipeg lab. This is a level 4, high-security lab. Scientists there were working with the Chinese military. To this point, foreign state actors were given access to some of the world's deadliest viruses, which were stored in the lab. We have seen the human rights violations that the CCP will publicly carry out on its own soil. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan detailed the problematic relationship involving scientific co-operation and information collection between our country and the Chinese government, which is frankly perpetrating a genocide on its own soil.

We have a situation where the Government of Canada is unwilling to provide answers about the access, samples and personnel involved in this case. The two scientists who were fired were locked out of the Winnipeg lab, and we know that their security clearances were revoked because of the concerns of our national intelligence agency, CSIS. This raises serious questions.

Now that the opposition has dialed in on this failure, the government is doing everything it can to hide from accountability. The documents were ordered twice by the Canada-China committee, and twice the government failed to provide the information. The House ordered the information to be provided and the government refused to do that.

We have seen it before, and I will speak to that because this is a disturbing pattern that we have seen from the government: It is willing to do anything to save its political skin. It will scream that the Conservatives are acting in some kind of hyper partisan way by exercising our function as the official opposition in this place; however, in this case the orders from committee were unanimous. Members sitting on the same side of the House as the cabinet voted unanimously for the order of these documents, unredacted, to be reviewed by appropriate independent authorities. It was not just the Conservatives. The Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP voted to have the parliamentary Law Clerk review the unredacted documents and then make an assessment on what information needed to be protected on the grounds of national security. It is frankly quite troubling, and the member for Wellington—Halton Hills really laid out the case well.

This is a dangerous pattern and it threatens our democracy. It certainly threatens Canadians' confidence in our democracy. We have a Prime Minister who promised to do politics differently, and what he has done is not a record to be proud of. It is not open by default. It is not transparent. The government will say that this accountability mechanism that is being exercised, a check against the power of the executive, is some sort of delay, but we know that the government has not prioritized moving legislation through this place.

When the government sought it, it received the unanimous consent of all parties in the House to advance the necessary supports for people during the pandemic. This is not about that.

Let us talk about the record that the Prime Minister has. We have reports from the Ethics Commissioner, one titled the “Trudeau I Report,” in which the Prime Minister was found guilty of contravening sections of the Conflict of Interest Act, namely sections 5, 11, 12 and 21. That was for his trip to billionaire island. We had the—

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I am going to interrupt the hon. member.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, there have been a number of points of order tonight with respect to relevance. Certainly I and the member for Ottawa South were called out on that. We are continually being asked to be brought back to relevance.

This motion before us today specifically has to do with the Public Health Agency of Canada and the president of the Public Health Agency. It certainly never once mentions the Prime Minister, nor does it even mention the government, for that matter. This member has gone way off topic to talk about the Prime Minister directly and issues that he foresees with the Prime Minister. He is not being relevant to the discussion that we are supposed to be having on this particular motion today.

It would be prudent of you, Mr. Speaker, to rein him in and ask him to stick to the motion. The previous Speaker who was sitting in your place started to read out the actual motion to the member for Ottawa South. Perhaps you need to do the same thing for this member so that he knows what we are talking about.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I want to remind the hon. members that the discussion, the debate, has to be relevant to what we are discussing this evening. I am sure the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes is probably making an argument and coming back. I am sure he will come back with an argument very quickly. I will leave it in his hands to continue.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will just ask that my time should reflect more than four minutes left on the clock, because I know that for five and a half full minutes I have talked exactly about this motion and did start to build the case for an additional 30 seconds. The point by the member for Kingston and the Islands is disingenuous at best.

What I am demonstrating is that the government, led by the Prime Minister who is named in those two reports, has a pattern of disregarding the rule of law. The Liberals believe that the rules do not apply to them. This is certainly germane to the subject of them defying an order of the House, and that is obviously why you, Mr. Speaker, found the prima facie case of privilege that we are debating this evening to be decided by this place.

As I was saying, in the Trudeau II Report tabled by the Ethics Commissioner, the Prime Minister was found guilty of contravening section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act, again seeing him disregarding the rule of law as the government did in this case with the PHAC documents. That, of course, was when he attempted to politically interfere in the prosecution of his friends at SNC-Lavalin.

Twice in a four-year term, that Prime Minister was found guilty of breaking ethics laws. In that same term, we saw a pattern of law-breaking in which the President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada was found guilty of contravening sections 6 and 21 of the Conflict of Interest Act. We saw that same pattern with former finance minister Bill Morneau. He was found guilty of breaking the Ethics Act twice: first with his failure to disclose his directorship in a numbered company and his forgotten French villa, but also contravening sections 6, 7 and 21 of the act with respect to the WE scandal.

It goes on and on. The Liberal government went so far as to shut down Parliament to avoid scrutiny, again, when parliamentarians were looking to—

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I will have to interrupt the hon. member. I think he is going off-line. Would he like me to read the motion?

Okay, I will let him continue. I am sure he will bring it around to the motion and will stay on topic.

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

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the point of order raised by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, again, I will speak to something he raised in his speech.

He raised the question of Conservatives looking to obstruct the business of the House. That was raised directly by that member. I would like to share with the House that the Liberals filibustered PROC for more than 73 hours, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics for 43 hours—

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When I brought up that point, I was ruled out of order to speak to it. If I was not allowed to speak to it, you certainly should not be allowing the member to respond to what I was not even allowed to speak to.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I was not here when that was not allowed.

We have another point of order from the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Ottawa South did not refer to the motion once during the entire speech. I can understand that some Liberals are getting a little sensitive, but the member has clearly been talking to the motion. Yes, he has walked a wider field than perhaps the member for Kingston and the Islands would like, but I believe he is on target.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

We will go back to the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes. I am sure he is going to hit the target right on. Is that correct?

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

Mr. Speaker, absolutely. I noticed the member for Kingston and the Islands asked in his last two questions, for which no rulings were made by the Chair occupant at the time, who should be named in the motion. Of course, the president of PHAC is named because he signed the letters, but I am wondering this: Which ministers would he like to amend the motion to name to also have admonished or censured? Would that then bring him onside to vote in favour of this transparency mechanism?

In saying that, I would also remind the House that the Liberals filibustered the finance committee for 35 hours, the Standing Committee on National Defence for 16 hours and the foreign affairs committee for more than 10 hours. There were many other filibusters, including at the health committee, where there was also an issue with documents not being tabled in keeping with an order from parliamentarians.

We have this gross problem with the current government because it believes that if it provides a rationale, the laws do not apply to it anymore. That is not how this works. Canadians expect us to govern ourselves to the highest standard, and we have seen anything but with the government. This is a straight up-and-down issue. It is a question of whether the government believes the rules apply to it or not. If the Liberals do not believe the laws apply to them, frankly, that is an admission that they are not fit to govern, because the arguments they have put forward this evening are absolutely insufficient. Canadians deserve better than a government that is unwilling to follow the rule of law. The lawful authority has made decisions, with respect, and there is precedent that establishes that these documents can be ordered. We have confidence that the Law Clerk will exercise its function appropriately and provide these documents to parliamentarians in a way that provides consideration for national security interests. It is not a question of giving them to a group of parliamentarians who report to the Prime Minister: We are asking the government to demonstrate its ability, or a minimum willingness, to be accountable to Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member started to answer my question. I want to give him an opportunity to keep going. He said moments ago that the government did not follow the law. Why is the government not named in this motion? The government is not named in this motion. It is the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Why was the government not named in this? This member's questions, and all Conservative and Bloc questions, have been with respect to the government this whole night. They did not even mention the government in the motion.

Will the member elaborate on why that is?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have not had a conversation with the opposition House leader at this point, but I am confident that if the member for Kingston and the Islands would like to move an amendment to the motion to include a set of government ministers to be censured by this House, opposition parties would enter into a discussion with the government. I think that would be an important first step in the government recognizing that it has been complicit in damaging our democracy, and that would be a good first step in admitting it had done wrong.

In the meantime, the president of PHAC signed the letters that acknowledged he was in breach of a lawful order to tender those documents, so he will be called to the bar should it be the will of the House. Again, if the member for Kingston and the Islands would like to name some of his colleagues or individuals from the ministry, I would certainly be willing to broker those discussions to have them added to the motion, and would of course enjoy his support in voting for this motion and for transparency for Canadians.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, earlier my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean asked the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles a question about the Liberals' transparency. He asked four times how such a lack of transparency was possible. When I think about the redacted documents that were sent to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, I feel like asking two more times how this is possible.

Not so long ago, I mentioned that this committee had no Bloc Québécois members. Miraculously, we found out this morning that there would finally be a Bloc Québécois MP on the committee. Is all this rushing about not symptomatic of the approach of the Liberals, who, in my opinion, have a big problem with transparency? I would like my colleague's thoughts on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have been on full display for six years as being unwilling to do what they promised Canadians in 2015 and 2019, which was to be the most open government in history and to let the sun shine in, as it is the best disinfectant.

It is disingenuous and demonstrative of the issue when NSICOP is the committee that this issue would be sent to and the nominations from the official opposition for the changes in membership were made in October. To have the third party in the House, the Bloc Québécois, not have its member added until this morning, on the eve of this ruling from the Speaker, is disingenuous. We have seen the Liberals shut down Parliament. We have heard them threaten to go to an election during the pandemic. We have heard hours and hours of filibustering from them. They seem allergic to being transparent and accountable, and that is why we cannot count on them to do the right thing.

It looks like an order of this House may be needed and that individuals may need to be censured. If that is the will of this place, I am confident that it will bolster Canadians' sense of confidence in this institution.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, before I start, I want to advise you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.

I want to begin my comments by saying thank you for the ruling today. I know that the opposition requested you to deliberate over what had happened with respect to the redacted documents, and you came back with a very fair ruling that respects the democratic principles of this institution. You ruled that Parliament does in fact reign supreme and that the committees do have significant powers. It was a very respectful ruling and one that leads us to this evening and this debate.

I will remind you of what you said this afternoon as you ruled that the government breached parliamentary privileges by failing to provide the parliamentary body with secret documents that would explain the firing of two scientists at Canada's top infectious disease lab in Winnipeg.

You went further, Mr. Speaker, as you know, to say that it is up to the opposition House leader who asked for the ruling to decide on a follow-up motion that might censure the government or refer the matter for more study. That is precisely where we are this evening.

The motion that was put forward by the opposition House leader speaks to the fact that the House finds the Public Health Agency of Canada to be in contempt for its failure to obey the order of the House adopted on June 2, 2021, as well as the orders of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations adopted on March 31 and May 10.

That is a very important issue here, because there have been three orders, two by committee and one by this body, for those documents to be provided to the parliamentary law clerk and to House administration officials. The order is for the president to:

attend the Bar of the House, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions on the second sitting day following the adoption of this Order, for the purposes of (a) receiving, on behalf of the Agency, an admonishment delivered by the Speaker; and (b) delivering up the documents ordered by this House on June 2, 2021 to be produced, so that they may be deposited with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel under the terms of that Order.

For any Canadian who is watching this debate tonight, and I have sat here for most of it, it is rather disturbing to see the government trying to not provide the information that has been ordered by Parliament or by these committees. This is a systemic problem that has been going on for as long as I and many members on the opposition side have been in this Parliament. We see a government that really, despite the words of openness and transparency that the Liberals ran on in 2015, is anything but open and transparent.

What the government would prefer more than anything, especially given the time that we are in right now, would be to have an audience rather than an opposition. All parties in opposition in this House have effectively done what they are mandated to do, and that is to hold the government to account.

When the facts of this case came out, they were disturbing. I will remind the House again, for the sake of Canadians who are watching, how we got to this point. This is critically important.

There were two scientists who were dismissed in January from the Winnipeg lab after their security clearances were revoked in July 2019, and the RCMP was called in to investigate. Xiangguo Qiu, the former head of a key program at the lab, and her biologist husband, Keding Cheng, had been the focus of parliamentary debate for weeks as opposition members became aware and had sought information about this situation.

In May, Canada's spy agency had urged the removal of security clearances for the two scientists and an unknown number of Dr. Qiu's students from China relating to the Wuhan facility and other national security matters.

For months before the couple were expelled from the lab in 2019, access to information documents show that Dr. Qiu played a key role in shipping two exceptionally virulent viruses, Ebola and Henipah, to China's Wuhan Institute. When this became public, the first response from the government was that it was an issue of privacy. It even sprinkled a little racism in there as the opposition, as a result of these published reports coming out and the fact that the RCMP and Canada's spy agency were involved, tried to get answers about what was going on. Then it went into national security issues. As I said earlier, two committees of Parliament, plus this body itself, ordered the government to provide those unredacted documents to the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel so that they could be studied by, as you said, Mr. Speaker, a body that is supreme in this place, yet those documents were not provided in the manner in which they were requested.

It is somewhat disturbing that we have seen this systemic pattern, as I said earlier, of a government that has failed in many cases over the last six years to be transparent and accountable to what ultimately reigns supreme in this place, and that is Parliament. It is quite disturbing that we have come to this point.

We have seen that this is the government that ran in 2015 on the issue of transparency and accountability. Over the course of the government being in power, we have seen the WE situation. We have seen the Prime Minister charged with ethics violations and found guilty. The list of the government's violations of accountability and transparency is as long as the day. This has caused me as a parliamentarian, my constituents and Canadians in general to be extremely cynical about what the government is doing by not being transparent.

I know the government's argument and I have listened to some of the arguments tonight. The argument has been that this information would be provided to the national security committee, but as the Speaker ruled, it is not a committee of Parliament. I think it was important to make the distinction that it serves at the whim of the Prime Minister and the executive branch of the government, which, by virtue of that association, makes it unaccountable to this Parliament. The information that the committee can create and develop is only given to the Prime Minister. That means that Canadians run the risk of not having that information available to them.

We do not naively think that national security is not important. We all know that the first and primary role of government, any level of government, is to make sure that its citizens are secure. That is why, in the best interests of our national security, both the committee and Parliament itself in its order made sure that there would be processes in place to protect information.

Mr. Speaker, this motion that we are debating tonight as a result of your ruling today is a critical one to indicate to the government that it cannot just run roughshod over parliamentary authority.

There have been examples of that in the past. An example that occurred when this pandemic first started was brought up earlier tonight. One of the first pieces of legislation that the government tried to introduce was an attempt to impose unreserved, unconditional tax and spending powers that would have effectively made Parliament irrelevant until January 2022. If it were not for the opposition, all of us, and if it were not for Canadians and journalists pushing back on this power grab by the government, I would hate to think where we would be today. It is not surprising to me and it should not surprise any Canadian when the Prime Minister says that there is something about China's basic dictatorship that he likes and admires. He was not kidding. We have seen this pattern over and over again over the course of the last six years.

Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude by thanking you for protecting this institution, for being the last line of defence in our democracy and for being there for Canadians.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague touched on a number of important points, and a number of Conservative speeches over the last couple of hours have emphasized a couple of very important things. One specific and unprecedented thing is twofold. First, opposition parties and the majority of parliamentarians are united in the belief that the actions of the government are contemptuous. Second, this is once again a demonstration of the serious need to ensure that all aspects, agencies and institutions of government are accountable to Parliament, given the supremacy of Parliament within our democratic system. These are two unprecedented things that have been demonstrated here today.

I ask the member to comment on how unfortunate it is to see the Liberals using this as an opportunity to try to play politics and pivot away from being found in contempt of Canadian democracy.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills said it best: It is up to all of us to protect the democratic institutions that we hold so dear, Parliament being one of them, obviously. We have seen, as I said earlier in my speech, a systemic pattern of what I would call abuse, on the part of the government, of the parliamentary privilege of members. We have seen it over and over in committees and in Parliament. We saw a prorogation of Parliament to take the heat off of the Liberals for a pretty significant issue that was happening with the WE scandal.

It is incumbent on all of us to protect this institution, and we must do so because we are privileged to sit in this place. I have said it many times, and I feel this way as the critic for veterans affairs and in all that I am as a Canadian. Lives have been lost, blood has been spilled and families have been decimated by war to allow us the privilege to sit in this place, and we must defend it, as they did.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a question about consequences.

I was present in the House when the Conservatives were in power and were found in contempt for not producing documents to the House. I remember when Conservative ministers, like Paul Calandra, refused to ever answer a direct question. Now I hear the Conservatives in this House speaking of the absolute need for transparency and accountability. I hope that represents a change in tone and a lesson learned.

I also heard the Liberals, when they were in opposition, similarly proclaim that they had seen a new day and that if they were in government, they would be transparent and accountable. Now we see them in government and they are not doing this.

Calling the president of the Public Health Agency to the bar and admonishing him is a consequence. Ordering him to bring documents is a consequence. Does the member feel that this is necessary so that political parties that claim allegiance to these high-minded principles when in opposition will not forget them when they are in government?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member makes a very important point, because we have seen, over the course of several Parliaments, a lack of consequences. We have certainly seen it in the ethical violations of the Prime Minister, who effectively got a slap on the wrist. Some of the other consequences we have seen are the resignations of ministers.

This is why I know, as my party does, how important it is, for the sake of protecting democratic institutions, public trust and confidence among our fellow Canadians, to bring in measures of accountability, as we will be proposing in the next election, that have real consequences if members of Parliament act in a manner that is not respectful, breaks the law or amounts to ethics violations. This is the type of thing we can do to improve the confidence of our public institutions, of those who represent us and certainly of this Parliament.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola and join this serious debate. Obviously, the privilege motion and the finding by the Speaker mean that all business needs to stop so that we can discuss this issue, because there are some critical things at stake.

I will quickly read the motion so that people who are just joining in can hear it. It reads:

That this House find the Public Health Agency of Canada to be in contempt for its failure to obey the Order of the House, adopted on June 2, 2021, as well as the orders of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, adopted on March 31 and May 10, 2021, and, accordingly, orders its President to attend at the Bar of the House, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions on the second sitting day following the adoption of this Order, for the purposes of (a) receiving, on behalf of the Agency, an admonishment delivered by the Speaker; and (b) delivering up the documents ordered by this House, on June 2, 2021, to be produced, so that they may be deposited with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel under the terms of that Order.

I would like to share my thoughts with the House tonight, and I hope members will indulge me, because I will be relevant.

First of all, I believe that any government in Canada, regardless of its stripe, should have the following three qualities: (a) it should try to be ambitious; (b) it should be competent in carrying out its duties; and (c) it needs to be accountable.

With respect to ambition, the Conservatives might say that we love this country as it is, we want to keep the country moving and we just want to be excellent at delivering public services. I certainly saw a lot of that during the Harper government. However, this government decided it would do things differently, and with hand on heart said it was going to be open and transparent.

Then Bill C-58 came along. Members and many people will know that it changed the Access to Information Act. However, it did not achieve the goal that was stated in 2015, which was opening up ministers' offices to access to information. Now, today, I hear more criticisms of it because of COVID, as access to information is not there.

Then we heard, “Let's plant two billion trees." Well, we have lost a number of seasons already since that promise was made in 2019, and the Liberals said this year that they were going to plant 30 million trees, which is 1.5% of the total amount. To put that in context, in British Columbia last year we planted over 314 million trees. Again, words and actions are not in line.

Lastly, on electoral reform, many people in my riding still remember that the Liberals made a promise, hand on heart, that the 2015 election would be the last one under first past the post.

The reason I raise those things is twofold. First of all, it gives people a sense of where they are going. Second, as parliamentarians, we really want to be able to engage with people, and people want to be engaged. They want us to tell them what we are going to do.

Now let us move to the competence side.

I share an office with MLA Dan Ashton in Summerland, and when people come in, there is one thing I hear most often from them. When we found out that the government, through the Canadian Armed Forces, was going to be doing joint military exercises for winter training with the Chinese military, people got really upset. They came in huffing and puffing. The same goes for the CanSino Biologics vaccination orders. When the government said in May 2020 that it was going to be doing this, people asked, “Why would the government work with a country like that?” This has nothing to do with nationality or ethnicity; it is just about working with the Communist Chinese government, which is known for breaking international norms.

This brings me to what has happened at the Winnipeg lab. It is a world-class facility, but there are some serious problems there. People have asked what is going on.

This leads us from ambition to competence and now to accountability. This is where I come in, because my role is to hold the government to account. In fact, anyone who is not part of the executive, the cabinet or the government, and is a member of Parliament, must hold the government to account. That is responsible government. If the government cannot maintain the majority of support in the House, it falls and a new government comes in. Maybe it is after an election, maybe not; maybe a new government will form. However, that is the key point of accountability.

People ask these questions, but when we come to this place or go to a committee like the Canada-China relations committee or the health committee and ask questions of ministers, the ministers will not give substantive answers. In fact, they give answers that seem totally unrelated. They might be talking points, but the problem we have is that we cannot take those talking points back to our citizens, tell them these things and have them take us seriously.

Tonight, we heard from the member for Kingston and the Islands and the member for Ottawa South. The member for Ottawa South totally disregarded the motion. However, I asked the member for Kingston and the Islands something specific during debate: Does the member have knowledge of what is in the confidential documents that we are asking to look at so we can hold the government to account? He said no.

The ministers are not talking, but the members of Parliament who carry the government's water say there is no story here, there is nothing to see here and we are barking up the wrong tree. What are we supposed to take to our constituents? Multiple committees were stonewalled by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Maybe it was by order of the government. It sounds like there were some discussions back and forth, but ultimately we deserve the answers.

The government originally put out arguments about privacy. We know that the law clerk has a means to deal with that. The process is established and well done. I do not think anyone here would say that the law clerk has not done a spectacular job when it comes to monitoring privacy.

Then the Liberals spun off about national security. I take national security incredibly seriously, but by the same token, as a parliamentarian and an opposition member I want to hold the government to account. The ministers will not say anything, and the members who we debate with tell us that everything is magically fine and not to worry. They say we are barking up the wrong tree.

Where do we go now? How do we get these things done? We settle this by democracy. As Speaker Milliken pointed out, it is the right of Parliament to get unfettered documents.

We have put in place a process to make sure that national security and privacy risks are dealt with, but the Liberal government tried to slide this issue off to the NSICOP committee. It is a committee of parliamentarians, yes, but it is not of this chamber. It is not run in such a way that we, or even backbench Liberal MPs, can find out the information so we can judge for ourselves whether the government is doing a competent job regarding national security.

There may be serious breaches at the lab, where people need a very high security clearance. We have heard that the president resigned unexpectedly and that two members were fired. However, we cannot get basic answers about it. Then we found out that Ebola and other serious viruses were transferred with no material transfer agreement in place. We need those answers.

I do not know what is in the documents, but what I do know is that we have questions that need to be answered, and we will get answers. If we do not, what then? With a Prime Minister who has shown very little regard for Parliament as an institution, where will we go? This is what I always worry about.

We have been given a very special trust by Canadians. They basically tell us to hold the government to account and make sure it does good things so they can be proud of our institutions. That is a tall order. We will do that, but we will only be able to do it if we get the correct information. All members in this place want to be proud of being in this country. We want to know that our government is doing all it can to protect national security, and that it is doing so in a competent way.

Asking questions is not anti-patriotic. In fact, it is patriotic for us to say that we expect the best of our government. I do hope members will vote in favour of this motion.

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

Mr. Speaker, earlier I asked the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan why it was a public servant and not the government that was named in this motion, and why he was willing to sacrifice the career of a public servant for political gain. In response to that question, I heard the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan say that he would sacrifice the careers of 1,000 public servants if necessary.

Notwithstanding the fact that I am very surprised that the NDP and the Bloc would go along with the motion, given the fact that the Conservatives are willing to sacrifice the careers of public servants over it, would the member like to indicate if he, too, shares the sentiments of the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan? Is he willing to sacrifice the careers of thousands of public servants over this?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I like to stay rooted in practical reality and not let overheated rhetoric rule the day.

What I will say is that the Public Health Agency of Canada is the trustee of those documents. We want to have those documents. We would like to call them to this place so they can be deposited, and to send a signal from Parliament that we have asked for the information and that we and this institution will be respected. That is protecting the integrity of this House.

The second thing I would say is that we would look at the documents, and we would be careful with them because obviously we want to be sensitive to both privacy and national security. Then we would make our judgment on whether or not a further censure of the government, the Prime Minister, or perhaps the Minister of Health, needs to be carried forward.

However, we do not need overheated rhetoric. We need a better sense of what is going on, please.