EVIDENCE

Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics NUMBER 009 2nd SESSION 43rd PARLIAMENT Friday, November 13, 2020 Le vendredi 13 novembre 2020 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics CANADA [Recorded by Electronic Apparatus] EVIDENCE November 13, 2020 Committee NUMBER 009 NUMBER 009 NUMÉRO 009 09 13 11 2020 2020/11/13 11:05:00 House Of Commons Comité permanent de l'accès à l'information, de la protection des renseignements personnels et de l'éthique Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics ETHI Chair Mr. David Sweet 2 43

(1105) [ English ]

The Chair (Mr. David Sweet (Flamborough—Glanbrook, CPC)) :

Good morning, colleagues. Happy Friday. We'll begin with the speaking list and the motion that's before us. My understanding is that we have been able to eke out resources until 5:30 today. I will remind you that IT has limited us, because they're doing some upgrades in the hope that next week and the weeks afterwards we'll have lots more capacity for all committees, and for some overflow as well. Our scheduled time is 11 o'clock till one o'clock. However, of course, I'm at the behest of the committee. First off on our speakers list, we only have two right now: Mr. Angus and Ms. Shanahan. Mr. Angus.

Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and it's good to be able to speak with my colleagues at the ethics committee. This summer we had, I believe, two meetings on the issue that is before us, the issue of conflict of interest and the awarding of the contracts that led to the WE scandal. At that time in the summer, there was also some investigation at the finance committee. However, neither committee has been able to finish any of its work. The Prime Minister prorogued Parliament. Work that could have been done by early September was then put off. We are now some 30 hours into a Liberal filibuster.

I have never in all my years witnessed a government attempt to stop the work of a committee by just throwing up roadblock after roadblock. These are important issues and the further we get away from the original subject, the more it becomes a question of people saying, “Isn't it time to move on?” Well, it's time to move on when a parliamentary committee has finished its report to Parliament. That is our obligation.

When we do a parliamentary report, we can have a unanimous report where we all agree, or we can have a minority report where one party disagrees with another party on what the evidence meant, but we have an obligation to finish the report. Therefore, I think it's important to go through some of the reasons why this study is so important for the Canadian people. This is a question about the extraordinary amount of political influence the WE group had to be able to literally call into the finance minister's office and secure very large amounts of money with very little oversight and very little accountability.

That is actually a slightly separate program, and I'm going to refer to it later, from the full $912 million program that we are focused on. The questions that need to be addressed are the following. Did group have the capacity? Was there proper oversight? Were the proper checks and balances put in place? If they weren't, why not? Was it because of this group's incredible skill at embedding themselves within the Liberal power structure? This is not an issue, I think, of the Prime Minister calling his staff and saying, I want the Kielburger brothers to get this deal.

I think what we see here is that the Kielburger brothers were able to play on their close relationship with the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's wife who acted as a goodwill ambassador for them, the Prime Minister's mother who was paid to work at corporate events, and the Prime Minister's brother who was also paid. They created a sense of comfort that certainly clouded the judgment of Minister Bill Morneau, whose financial and political relationships with the Kielburgers we're going to look at much more closely today, and certainly led to his having to step down.

It also brings in other ministers, Minister Chagger , who misrepresented herself at our committee on what she spoke about with them, and Minister Ng and Minister Qualtrough to some extent, all of whom the Kielburgers reached out to very carefully so that questions that should have been asked weren't asked. At our last committee meeting, I spoke about the surprising news that the Kielburger organization had hired an Israeli disinformation team, Percepto.

According a exposé of this group by The Times of Israel on November 1, the group was formed by former Israeli military ops crews and “helped clients bury dubious pasts”. Now the Kielburger brothers say they don't know anything about Percepto, that they've never dealt with it, but they are listed as a client in a Dropbox of Percepto that was found by The Times of Israel investigation, as well as by The Globe and Mail. You have to ask yourself why a children's charity is hiring an Israeli disinformation team to deal with online information.

That raises the question of the $600,000 the WE group paid to U.S. political consulting firms, and particularly one that was very closely tied to the Republican Party, Firehouse Strategies, which was paid $130,000. Now, Firehouse Strategies, as we now know, came out of the Marco Rubio campaign and were intent on using the tactics that Donald Trump had perfected in being very aggressive with media push-back. Once again we have a children's charity, which had access to all of our schools and all of our ministers, hiring a Republican disinformation team, and we're asking why.

This is also a group that tells us that all the money they raise goes to help children, but $600,000 is being spent in the United States on these political consultants. The reason I go back to Firehouse Strategies and their connection to the Kielburger brothers is the strategies they offer, which they call “defensive/combative media training.” Again, why would a children's charity need to have combative media outreach? In a 2019 podcast, Mr.

Sullivan, one of the three co-founders who came out of the Marco Rubio campaign, said that their strategy is: “You figure out who the opponent is, and let's go and get 18 bad stories about them". He added that, “Our belief is in modern communications you either throw spears or you catch spears, and catching them is no fun.” Again, this is a group that is supposed to be a children's charity, but we're dealing now with a political strategy of getting 18 bad stories about their opponents because it's about throwing spears.

My colleagues, I feel that our committee is now catching spears from the Kielburger group, who are very adept, as we know, in media and media manipulation. As our committee is unable to finish our report, they have launched a major publicity campaign. Firehouse Strategies talks about getting 18 articles in. Well, they've certainly gotten op-eds into the Toronto Star, and they've gotten other elements out there. What's interesting about this latest media blitz, which I feel is really falsely representing the work of our committee, is that their spokesman is Mr. David Stillman.

If people hadn't listened to our committee meeting on Monday, they wouldn't know that David Stillman was a former employee of WE, yet he's being presented in the media as this independent voice on charities, good work and good foundations. He was a board member of WE; he was a former member of the charity. It's this pattern of getting people you know and work with and hire to go out and do your publicity for you. Why is that needed? Either this charity stands on its own two feet and can explain what happened in this scandal, or we're dealing with something that's much murkier.

My Liberal colleagues have done some research and found out that my daughters did some volunteering for them. My daughters were very inspired by the Craig Kielburger book when they were young, and one of my daughters did work overseas. When I first learned about the group, I thought they were doing leadership training, and that was really exciting. I kind of lost sight of them for a number of years, and I saw them more and more tied into Justin Trudeau speaking at their events. They seemed to be much more tied to the Trudeau family, and I thought that was odd.

They moved, it seemed, from doing grassroots organizing meetings and training to these big rallies. Then I started to learn that they had more and more corporate involvement, which may or may not be a problem. However, the fact that we did not know that the Prime Minister 's wife was hired to do those corporate events, I think, is questionable. It's questionable in that, when asked about paying the Prime Minister 's family, we were told that they were not getting paid, and that was false. I refer you to a July 7, 2020

article from the CBC, which said that 150 staff from WE had written about systemic racism in the organization. The story was based on Amanda Maitland, who resigned. She was a young, inspiring woman of colour who was there to inspire young people. I think she would have been a real symbol for the kind of work the WE group did. She talked about how her work was being rewritten by white staff and how her experience was being dramatically changed. This is why I think it's interesting and worth commenting on.

(1110) She was quoted as saying:

I began to speak about the culture of fear. I began to share that what is happening in this organization is that employees are having siloed conversations.

She said that when she started to speak up about the culture of fear, a lot of people were nodding their heads. This was at a meeting with staff. She said, “Marc Kielburger immediately...stepped forward and shut me down.” In that July 7, 2020 article, CBC confirmed that they had spoken to four WE employees who were at that town hall. They confirmed that when Amanda Maitland spoke up, the Kielburgers quickly tried to end the conversation. I quote, “The automatic response was her being shut down by Marc Kielburger, and him being visibly angry.” Other employees spoke of a culture of fear within the organization.

To me this is important because this group has been given quasi-ambassadorial status by the Trudeau government. When the Trudeau government wanted to do something at the UN, WE was involved. When they wanted to do a big show in England, they brought the Prime Minister's wife. We're talking about young volunteers who could have been like my daughters, who were really inspired. Working in an organization where there's talk of a culture of fear, why does that matter?

That matters because these were issues and the organization and the culture within the organization that I think should have been fact-checked by the bureaucrats but because the Kielburgers are so closely tied to the Prime Minister's family, no questions were asked about that. The CBC news

article continued:

People were afraid to speak out because they didn't want to lose their jobs. Another former employee of colour on the WE Day team said: “I was so scared to speak up. If you ever said anything that's out of line, or questioned anything, you would end up not being in [my former supervisor's] good books...and you would get kicked off the team or fired.

We could say that maybe something morphed when they went from being this small grassroots organization to this huge conglomerate doing big spectacle shows. Maybe they just expected their young staff to have to pick that up. We're in an age where questions of toxic work environments and intimidation have become very fair play and people need answers to it. What surprised me when I was starting to look into this was that I had many former WE staff who reached out to me, but they were very afraid of using their names. They were very afraid to speak out publicly. I thought it was just a children's charity.

They do inspiring stuff with young people. Why were they so afraid? How far back does this go? We have an email from September 4, 2009, by Dan Mossip Balkwill saying goodbye to all the WE staff. The subject is “An honest goodbye”. I found it very moving because he could have been like one of my daughters. He joined the organization absolutely inspired and wanting to change the world. In his email, he said:

But the staff who work here, work out of love. It's love damnit, not money, glamour, fame, or fortune, just love. They love what they do, who they do it for, and who they do it with. They signed up to give at least two years of their life to change the world, literally that's what they signed up for.

I think that's a really powerful statement. He went on to say:

To reduce them to tears, tell them to leave if they don't like it, that they need to suck it up, or that their problems don't compare to children in Africa is atrocious. Telling them to leave if they don't like it shows that you don't value them as a staff.

He talked about the dangers they were put in as young workers, being told that if they did a long trip, staff were not going to get a hotel paid for:

Or at the office when people fall down stairs, that have never had weather-strips put on them, or women walk down dark alleys at midnight after returning a car from a full day of work....

Me to We was supposed to redefine business. Instead it became another private sector company whose number one aim is money, where people and staff come second. I don't want to work at an organization where we're constantly reminded that we are paid low wages to keep admin rates low, so donors will give more money. I don't want to work at an organization where fear is used as a tactic to achieve an end.

(1115) That was in 2009, or 11 years ago, that this culture of intimidation was being talked about. What I find interesting is that when the Kielburger group was challenged, as they have been by these reports, they reached out to David Stillman, a former employee, to exonerate them and to say that all of these things that were being said were false, they did respond to questions about the toxic work environment at WE with the young volunteers and young staff. In 2018 they hired a New Hampshire-based consultant, David Baum, who describes himself as a “conversation architect”. Baum's report totally exonerates WE and is very impressive. He says:

In my professional opinion, We and its leadership have handled the constant change, complexity and multitude of demands as well as any non-profit or social purpose organization of its size that I've worked with.

He further says:

A huge part of WE's success comes directly from the founders. Their compelling vision, and ability to leverage it into their people who genuinely believe they are changing the world, is deeply impressive.

That report would very much fit with the kind of image we had of the WE organization, of this inspiring group doing incredible change, and that the two brothers really cared. So with these allegations of toxic treatment of young people, well, how could those be true? The report was given out to the media to deal with any allegations of bullying and intimidation. Canadaland, which asked where that report was prepared, was told that it was done “in an independent and unbiased capacity” when Mr. Baum wrote it. However, what we learn is that Mr.

David Baum, according to IRS filings, was paid $750,000 for consulting work for WE from 2015 to 2019, so he was being paid by WE an enormous amount of money and yet being presented as an independent voice. The brothers also wrote an op-ed for Postmedia in 2015 in which they said, about Mr. Baum, “In our lives, that someone is our trusted friend David Baum.” Here is the full quote:

Even the toughest guys I know are relieved to have someone safe to go to for advice and a pep talk. In our lives that someone is our trusted friend David Baum.

Their trusted friend is the one they present to us as having provided this completely independent report on the toxic work environment faced by young people at WE. I want to add just one more thing on this, because it is just really surprising: David Baum officiated at Craig Kielburger's wedding. You have serious allegations about a youth charity and abusive work and 150 young staff talking about racism and racialized voices not being heard, and they present to the media a document that completely exonerates them and says how great they are and it's written by the guy who officiated at Craig Kielburger's wedding.

These are questions that need to be asked, because I think if the civil service felt a little more empowered to ask questions of this deal that Madam Chagger and Mr. Morneau were so bullish on, we might not have got as far down the road with this plan. I refer you again to Michelle Douglas, who testified at the finance committee, because we're talking about governance. No questions were asked about the corporate governance and the capacity of this organization to deliver this massive program. Michelle Douglas, if you look up her resumé, is a very impressive figure. You would want her on your board.

I don't know if any of my colleagues in the Liberal party have ever been involved in charities, but charity boards are very important. They oversee the finances; they have to be able to tell the donors and the CRA and any of their regulators that the charity meets the tests of their finances and legal obligations. When we had Michelle Douglas come to the finance committee, we asked her what happened in the meeting when Marc Kielburger apparently got angry and hung up on her, and why she left the organization in March.

(1120) She said:

Given my passion for the organization, it was a difficult decision for me to tender my resignation. I did not resign as a routine matter or as part of a planned board transition. I resigned because I could not do my job. I could not discharge my governance duties.

She goes onto say that in March, the WE executives were scrambling to contend with the impacts of the pandemic:

They began to lay off large numbers of staff. As the days went by, the number of job losses grew quickly, into the hundreds. The board felt, of course, a duty to protect the organization and to consider the interests of its stakeholders, including its employees, donors, partners, beneficiaries and others. I convened an ad hoc committee of the board to hold daily calls with the executive team for briefings and updates, and we provided key updates, in turn, to the board at large.

One of the key elements that I think is really powerful in Ms. Douglas' statement is that among those stakeholders she was worried about protecting were the employees, those young people. Her previous email talked about their being underpaid and the culture of fear, but she wanted to make sure they were protected, and she said:

It was our view that we could not fire hundreds of people without very strong demonstrable evidence and, even then, that we should explore mitigation measures to save jobs. Instead, the executive team were dismissing employees with great speed and in large numbers.

She continues:

On March 25 Craig Kielburger called me to ask that I resign from the board of directors of WE Charity.

Now, I've never heard of a charity where the founders can call up and tell the board that they're fired for asking financial questions. That's their job. The board was worried about those low paid young people who had given so much time to the organization and it was trying to find a way to mitigate that, but it seems that it was not at all a priority of WE, and the board was fired.

This counts because, again, when we're talking about government programs—especially in the nature of something close to a billion dollars that's going to be handed out—we need to know that the governance structure is sound and that this is an organization that can actually deliver. If you look into the documents—I don't know if my Liberal colleagues have read the 5,000 pages that we have, the ones that aren't blacked out—you'll see that they raise a number of questions again about why people did not vet their claims.

I keep going back to the fact that this was a group very much tied to the Prime Minister , tied to the Prime Minister's mother through payments, tied to the Prime Minister's brother through payments, tied to the Prime Minister's wife through the fact that they had her as their goodwill ambassador, and tied to the key ministers on the file. In order to be able to deliver this program—it is extraordinary getting 20,000 young people placed within a couple of months very quickly for the whole summer—one of the things that they claimed, and this was in their....

They reached out, and you can see it on slide 13 of the documents that were given to the Finance and ESDC officials: “WE has confirmed a strategic coordination partnership with Imagine Canada to support the recruitment and coordination of non-profit partners.” Imagine Canada has incredible connections, so if you're the front-line civil servant trying to vet this project, it would make sense that Imagine Canada is signed on—that's a good, good sign. The slide was updated a few days later on May 4 to read:

Support the creation of up to 20,000 Initial Volunteer Opportunities upon launch WE will create volunteer placements for 10,000 students and partner with Imagine Canada an umbrella organization for Canadian charities, to engage 50 national not-forprofit (NFP) organizations to create 10,000 additional opportunities that will be posted within two weeks of launch. These opportunities will be available in all parts of the country, in both urban centres and rural and small communities.

Now we do know that they were having enormous problems. They did not have the support in Quebec they claimed. We do not see any real figures for rural and isolated communities, but nonetheless, because of that Imagine Canada connection, it seemed doable to our hard-working civil servants.

(1125) This language was copied and pasted word for word into Minister Chagger 's briefing material for her colleagues for the May 5 cabinet COVID committee meeting. This language was also found in the ministerial briefing notes and the implementation documents. In fact, it came up as part of the questions the Treasury Board had for ESDC and Finance on May 8. The Treasury Board asked, “What are the 50 large nonprofit organizations with which the third-party would be working directly? Do they have wide and deep roots with smaller non profit organizations across Canada?” As part of their answer, ESDC replied:

WE Charities has agreed to work collaboratively with the government of Canada to identify organizations to develop placement opportunities. In addition, they have confirmed a strategic coordination partnership with Imagine Canada to support the recruitment and coordination of non-profit partners.... They will leverage their networks to extensive networks to reach smaller NFPs.

Now, the problem is that they didn't have an agreement with Imagine Canada. Imagine Canada had to clarify that. In fact, they released a statement: “Our CEO, Bruce MacDonald, initially agreed to participate on an Advisory Committee for the project. He withdrew from the Advisory Committee before it ever met.” Then CEO Bruce MacDonald of Imagine Canada had to elaborate even further when he was questioned: “Was Imagine Canada involved in discussions about the CSSG program?” He said:

WE Charity approached Imagine Canada in May with the news that a new initiative was being developed to support post-secondary students who would be unlikely to find summer employment.... This role of connector and convenor is one that Imagine Canada often plays and I connected WE Charity to several organizations in the sector that could potentially assist with delivering the program.

At this early stage, I was asked to sit on [the] Advisory Committee for the program, and I agreed to do so. [But] this committee never met or convened in any fashion.

He went on to say:

Imagine Canada was also asked to consider playing a role in evaluating the program. Evaluation and research have long been core strengths for Imagine Canada so I agreed to consider this. As discussions about the program developed, however, concerns that it was blurring the distinction between paid work and volunteering began to surface. We relayed these concerns to both WE Charity and government officials, but they were not acted upon. As a result, Imagine Canada decided not to participate and I asked to be removed from the Advisory Committee.

He then said:

...it has been reported that Imagine Canada was among several organizational staff at Employment and Social Development Canada...considered to deliver the CSSG program. At no time were we contacted by anyone at ESDC or anyone else within the federal government to discuss this possibility.

To me, this is very concerning because we have raised concerns that this blurring of supposed volunteering and the payments that were made may actually be illegal under Canadian labour law. Imagine Canada raised these questions. They said they were not willing to participate; and yet Imagine Canada was presented as the partner, and this was not questioned. What is really concerning is that even in late June, after Imagine Canada walked away from having even the minor role it would have had in CSSG, it remained there in the documents to the federal government.

In the briefing note attached to the finance minister's final decision on releasing funds for the.... It is said on page 6 of the June 22 draft for the delivery of the Canada student service grant that “10,000 of these placements will be created by WE directly. The remainder will be created by working in partnership with 50 NFPs and Imagine Canada, an umbrella organization.” Then, even more concerning, on the eve of the launch of the CSSG on June 25, WE was actively listing Imagine Canada as one of its partners.

In an email on June 24, with the subject heading “Re: CSSG Roll out questions”, was the full list of confirmed NFPs. Number one was YMCA Nationwide, and number two was Imagine Canada. That was not true.

(1130) When the government seemed so shocked that this plan, this scheme, fell apart so quickly, it's been presented as if this were somehow the result of people being mean to WE, and people not willing to help this great organization. These were complete falsehoods being presented, and nobody was checking. I think this is really concerning. One of the strange things I find through this whole thing is that even when the Kielburger brothers and the WE group could just give us straight-up, simple answers, there seems to be this pattern of obfuscation, exaggeration and downright, it seems to me, misrepresentation.

I'm hearing from my good friend, Mr. Sorbara, that they would never make any profit. It was impossible to make a profit. They were doing all of this for the Canadian people. It's the Marc Kielburger line that they never would have answered Canada's call if they had known the trouble they would have gotten into. As we have seen, and I may have to explain this again to my Liberal colleagues, Canada didn't call them. They were calling Canada incessantly through their lobbyist, Sofia Marquez, and through having direct email and contact information right to the finance minister.

They were just going right into his office to talk to him. So, the idea that there was no profit.... Then, it became even clearer: there was no administration fee. How do you deliver a program of this size and have no administration fee? There's something about it that makes me think that the Kielburgers wanted us to think that they were so willing to work for the good of Canadian people that they couldn't even take anything, but it just doesn't make sense.

Mr. Fragiskatos , at the finance committee on July 28, said:

I want to ask about the administration fee. How...would it have been had WE administered the Canadian student service grant, and for what purposes? When we say “administration fee”, I'm not sure...most Canadians understand what is meant by that.

Craig Kielburger responded:

I appreciate your asking that question. If I can start by clarifying, in fact [there]...wasn't an administration fee; it was a program implementation fee. What I mean by that is.... Often in the charitable world, when people think admin, they think back office or fundraising. The costs here were simply directly for reimbursements on the delivery of the program.

Wow. Later in that same meeting Mr. Sean Fraser said he sometimes has trouble hearing the answers. He found one answer, to his colleague Ms. Dzerowicz , and then to Mr. Fragiskatos , “quite stunning”. He said, “I want to make sure I have my understanding correct.” He continued:

Of the $500...million program, there is an “up to” $43-million administration fee, depending on how many students can be placed. I was under the impression that this was going to provide some sort of benefit to the organization for administering this program?

Am I correct in my understanding that every penny of that administration fee, if the program were actually executed properly, would not have gone to the organization but would have been used exclusively for expenses?

Mr. Marc Kielburger responded, “Sir, that's correct. It would have been exclusively for expenses, number one.” Craig Kielburger added that it was “For program expenses—not even administration”. Mr. Marc Kielburger said:

Yes.

Number two, it's not an administration fee.... It's...a program fee.

—and here we go—

We were doing this on behalf of the government, helping the government. We were ask to do this by the government. The organization itself would not profit. We were there because we wanted to be of assistance.

Again, this wasn't an administration fee. It was a program fee, and 100% had to be used, of course, for the program.

Now, I think people would have thought less if Mr. Kielburger had just said, of course, there was an administration fee. How do you think they were going to deal with $500 million to $900 million as an organization? But, no, there was no administration fee. Every single thing was going to help our young people in the middle of a pandemic. The problem is that if you read the document, “administration fee” is there at every step of the way. They did charge an administration fee. In their revised project proposal on the PowerPoint deck dated May 4, WE breaks down the budget, each into the two proposed cohorts.

(1135) These are very detailed and include how many people they will be hiring, how much it will cost, legal fees, technology they will have to pay for, etc., and the last budget category in each cohort is entitled “program administration”, and under that line it says “admin costs for WE Charity 15%”. For cohort one, that was $2,543,478 and cohort two, that was $1,796,288. That would be an admin fee of $4,339,766 outside of the expenses.

The other thing I found really striking in this is that if you're in a group and you're doing admin fees, and if you have your own rent costs and real estate costs, that's your business. The admin covers the program, because again the Kielburgers said every dollar was going to help young people. However, in this agreement with the federal government, they have their real estate getting paid off. There's a line for rent, which equals $590,000, so that's above and beyond.

Now, we do know that there were a lot of questions about their not being able to make their real estate covenant—and I have the documents here in case my Liberal colleagues didn't read any of the documents from the government—but there's this $590,000 rent fee that's put in on top of the admin fee, which is separate from the program fees. That's a serious number of dineros going to the organization that said they weren't getting anything. We go through initial processing and administrative capacity, and that's a $12.8-million fee.

Under “Grant Disbursement for first 40,000 Placements”, we have $2 million for “setup and disbursement costs for 40,000 grants tied to placements”, and a 15% administration cost. “For the additional vetting of placements and disbursement of grants for up to 60,000 eligible students”, we have $9.13 million for “capacity to assess 'outside' placements, and disbursement costs for 60,000 grants tied to placements outside of those created by WE”, plus another 15% administration cost. So there you go: 15% administration, and then 15% administration. Why not just tell us you're charging 15% for administration?

It might have made them seem a little more believable. Here's the thing. On June 18, as they were discussing extending the program to October 30 or November 15.... In each category, there's an NGO disbursement cost, program costs and, yes, an administration cost. In this case, that would have been $482,791 or $566,591. Clearly, WE is getting 15% program costs, again money carrying on into the fall. When my colleague Mr. Sorbara said that there was never going to be any profit, and that this is just the opposition attacking them, my question is, why did the organization not come clean to Parliament?

Why, under oath, would they misrepresent the fact that they were getting a 15% admin fee? Now, I could also go on about the Liberals, who also seem to have this problem. It's a simple thing. What should this program have cost? Mr. Sorbara the other day was again quoting the Kielburger line that the opposition was misrepresenting the numbers, saying it was $900 million, when in fact it was only $543 million, and why was the opposition using these false numbers? Well, it's actually $912 million, and we're going to get to that crucial $12 million.

I think my colleagues will find the $12 million very, very interesting. Where did the opposition come up with this $912-million figure? Well, when the Prime Minister made the announcement on April 22, they distributed documents, and the Canada student service grant was $912 million. On June 25, the Prime Minister finally announced the full details. Media reports, using the April 22 backgrounder, said $912 million, and there were no corrections from the government. The next day, June 26, Minister Chagger 's office explained to the media that WE would get only $19.5 million for administering that.

No details were given out.

(1140) If you remember, this was when we learned that there was going to be a $912-million program to a group that was tied so closely to the Prime Minister that there were lots of questions—major, major questions. The government seemed surprised that people noticed the fact that the Prime Minister's first big speech after becoming Prime Minister was with WE, that his wife was travelling with him and that his mother and brother were involved, so they came out and had to say, no, the only amount of money out of this $912 million to WE is $19.5 million. Okay.

Now, if you're getting confused here, when dealing with the Liberals and dealing with the Kielburger group you sometimes feel like a bumpkin at the country fair trying to keep an eye on the shell game. The Liberals and the Kielburgers are moving those shells all the time, so we're going to walk through this just a little carefully. On July 16, Minister Chagger appeared at the finance committee. In an opening statement, she said:

The first announcement we made was for 20,000 placements, and $19.5 million was allocated. Of this $19.5 million, $5 million was for not-for-profits for the creation and support they needed, and $300,000 was for accessibility supports.... There were two other categories of funding envisioned in the contribution agreement. There was $10.5 million to be provided to WE Charity to administer the program for smaller, local not-for-profits that would want to participate.... Had that occurred, there could have been another $13.53 million provided to WE for an additional 20,000 placements....

The maximum amount that WE Charity could have received was $43.53 million out of the total budget of $912 million.

So she is still using the $912-million figure, but we moved from $19.5 million to $43.5 million—$43.53 million, just to be correct—that the WE group was going to get. But she's still using the $912-million figure, and this is what she's giving to our committee. The Clerk of the Privy Council didn't make a correction. Neither did Bill Morneau or any of the department or ESDC officials when they were brought before testimony. The only reason we found out that it wasn't the $912 million was that I asked directly at the finance committee that we get a copy of the contribution agreement. That was on July 27.

There, we realized that they had actually signed the deal for $543 million. My God, the Liberals all jumped up and down and said, “See how the opposition is misrepresenting and blowing this out of proportion?” They said that it wasn't $912 million and it was only $543 million. Why didn't the Liberals just say this in the first place? There was so much hoo-ha-ha over this that we were really having a hard time even finding out what happened to the rest of the money in that. But let's just continue on this.

They told us it was $43.53 million to administer $912 million, but then, when they changed the numbers, it was still the same amount of money, $43.33 million, to administer the $500 million, so that was the maximum WE could receive.

We're told this by Minister Chagger at committee on July 16, when she says, “The maximum amount that WE Charity could have received was $43.53 million out of the...$912 million.” But then we learn, according to documents we obtained, that a “contingency fund of $354.23 million is also available...should it appear that initial funding of $500 million for the grants could be exhausted.” It was still $912 million. They just satisfied $354.23 million ready to go out if it was needed, so we're back to the $900 million-plus. This is where the WE group moves from beyond $43.53 million.

On June 18, ESDC and WE were in discussion to extend the program, and Marc Kielburger wrote:

Hi [Rachel]

Thank you for your time. Please find below the costs for the extension of the program per our conversation...today.

We had our finance team pull the numbers and they are consistent with other aspects of the program....

Then he goes on about the “knock-on effect” and “flow through” costs, and right down there in these documents, lo and behold, WE is going to get another $3.2 million to $3.8 million on top of the $43.53 million they were already getting, and this is in the agreement they made with them. Yet we've been told time and time again that we misrepresented the numbers, that the numbers aren't correct.

(1145) I hope people are not getting tired of all the mathematics here. This is important, because this is about the due diligence that anyone else, any other group, would have been subjected to, but this group was not, right down to the fact that they didn't even sign it with WE Charity; they signed it with a holding company, which, when you look at their original structure, seemed only to hold real estate. Nobody bothered to check that.

Nobody bothered to check the fact that when they signed their legal agreements, they said they followed the Lobbying Act, although we know they were doing an amazing amount of lobbying, more than General Motors. Yet they were not registered to lobby, so they may have even been involved in potentially illegal lobbying, but it was signed off and nobody checked. So what is this $12 million about? There's the $900-million announcement for the Canada student service grant, but there's another $12 million on top. Remember how Minister Chagger talked about the WE social entrepreneurship proposal, the first proposal?

That proposal, on April 17, when the WE group got wind of this much bigger possibility, morphed into a new program that became the Canada student service grant. What happened to that original proposal? That original proposal still got funded. It turns out that the $12 million was given from Minister Ng 's office to Minister Morneau's office on April 10. On April 10, Minister Morneau is looking at this $12-million proposal. Now, what's interesting is that when Katie Telford testified, she said that they had looked at that proposal and that PCO was not interested in it.

They did not want it to go ahead, and yet it went ahead. On April 10, here's an email from Craig Kielburger to Bill Morneau directly.

Hi Bill,

I hope this finds you, Nancy, Henry, Clare, Edward, and Grace enjoying some well-deserved downtime over Easter together.

I cannot imagine the pace of information and decision-making over the past few weeks. You once told me that you sought public office to make a difference—and this is certainly the most defining impact that you will ever have for the country.

If I may interrupt for a moment, allow me to brief you on conversations with Minister Ng. She suggested that we submit a proposal to scale our youth entrepreneurship program (originally championed by your office) with the purpose of mitigating economic struggles and preparing for a post-pandemic world.

Okay, so that's April 10. He's talking to Bill Morneau directly. On April 21, Bill Morneau not only allocates $900 million, but he gives the other $12 million to Employment and Social Development Canada to support that original WE social entrepreneurship initiative. The next day, when the Prime Minister announces the CSSG, we have a $912-million cost. That $12 million on top of the $900 million is this original plan, which on April 10, Craig Kielburger had emailed Bill Morneau personally to ask him to look at, and 11 days later, it's passed. This, I think, is really crucial. When Bill Morneau was asked to testify, he was asked if he had spoken at all to the Kielburgers. He said,

[On] April 26, I spoke with Craig Kielburger. I know that we would have broadly discussed the impact of...COVID.... He did not raise the Canada student service grant, nor did I.

If you remember, colleagues, Minister Morneau was emphatic that he was just calling through businesses in the area, just to make sure they were okay, and he just happened to be calling Craig Kielburger. He didn't tell us that he had been talking to Craig Kielburger on April 10 about this $12-million program. On April 26, it is just a check-in to make sure that everybody is okay. That's fantastic, and yet we have the WE notes as part of the finance committee undertakings release, in which Craig Kielburger talks about his meeting with finance minister and discussing the WE social entrepreneurship proposal.

(1150) Minister Bill Morneau maybe forgot he had a villa in France; the guy forgot he had a bill for $40,000 from the Kielburgers; maybe he forgot that he met and signed off on an agreement to give the Kielburger brothers $12 million, which Katie Telford said the government didn't think was a good idea. Maybe he forgot to tell our committee that they discussed this proposal he had just approved. We could take Minister Morneau at his word, or we could say that maybe Minister Morneau lied to our committee, that he didn't tell the truth. Why is this important?

This is important because on April 10 Kielburger contacted Bill Morneau, and 11 days later the Kielburger group is supposed to be getting $12 million. They are getting it from a minister whose daughter has been hired by the Kielburgers, whose family has been flown around the world by the Kielburger group. And we have reports that WE's youth staff, the staff we talked about, who sometimes were afraid for their jobs, were involved in political events for Bill Morneau, and they walk out with $12 million. I know my Liberal colleagues will say that $12 million is nitpicking here. What's $12 million?

God, the Liberals were willing to blow $900 million on this group. To put this in context, in the communities I represent, two years ago we had a horrific, complete collapse of infrastructure and housing at Cat Lake First Nation reserve in Treaty 9. The situation was so bad that people were being medevaced out. People died. People died in Cat Lake from the mould in their homes and the condemned nature of...the fact that 75% of the infrastructure of that reserve was so bad that people were being medevaced out and people died.

And trying to get this government to put any money in was a battle royale, and at the end of the day the people of Cat Lake got a promise of $10 million. It took national demonstrations. It took international media. It took people being medevaced out and horrific pictures of children suffering to get $10 million, and yet Craig Kielburger could call the finance minister, ask about the family, see how all the children are doing, and get $12 million turned over to the Kielburger group without any oversight or questions.

That shows the power of this group to evade basic oversight, to evade the Lobbying Act, to call directly in to ministers. Why? It's because of their political connections. That's why this issue is not going to go away. That's why we have to deal with this, my friends. If the Liberals want to continue to protect...and obfuscate and obstruct our work, we, as the opposition, are bound to get to the bottom of this. I'm calling on my colleagues to stop the procedural games. Let's get down to a vote. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

(1155) The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Angus. I will review the speaking order again: Madame Shanahan, Mr. Fergus, Mr. Dong, Madame Gaudreau and Mr. Barrett. Now we will go to Madame Shanahan.

[ Translation ]

Mr. Greg Fergus (Hull—Aylmer, Lib.) :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that long speech by my friend Mr. Angus. I also appreciate his point of view. Just to put it on the record, I'd like to say that the Liberals are not the only ones talking for a long time. We have had evidence of that before. It seems to me that the NDP and the Conservatives have done it a number of times as well. The only party that hasn't spoken for too long is the Bloc Québécois. It is a burden that almost all parties bear these days. It is true that we have spent a lot of time talking during this debate, but we have ended up with the hybrid motion before us.

Part of the motion proposed by Mr. Angus has been amended. In my humble opinion, it has been well amended. We will continue to work to review government spending during the pandemic and we will particularly focus our attention on two points in the motion. Then there was an amendment to this motion, proposed by Ms. Gaudreau, where the issue of WE Charity documents came back on the floor. I must comment on this issue because I feel it's important for those listening to us to know that the committee had previously defeated the motion.

That being said, we now have a motion that includes several items that encourage Speakers' Spotlight to submit to us all documents since October 14, 2008. You have read in the newspapers, as I have, that Speakers' Spotlight stated that almost everyone who pays taxes has kept records going back only a certain amount of time. In fact, Speakers' Spotlight can confirm only that it has all records for the past seven years. So that takes us back to 2013.

Before that year, it cannot guarantee that it will be able to provide the committee with all the documents, just as Canadians are required to keep tax returns and all related documents for at least seven years. By the way, let me add that, this past weekend, my wife and I went down to the basement to empty some boxes, as we do from time to time, to reduce the amount of stuff in the house. We came across a box full of papers. They were tax returns from 2002 and 2003. I can assure you, our tax returns are very simple. You can confirm it with— (1200)

[ English ]

The Chair :

Mr. Fergus, do you have your translation button on French?

Mr. Greg Fergus :

No, sir. I have the new Zoom software, which should allow me.... It works inside the House, and I don't have anything different. It allows me to keep it on the speaker, on the floor version, and it should work. This is the new software that was updated about a month and a half ago for most members. Is it not working for you, Mr. Chair?

The Chair :

We're not getting any

interpretation on the phone lines. That's why I wanted to ask.

Mr. Greg Fergus :

Should I switch over then?

The Chair :

Why don't you try that, Mr. Fergus? If there's any issue, I'll interrupt you as politely as possible.

Mr. Greg Fergus :

You always do, sir. (1205) [ Translation ] I will continue my comments, and I hope it is working now. Is everything okay for those attending the meeting by telephone? Can Madam Clerk confirm that?

[ English ]

The Chair :

We're just checking there, Mr. Fergus.

[ Translation ]

Mr. Greg Fergus :

Okay.

The Chair :

Please continue, Mr. Fergus. [ English ]

[ Translation ]

Mr. Greg Fergus :

Thank you. As I was saying, we freed up the space in our basement taken up by documents that we were required to keep for seven years. There is no point in keeping documents that are almost 20 years old. So we put them in the recycling bin. I'm talking about my own house. I can imagine what it's like for a company that has to pay rent. Storage is one of the most expensive things for businesses. They are required to keep their documents for a certain period of time, seven years, I imagine. I can see immediately that the motion goes far beyond what is necessary. Mr. Chair, I am feeling a little uncomfortable. Was the

interpretation malfunctioning from the beginning of my comments?

[ English ]

The Chair :

I think all is good now, Mr. Fergus. It was just that patch with the phone lines. Now it's good.

[ Translation ]

Mr. Greg Fergus :

I would not want to be in the unfortunate situation of my comments not being translated properly for those who do not speak French well enough to understand what I am saying. As I said, I threw those documents away. It was okay to do it, but my tax returns are not complicated. You would see on my tax return as a member of Parliament that not much has changed. I have always had just one job. For a while I had a consulting firm, but that was temporary. Otherwise, I have always been an employee. I'm talking about these things because we have overstepped the measures in the motion we are considering.

If we pass a motion today, we will be trying to get blood from a stone. I don't know if my colleague from the Bloc Québécois will be prepared to support this amendment. If not, I could present a very simple motion that will permit us to do our job and take action. I will introduce a subamendment. I have it here. I move that the motion be amended by replacing the words “since October 14, 2008” with “that they have in their possession up to 2013, and any additional relevant documents, as mentioned in their open letter shared on November 10, 2020”. Mr. Chair, I will send it to the clerk in both official languages.

(1210) [ English ]

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Fergus. We'll wait until that is received and then we'll go on with debate. Because I'm not in the committee room, it's always a little more difficult. We'll suspend for five minutes and then come back. Okay, we're suspended until 12:17. It's 12:12 right now.

(1210) (1230) The Chair :

Colleagues, there's been an amendment tabled by Mr. Fergus in regard to a change of date. The complication with Mr. Fergus's amendment is that it falls within a broader amendment that the committee voted for. It's part of the amendment made previously by Madame Gaudreau. The precedents that we've looked at.... We have proactively looked at it because the clerk and I had conversations with regard to how this motion was evolving. If there is unanimous consent of the members of the committee—of course, we can do anything by UC—then this amendment can be accepted. If not, Mr.

Fergus, with respect, I have to rule it out of order, because it's an amendment, as I said, that was part of an amendment that's already been accepted by the committee in regard to the motion. I'll just end there and let Mr. Fergus give some input, and then canvass the committee.

Mr. Greg Fergus :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I'm just trying to get a bit of a sense, then, from you and the clerk. If I'm understanding you correctly, almost no amendment.... I guess what you're saying is that the way it stands now, we can't adjust this amendment in any way except through unanimous consent.

The Chair :

On this portion of the motion that was previously amended, there's a precedent that you can't go back on an amendment that's already been accepted by the committee. That said, if there's unanimous consent with regard to what you're putting forward, then the committee can do whatever it likes with UC. [ Technical difficulty—Editor ]

Mr. Greg Fergus :

I didn't go at the real substance, I think, of the motion. I was working on trying at making sure that the motion has a real-world applicability, given what was released on November 10 by the speakers bureau. I accept the

interpretation, obviously, but I'm just trying to understand it for future amendments. I'm not trying to kill the motion. I'm not trying to vacate it of its meaning. I'm just trying to make sure that it fits where we all are. Mr. Chair, I guess I'm just trying to understand why that would be considered a.... I accept your ruling, but I'm trying to work my way through this.

The Chair :

Well, I can assure you, Mr. Fergus, that being a human being and always wanting people to like me, I guess I would always like to [ Technical difficulty—Editor ] That said, there's a precedent. Any other aspect of the motion, of course, is amendable, but where it's already been amended and decided by the committee, that's where we run into precedent. This goes right to the amendment that Madame Gaudreau had presented and was voted on and accepted, but like I said, if there's unanimous consent in the committee to accept your amendment, then we could move forward with that.

Mr. Charlie Angus :

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, we are dealing with my original motion. I have not been consulted by Mr. Fergus on his amendment, so I would not support this going ahead.

Mr. Greg Fergus :

That was going to be my next question, actually. Would that also apply to the original motion that had been amended?

(1235) The Chair :

Any aspect of the motion that has not been amended can still be amended by the committee. You can still move an amendment in that regard. Because this portion of the motion was already amended and agreed to by the committee, that's why I needed to rule the way I did, Mr. Fergus.

Mr. Greg Fergus :

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Fergus. I'll review the speakers list. We have Mr. Dong, Madame Gaudreau, Mr. Barrett—he's in the room and not up on my electronic screen—Mr. Angus and Mr. Sorbara. Now I'll go to Mr. Dong. Yes, Mr. Fergus?

Mr. Greg Fergus :

I just want to add my name back to the list, sir.

The Chair :

Yes, I see it up there now electronically. I apologize, Mr. Dong. Please go ahead.

Mr. Han Dong (Don Valley North, Lib.) :

Thank you very much, Chair. I was going to support Mr. Fergus's amendment. I think that would be a good compromise and perhaps would bring this conversation to a more productive path. Before I get into debate on the main motion, at the end of the last meeting, if I remember correctly, you were going to make a ruling on the motion that I put forward at the last meeting. Are we still on the past floor discussion of hearing a ruling from you, Chair, or are we just going to move on to a new day with new debate?

The Chair :

No, Mr. Dong. Just to refresh your memory, I did make a ruling on that. We have a motion on the floor that we need to dispose of beforehand, and that was new business that you were raising and not an order from the House. That's why I ruled the way I did: that we continue this debate.

Mr. Han Dong :

Okay. Thank you, Chair, for clarifying that. I was listening to Mr. Angus's points and comments on the WE Charity, which were a long review of information that came forward through the finance committee. There was a lot of information there, to the point that I was wondering.... We have already received tons of information from WE Charity. Are we still going back and trying to find out more through this motion? What else are we looking for? Are we going back going through the same thing again? In my colleague Mr.

Sorbara's words, are we going to keep on going with the fishing expedition or can we move forward on something new, something that the Canadians trust us and this committee to do? That's my initial thought after listening to Mr. Angus's comments about WE. I want to start with the tweet by Mr. Barrett following the last meeting. There was a lot of attention brought to his tweet on breaking news.

Through Twitter, a very popular social media platform, he was alleging that Speakers' Spotlight had destroyed committee's documents and implied that there is a conspiracy, that there's something illegal happening because they didn't keep the documents over a certain period of time. There was a lot of assumption of guilt on his part. Then, later on, we all know what happened. Speakers' Spotlight came out with a response to the tweet. I would like to read this response into the record, because I think it would clarify something for the committee. Following that, I will comment on the response.

The response from the Speakers' Spotlight started off with this:

On Monday, November 9th, Michael Barrett, M.P. posted a video on his Twitter feed, with the description, “BREAKING at Ethics Committee we learn that legally ordered WE documents have been destroyed.

That's a quote taken from Mr. Barrett's tweet. The response continues:

In the video, Mr. Barrett states, “Speakers' Spotlight has destroyed all the records of speaking engagements for the individuals named in the motion, the Prime Minister and his spouse, for any period [of] outside seven years”.

The statement is patently false and misleading.

We believe what Mr. Barrett is referring to is a conversation we had with Ms. Miriam Burke, the Clerk of the Committee, a few weeks ago. Ms. Burke had reached out to let us know that the Committee was voting on a motion, and that an Order for documents may be forthcoming. She wanted to get a sense of the volume of the documents that were to be produced, so she could make the necessary preparations, including arranging for translation services.

We let Ms. Burke know that because all of the [speakers'] engagements took place more than 7 years ago, we did not have hard copies of the files, as these had been purged in the normal course of business.

(1240) We also let Ms. Burke know that we do have some digital copies of documents that we would produce, along with records of all the speaking engagements dating back to 2008 that were legally required by the Order.

It is standard practice for companies to purge documents after 7 years, and we have always followed this practice. Furthermore, under Canadian privacy law, we are required to destroy all personal information as soon as it is no longer necessary. Therefore, it is not just good legal practice, but a legal requirement that we have been following.

This next sentence is in bold:

To be clear, we have not destroyed any legally ordered documents. Any reports to the contrary are entirely false.

We encourage Mr. Barrett to consult on this matter the office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada who, as an Agent of Parliament, would be in position to fully explain the legal requirements to destroy personal information as soon as it is no longer necessary.

It's signed by Martin and Farah Perelmuter. I don't know them personally. I hope I didn't offend them with my pronunciation of their names. They are president and CEO and co-founders of Speakers' Spotlight. We can see from the response that the company mentioned in this motion has objection, and rightfully so, to Mr. Barrett's tweet quickly following the committee meeting. I want to bring this to the committee, because as elected members, especially members of this committee, we are tasked with tremendous responsibility, which comes with tremendous power as well.

I always tell myself, with respect to my position on the committee, that we have to be extremely careful with what we say and not to assume innocence or guilt as we go on with our investigation of our studies. I'll come back to the point that there is an ongoing investigation by the commissioner. I completely respect the process. The commissioner will complete his or her study, whichever commissioner, and then come back to the committee. Then we can ask questions. Then we can provide recommendations. To me, that's a much better practice than if the committee.... Mr. Angus has spoken about this quite a few times.

The committee has as the power to do its own study. I understand that. However, there is an ongoing investigation happening. I think we should trust the expert, the professional, the unbiased officer of Parliament, to complete his investigation, so we don't run into a situation where we may say something or put forward some recommendations that would contaminate his investigation, or even worse, cast some doubt on his investigation. I don't think that's productive. I don't think that's helpful for Canadians finding out the truth that they're entitled to.

The other thing I want to talk about, and lead off my debate today with, is that in the last meeting, I put forward a motion purely because of the fact that in the last almost year now, if you look at the motions being discussed by the committee, there were no motions put forward by a Liberal member. The record, and I spoke to that, is 14 to 0. I think that is not the spirit of the committee.

(1245) I know this is a non-partisan committee and members of this committee can put forward motions, but I was quickly dismissed by a substituting member from the Conservative side. I think it was Ms. Gladu. I don't think she participated in my earlier debate or even in the last meeting. She came in and called the motion disgraceful. I took offence to that.

As a permanent member, I don't think that an attempt to put forward a motion that is on an important matter and is very important to Canadians in the context that there is quite an increase in online activities and online purchasing during the COVID period, and that it is very timely for us to look at how digital currency, despite the fact that it is a very hard discussion—

[ Translation ]

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides—Labelle, BQ) :

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[ English ]

The Chair :

On a point of order, Madame Gaudreau.

[ Translation ]

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau :

Mr. Chair, I'm trying to understand how this relates to the amended motion we should be voting on. I really wish we could have a discussion with my colleague Mr. Dong on his motion and the others. If he were to move that we go to a vote instead, we could discuss how we should proceed.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Thank you, Madame Gaudreau. It has been my history to leave a lot of breadth, but I felt the other day that I asked all of you to read a couple of pages from the procedural manual in regard to relevance and repetition. Although I'm loath to ever move to limit an individual member, I would just say again to try to stay relevant to the specific motion that's on the floor, as well to be cautious with too much repetition, or we'll get to a point where I need to rule. Please go ahead, Mr. Dong. Just explain the relevance to the original motion.

(1250) Mr. Han Dong :

Thank you, Chair. I respect that. My point was that I just want to make sure that my colleagues on the committee understand where I'm coming from, because I am protesting about a comment made about my motion. I talked about how in the last meeting there were motions put forward by substituting members. These were allowed, debated and voted on. In contrast, none of the motions put forward by the Liberals were accepted or debated or voted on. I think that speaks to a phenomenon that we're right in the middle of.

Then, to have another member from the Conservative Party coming in and calling my motion, which at the time I thought was in order, a disgrace, I think that was disrespectful. I just want to make it clear and make sure that gets on the record. Coming back to the motion and talking about the medical supplies procured by the government and the services procured by the government, we have to also look at the context that COVID has put us into. Throughout this unprecedented crisis, this side of the committee has been working to keep Canadians safe.

As well, protecting our economy was an investment into our small businesses—

Mr. Charlie Angus :

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, I think my colleague should rephrase things. The fact is that the Liberals have obstructed our committee for well over 30 hours and are continuing to do so. They don't get to say that on their side they're concerned about keeping Canadians safe. All of us, as representatives of our regions, work full out, from any party, on the issue of safety. I think it's really, really not acceptable for the Liberals to claim that they're the ones who care about people's safety because they're obstructing the work of this committee. That is a ridiculous assumption to make, and I think he needs to retract that.

Mr. Han Dong :

That is not a point of order.

The Chair :

It is not. Go ahead, Mr. Dong.

Mr. Han Dong :

All members, as Mr. Angus said, have a responsibility to make sure that everyone who needs help gets help. Canadians have worked so hard and sacrificed so much to slow down the spread of the virus. I want to give out a shout-out to the doctors and nurses and health care providers on the front lines, especially in my riding. I went out very early on and reached out to the six long-term care facilities in my riding, making sure they had enough PPEs and making sure they were getting enough support from their provincial government and from the marketplace, even, because some of them—

Mr. Chris Warkentin (Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, CPC) :

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I'd ask that you begin to rule on relevance. We continue to hear unrelated conversations about things that have nothing to do with the motion or the amendment. I would ask that you ask the member, again, to move to a relevant topic that relates to the things we're currently debating.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Warkentin. Mr. Dong, please let us know how this relates to the motion, okay?

Mr. Han Dong :

Absolutely. The motion is about procurement, about procurement by the government, which includes PPE and ventilators. What I'm saying here is that, first, we have to look at the background, at the challenges faced by the government and also our front-line workers and health care professionals so that we have a full understanding of the challenges in the procurement area. We're not talking about right now. Going back to April and May, we all saw, through the media, how competitive it was to get our hands on PPE. That's why I was reaching out to local hospitals.

That's why I tried to liaise and to connect those who had the resources, who had the PPE, with those who had a serious shortfall of those products. So I think it's very relevant. If we're going to look at the entire practice of government procurement, we have to understand the background and the conditions at the time. Then we will understand the plan and the execution of the procurement. I think it's relevant. I also want to give a shout-out to students at Seneca. In May everything was shut down.

We kept hearing that some of the front-line workers, a very small number of them, were afraid for their own safety, for their family's safety. There was a serious shortage on that front. But at Seneca, a class of recent graduates stepped forward, over 200 of them, the majority of whom were international students. I can understand why the government, through its ministry of citizenship and immigration, came out with policies to recognize the contributions made so far by non-Canadians trained in Canada with this kind of skill. Again, I want to give a shout-out to those individuals as well.

This work by the front-line workers is critical. That is why the government remains laser focused on securing personal protective equipment and medical supplies that they need, particularly as we see the resurgence of the virus. Canadian health care workers and essential service workers are in need of critical PPE, ventilators and rapid tests. That is what we, as a government, have done. The COVID expert panel, at the request of the Public Health Agency of Canada, and through PSPC, awarded a contract to FTI medical to produce, in Canada, ventilators designed to save the lives of Canadians.

We are proud of our work to support the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and secure the equipment and supplies needed to save lives during this crisis. It is a public health crisis. It seems to me that, especially at the beginning of COVID, we did not have enough supplies to support the work of the first-line health care workers. Over the past month, we have managed to procure enough critical PPE to meet the needs of Canadians while operating in a hyper-competitive market driven by unprecedented global demand.

In Canada, especially at the very beginning of COVID, our manufacturing sector was not equipped and was not prepared to produce made-in-Canada equipment. We heard horror stories about PPE being intercepted at the border or in the middle of airports. We were put in a very terrible situation, actually, and I have to commend the government for doing a great job with a short turnaround.

(1255) Remember—I think it was the middle of March—when public servants were asked to work from home? With all that resistance, the government was able to move very quickly, not just to secure the very needed PPE and medical equipment internationally, but to also very quickly support our domestic production. I remember that there was an announcement to put in $600 million to boost production capacity in case we would find a vaccine for COVID-19. That was planned back in February, if I remember this correctly, so you can see how swift the government's response has been in boosting domestic production.

Thanks to those efforts, Canada's PPE is being produced here in Canada. I remember that my office was receiving so many calls from the community and from local businesses that were able to get their hands on PPE and that wanted, through our office, to donate to those institutions or organizations, including food banks, North York General Hospital and long-term care facilities that were in serious need of PPE. Very quickly, we were able to meet those demands.

I also facilitated and helped some of these donors to donate to neighbouring ridings, to hospitals in downtown Toronto and in Mississauga, because we were in it together. We heard the health minister say that this virus has no boundaries. It doesn't care if it's in Don Valley North or it's in Oakville, right? Helping everybody was the theme at the time. We've also seen a tremendous amount of community leaders stepping up. In my riding, which is a very diverse riding, we've seen leaders stepping up from the Chinese Canadian community and collecting donations, going out and securing PPE and delivering lunch.

We've seen leaders from the Tamil community, owners of local restaurants, donating food to nurses and doctors working so hard on the front lines and saving lives. We've seen leaders from the Muslim community stepping up and sharing best practices to provide supports for those who had just arrived in Canada. In following the quarantine rules—having to stay home for 14 days and with very limited access to friends and family—they were supported by the community leaders and the community volunteers.

These are all very heartwarming facts in terms of fighting COVID with very limited resources at a time when there was very limited access to PPE and medical equipment. Chair, as you can see, I can go on and on about the dozens of Canadian companies with stories about individuals who stepped up to produce PPE, rapid tests and other products, including ventilators.

Companies in Calgary, Winnipeg, Saint John, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Montreal, and cities and towns across the country have worked tirelessly while upholding the highest standards of transparency and providing regular updates to Canadians and members of the House about our procurement work without jeopardizing the integrity of these procurements. I remember that from May through to July, I was on a call almost every day talking with staff and officials in different departments and trying to pass on some information about access to PPE or passing on advice on things we needed to do to protect our seniors.

(1300) I thought the government's response was very, very quick. At the time, not just within the Liberal Party, the minister held daily briefings with all party members and senators. I heard at the time that the leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May , was commended for that initiative by the health minister and also noted the changes that she saw very quickly after her suggested advice to the minister.

Those were examples—rare but very good examples—of where all party members pulled together their creativity, their network and their information to support the government's work, whether in public health policy or procurement policy. I saw that the ministry came out with a portal because it had received an overwhelming amount of information and evidence of willingness by Canadian businesses that were trying to help. They didn't want to be the bottleneck, so they created a portal to take these goodwill offerings. It was later transformed into an online what I would call “marketplace”.

Businesses that couldn't access PPE could go onto this portal and talk to the suppliers directly. I thought that was a very, very smart move. It was appreciated by businesses all around, trust me. I go out and speak to the businesses in my riding. I often start my conversations by asking them if they have enough PPE to carry on. They have to make sure their staff are safe and well protected. Indirectly that is protecting their customers as well.

Chair, since March, our government has been engaging in an unprecedented effort to ensure that Canadians have the supplies they need to stay healthy and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our procurement experts have worked day and night aggressively buying from all available suppliers and distributors to secure precious PPEs for Canadians. Today, we continue to operate in the highly competitive global market, in which the entire world is seeking out the same material, including masks, tests, gloves, and gowns. Supply chains remain stressed. Negotiations are ongoing with a number of companies in these fields.

Even still, we will be producing PPE well into the future to help Canadians be safe today and tomorrow. Putting companies before this committee, based on nothing more than the fact that one of the partners in a consortium is a former Liberal MP—I don't know him personally, but he is just one partner in the consortium—could put at risk Canada's ability to do the important work needed. We have a duty to Canadians to protect the integrity of the procurement system, and we take that very seriously. Our government has kept Canadians informed of what we have been doing to protect them.

Since April we have taken steps to be as transparent as possible to keep all citizens, including members of the House, fully up to date on our work. We have made public the process we are following to procure key COVID-19 supplies. As orders have arrived and continue to arrive, Canadians have been able to consult the PSPC website for a regular update and overview of purchases and deliveries, which is how the contract for FTI became public. In fact, the website includes a nice overview to show how money has been spent on procuring PPE during the pandemic.

I'll just give an example to the committee and to my colleagues.

(1305) This is a

summary of aggregate procurement dated October 15, so it's quite recent. We have a lot of equipment here: vinyl gloves, $2.2 million; N95 respirators, $655 million; surgical masks, $239 million; cloth masks, $34 million; face shields, $261 million; goggles, $23 million; gowns, $1.7 billion; and other protective clothing, $30 million. The government spent $375 million on hand sanitizer. Other PPE—thermometers, accessories, autoclave bags, thicker rubber gloves—cost $21 million; testing equipment, $688 million; ventilators and ventilator accessories, $1.14 billion; and other medical equipment, $293 million.

The total amount of protected contract values was $162 million. Together it amounted to about $6 billion. What's more, an important part of our committee is transparency and accountability. The government is publicly disclosing contracting information to the fullest extent possible while protecting our supply chain. I just want to cite a few. This is all public information. There's one about ABC Technologies. The commodity is face shields for $3.49 million. There's one about AMD Medicom Inc. for N95 respirators and surgical masks. The amount is shown to the decimal: $116,076,840.61.

There's a whole bunch being disclosed on the government website. I could go on and on with this big list. My point is that we have been quite transparent with the products, the PPE and medical supplies, that we have purchased. We've been quite clear with the contracts and the types of commodities and for how much. It's all disclosed online. This information, which is also available on the PSPC website, includes the names of suppliers and the amounts of the contracts. We are regularly updating these sites.

To protect Canada's order and our negotiating position, only certain procurement information is being protected. As a government, we have been and will continue to be here to support Canadians. We have their backs with the necessary PPE to keep hospitals, long-term care homes and emergency services functioning. As well, Mr. Chair, Canadians have been regularly updated on the purchase of PPE as well as new manufacturing contracts with Canadian and international companies through frequent announcements.

We have been providing updates on agreements that the government has signed with several companies to secure Canada's access to the most promising vaccines being developed around the world. We're also moving swiftly to ensure that Canada has access to the most effective and efficient testing solutions possible. Along the way, we have been informing Canadians about the agreements we have made with these companies as well as the type and quantity of kits we are procuring.

(1310) Let me assure you, Mr. Chair, that our government is committed to providing Canadians, including the members of this committee, with as much information as possible about our efforts to respond to COVID-19. As supply chains for essential equipment and supplies stabilize, we will continue to publicly disclose more contract information. Canadians deserve to have as much information as we can provide without jeopardizing our procurement for critical PPE. That's a risk we simply will not take.

Despite the hyper competitive global market, the government has acquired billions of units of PPE, including masks, N95 respirators, face shields, hand sanitizer and protective gowns and gloves, and more is on the way. We achieved this with a two-pronged strategy in reaching out to multiple suppliers overseas to procure existing supplies and secure future shipments and also calling out to innovative Canadian companies that have been stepping up to produce the most vital PPE here at home. That stability will be even more crucial now that COVID cases are once again on the rise.

Now more than ever, our procurement efforts must continue with full force. Canada remains focused on acquiring enough supplies to allow us to face every scenario in this pandemic. These are extraordinary times. As this government works to ensure Canadians are supported and safe, we will continue to keep Canadians informed of our efforts to keep them safe. Chair, let me reiterate that as COVID cases climb across the country, we need to ensure that Canadians are prepared for all scenarios.

This pandemic is the most serious public health crisis Canada has ever faced and keeping Canadians healthy and safe is our number one goal.

(1315) Mr. Charlie Angus :

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, Mr. Dong was saying earlier how bad he felt because in all of the motions that were brought forward, the Liberals hadn't shown up, but now, to be using the pandemic to divert the work of our committee, to stop us from working, while trying to hide behind the high numbers, I find that it's just not very credible or respectable. We have a motion before us. The motion is regarding how these payments were made, and for Mr. Dong to be using the pandemic and people's fear of the pandemic as a reason to filibuster and talk the clock out....

We're now into our 33rd hour of the Liberal obstruction. I ask him, if he's going to obstruct and interfere with our committee, to at least stay focused on the subject at hand.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Angus. Mr. Dong, go ahead.

Mr. Han Dong :

Thank you, Chair. If this committee wants to do the work that actually matters to Canadians, then I would suggest that we focus our work on the original motion put forth by Mr. Angus. I'm not in disagreement with Mr. Angus. It's just that what I'm having a problem with, quite honestly, is that a vote took place not once but twice before the committee and lost. The motion was rewritten, almost identically in some parts, into the form—

[ Translation ]

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau :

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Point of order, Madame Gaudreau.

[ Translation ]

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau :

Statements made must be accurate. This is the eighth time I've heard that we will not accept the decision not to revoke a decision when a mistake has been made. Let's face the situation now, take the bull by the horns and vote, after 33 hours of deliberations.

[ English ]

Mr. Han Dong :

Chair, I know that I have the floor, and that wasn't a point of order. It was debate. I would just simply state—

The Chair :

Actually, Mr. Dong, it was a point of order. That's why I sent around page 1059 from the procedure book. Let me read it to you:

In addition, the Chair may, at his or her discretion, interrupt a member whose observations and questions are repetitive or are unrelated to the matter before the committee. If the member in question persists in making repetitive or off-topic comments, the Chair can give the floor to another member.

Again, I will absolutely do everything I can to avoid that kind of ruling, but members should try to at least be a little bit creative in how they speak to the particular motion and not be repetitive. Go ahead, Mr. Dong.

Mr. Han Dong :

Thank you, Chair. I'll definitely keep that in mind. I respect that. My remarks today have everything to do with the situation we're facing right now with COVID and some of the stuff that the government has done in terms of procurement, and this does speak to the motion itself. Like I said, I would love it if we worked work on the original motion put forth by Mr. Angus and amended by Mr. Fergus and just go on with that, but unfortunately we're stuck debating accepting an amendment that, in my view, was brought forward to the committee for the third time. With that, I'll conclude. I'll yield the floor to my colleagues, but I will probably chime in later on. Thank you, Chair.

(1320) The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Dong. Madame Gaudreau, you are next. In fact, we have Madame Gaudreau, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Angus, Mr. Sorbara and then Mr. Fergus. I know that you've been waiting for a while, Madame Gaudreau, so I won't do this before you speak unless you're okay with it. It's 1:20. I just thought it would be good to have a five-minute suspension for what nature drives us to.

[ Translation ]

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau :

I will be very open as long as you are too. We will be back in five minutes. I will be next to speak.

(1325) [ English ]

The Chair :

We'll suspend for five minutes, colleagues. I have 1:22 on my screen. It will be 1:27 when we reconvene.

(1325) (1325) The Chair :

Colleagues, we'll return from suspension. Again, I'll review our speakers list. We have Madame Gaudreau, and then Mr. Barrett, Mr. Angus, Mr. Sorbara and Mr. Fergus. Madame Gaudreau, you have the floor.

[ Translation ]

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau :

Mr. Chair, thank you for that break, because it helped me get my emotions back under control. The many accounts, values and words put forward in the past 33 hours and a few minutes lead me to believe that we have reached the end of the line. I will explain why I am telling you that. I will take less than five minutes, as I usually do, but what I have to say is important. As I was saying earlier, we have gone over what happened several times and tried to change what we have right now. I see that Mr. Samson is here.

For those who were not here, it's important that you know we had a request to revoke an erroneous vote. A few minutes later, in front of the national media, they explained why. All the details are there to justify it. We will not come back to it. I will not take 30 minutes to tell you about it. We voted on the motion to revoke. Had it passed, the vote would have been changed and we would not be here right now. How can I agree to try to draw things out as much as possible when we should be dealing with what has just been voted on? You have just shown us.

With all due respect, colleagues—I hear the word “respect”, I hear that it's important, that we need to show that we are accountable, that we take our responsibilities seriously. With all due respect, my government colleagues, show us some, because, in broad daylight, you are clearly doing the opposite. It's 1:30 p.m. on Friday the thirteenth. After 33 hours during which you have had time to say everything you wanted to say—not to mention everything you keep repeating—I believe we will even be able to finish before 5:30 p.m.

I'm going to refer back to those words, because I always come back to our fundamental objective, which is to represent all the people of Quebec and Canada. I know that the list of speakers has many names on it. So, please, it's not that hard to say: “let's go for it, we're ready”. I salute your work, Mr. Chair, because I am full of compassion. I have seen a lot in my life, but this situation is clearly out of the ordinary. I will say it again: I'm ashamed of us. I hope the message gets through.

Over and above our game—because we have to recognize that a game is being played here and I am quite capable of seeing that—I hope that, together, we can manage to get it over with, to do what needs to be done and to fulfill our responsibilities. I will put my name on the list again, I will say it again and again, until I'm blue in the face. I think you have just demonstrated that we have talked this through. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

(1330) The Chair :

Thank you very much, Ms. Gaudreau. [ English ] Now we'll move to Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC) :

Thank you very much, Chair. We find ourselves back here again, 33 hours in, and hearing a recounting from the Liberals of their previous testimony. Early in the meeting, Mr. Angus laid out what brought us here. We heard from Madame Gaudreau the plain reason that this motion ought to come to vote. Everyone has had their say. I'd like to speak briefly to and address the comments made by Mr. Dong. He made comments with respect to the Speakers' Spotlight documents. He read into the record a tweet from that organization. The comments that I made in committee were the information that was provided to us.

The situation is that some of the information is still there, while some of it has been purged. There are no lies that have been spoken by me. I find it really interesting to hear Mr. Dong talk about the offence of having Ms. Gladu come to committee and address the motion that was ruled out of order and for Mr. Dong to interject on points of order and say they weren't points of order when one of the Liberal substitutes who came to the committee, Mr. Drouin , interjected a few times and attempted to take control of the meeting in a pretty high-pitched way.

It's interesting, because the connections to the Ontario Liberal Party that the federal Liberals have are pertinent to the question of destroyed documents. The chief of staff to former Ontario Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, David Livingston, was found guilty and ultimately sent to jail for mischief in relation to data and attempted misuse of a computer system to commit mischief. The ruling stated, “Mr. Livingston's plan to eliminate sensitive and confidential work-related data, in my view”—

(1335) Mr. Francesco Sorbara (Vaughan—Woodbridge, Lib.) :

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Go ahead, Mr. Sorbara.

Mr. Francesco Sorbara :

Mr. Chair, you've commented several times today on relevance. I have no idea how Mr. Barrett's train of thought and commentary are relevant to the motion, the information at hand and the conversation we're having as a committee.

The Chair :

Okay, Mr. Sorbara. Mr. Barrett, I believe you were speaking about Mr. Dong's comments in regard to a tweet you had in this committee. Is that correct?

Mr. Michael Barrett :

Correct.

The Chair :

Okay. Continue on. Just make sure the members know your relevance.

Mr. Michael Barrett :

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's interesting to hear that comment from Mr. Sorbara, who decided to offend the sensibilities of Canadians at this committee by spending time talking about his preference in what kind of underwear he would wear instead of addressing the motion at hand.

Mr. Francesco Sorbara :

On a point of order, Chair, that's completely unnecessary banter and talk. It's actually quite offensive that Mr. Barrett would go there on a personal basis. We were speaking about a company called Stanfield's in Canada. It had nothing to do with undergarments. I'm not sure where the CPC is going in this committee with this diatribe they're having, but it's quite obvious that they're not concerned about the well-being of Canadians and the direction in which this committee is going. MP Barrett, please, we can do better than that. Raise the bar on your conversation, please.

Mr. Charlie Angus :

I've a point of order, Chair.

The Chair :

Yes, Mr. Angus.

Mr. Charlie Angus :

I ask you to ask Mr. Sorbara to read the rules of order, because I feel that now he's actually trying to deliberately interfere and be provocative. We need to get on with this. Mr. Sorbara will have all afternoon to talk about Stanfield's underwear if he wants, as long as it pertains to the motion, but we need to get back to the issue at hand so that we can try to get to a vote today.

The Chair :

Please continue on, Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Michael Barrett :

Right, and as I said, Mr. Chair, it was Mr. Sorbara's decision to discuss his preference regarding the type of underwear he would wear when he spoke to this committee, so when we talk about offensive, these are choices that Mr. Sorbara made. To continue where I left off with respect to the relation between the Ontario Liberal Party and the federal Liberals and the chief of staff to former Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty, David Livingston, who was found guilty and ultimately—

Mr. Han Dong :

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, I understand that you asked Mr. Barrett to show the relevance of this debate—

Mr. Michael Barrett :

You have to let me finish my sentence.

Mr. Han Dong :

I was just interrupted by him again on a point of order, and now he's talking about a provincial party, which, even as a Liberal, I have no responsibility to comment on or defend or to say anything about. I question the relevance of that.

The Chair :

I understand, Mr. Dong. I've been allowing everybody quite a number of minutes to steer back to relevance, so I'll give Mr. Barrett the same privilege to show us the relevance and come back to his point.

Mr. Michael Barrett :

Right, Chair, and Mr. Dong was serving as a member of the Ontario Liberal Party when the chief of staff to former Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty was found guilty and was sent to jail.

Mr. Han Dong :

On a point of order—

Mr. Michael Barrett :

I'm going to finish my sentence, guys. You can keep interrupting me.

Mr. Han Dong :

No, on a point of order, Chair—

The Chair :

What is your point of order, Mr. Dong?

Mr. Han Dong :

What Mr. Barrett said is completely untrue. I served between 2014 and 2018, and I wasn't there during the time he is talking about with regard to the provincial Liberals—and again, I don't think it has any relevance to the motion we are debating. I want to correct the record on that point.

The Chair :

Colleagues, I will remind everybody that points of order are for procedure, and you will always have a chance to correct the record when your speaking slot comes up. I'm certain everybody will take full freedom to do that. Please continue, Mr. Barrett.

(1340) Mr. Michael Barrett :

Right. Chair, the criminal case that saw Mr. David Livingston, the former chief of staff to Ontario Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, convicted and found guilty of those charges certainly did take place when Mr. Dong was serving in the provincial legislature. The ruling stated:

Mr. Livingston's plan to eliminate sensitive and confidential work-related data, in my view, amounted to a “scorched earth” strategy, where information that could be potentially useful to adversaries, both within and outside of the Liberal Party, would be destroyed.

We've just seen the energy and effort that go into the Liberal members' attempts to prevent substantive points being put on the record with respect to the record of Liberal parties. Mr. Drouin , who had those excited interventions, worked for that premier. Here we are, trying to get the truth. Here we are, trying to get to a vote. The Liberal members on the committee objected to the ruling of the chair, lost the chair challenge, and now, it seems, even though they got their say, because they didn't get their way, are not willing to let this come to a vote.

The sensibilities of Canadians are rightly offended by the 33-hour-plus filibuster that we have here. We heard from Mr. Dong a list of expenditures. Now, expenditures shouldn't be the sole measure of success; we need to see results as well. I can tell you that the resources expended on 33 hours of filibustering could be much better spent, and the folks in my community, who are looking for all kinds of help, don't see a government that's serious about transparency. We heard a very long speech about transparency from Mr. Dong while engaged in a cover-up filibuster.

The points have been made many times over, and it is certainly high time for it to come to a vote. This is how democracy works. If the Liberals have made convincing arguments to a sufficient number of their colleagues on both sides of the aisle, then they will carry the day and they will be able to defeat the motion. If not, the motion will go forward, and we will take a look at the CSSG, the awarding of the contract to Baylis Medical, and Palantir.

We were going to have someone from Speakers' Spotlight come and talk about these documents, and they can fully explain their process and clarify what has been unclear and provide the information that the committee has been looking for. Then we can move on. We've heard from many Liberals, permanent members of the committee and otherwise, and they were loath to hear about the connections between the provincial Liberals and their team, but they exist. We've seen that it's important, that if documents aren't provided and aren't tabled on the record, there is a risk that they can be destroyed.

Time is of the essence for this committee to get documents. Time is of the essence for this committee to hear testimony, be it on the ventilators or Mr. MacNaughton or the CSSG. This was a half-billion-dollar contribution agreement for the CSSG, originally billed as $912 million, to the benefit of $40 million-plus to the Kielburgers, who themselves drew the connection between members of the Trudeau family and their organization in their submission to cabinet.

(1345) They're the ones who put pictures of the Prime Minister's family in their proposal to the federal cabinet. That's not something the opposition did. That wasn't us looking to create a witch hunt. It was that organization. That was their conscious choice in an effort to benefit from a lucrative agreement at the height of a pandemic when they needed that contract quite badly, since they were laying off many employees. Chair, this committee has heard the arguments from all sides. It is certainly high time for us to have a vote.

As a final note, I would say to my colleagues that if they don't like hearing back what they have already talked about in committee, if they find it offensive later when repeated to them—and I'm happy to read the blues into the record again for Mr. Sorbara, if he'd like—they should be mindful of how they spend their hours—

Mr. Greg Fergus :

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, Mr. Barrett has opened the door for me to clarify the record by reading the blues to provide exactly what was said at committee. I took a look at it. I wasn't at the committee meeting when this exchange took place, so I decided to look it up. Here it is, sir.

Mr. Charlie Angus :

On a point of order—

Mr. Greg Fergus :

Mr. Sorbara said:

The last example I want to turn our attention to is that of a great iconic Canadian company called Stanfield's, which manufactures numerous clothing articles. The company can trace its origins back to Nova Scotia in the 1850s. Former company chairman and CEO—

Then he was interrupted, much as just happened here, Mr. Chair, by Mr. Angus, who said:

I don't remember that anybody has had any interest in underwear as part of this pandemic study. If the Liberals are going to continue to drag us down the hole of filibustering, the issue that they agreed to is with regard to Mr. Baylis, because he is a former member of Parliament, which makes it pertinent.

If they're going to start to now talk about underwear, Mr. Chair, they are certainly wasting our time and taxpayers' time.

Mr. Chair, as you can see, it was Mr. Angus who made that connection, and not Mr. Sorbara. Thank you, sir.

The Chair :

Mr. Angus, did you have a point of order?

Mr. Charlie Angus :

Mr. Chair, I just think that watching Mr. Fergus go to bat for Stanfield's underwear from the 1850s on a point of order on what Mr. Sorbara had said about Stanfield's underwear shows that this committee is turning into farce. I think it's not a point of order; it's just more obstruction. Perhaps Mr. Barrett has something else to say, or he can finish and we can continue on, but I think that Mr. Fergus's last interjection pretty much sums up what we've been subjected to and what the Canadian people have been subjected to for the last 33 hours.

Mr. Greg Fergus :

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, this is exactly the reason we need to make sure that we all have interests in this and—

Mr. Michael Barrett :

I have a point of order, Chair, on this point of order.

Mr. Greg Fergus :

—there is too much.... At least allow me to make the point of order so that you can figure out what your point of order is.

The Chair :

Order. Colleagues, give me a second. Mr. Barrett, please, I've always let everyone extinguish their point of order first, even though I have to say, colleagues, as much as I respect and like working with you all, that the vast majority are not procedural. The vast majority are comments, but I have allowed everybody that luxury. Mr. Fergus, if you could make it brief, that would be great, and then I'll go on to Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Greg Fergus :

I'll make it very brief. What is unfair, sir, is the attribution, the drive-by smear that is put to another honourable member when it's actually the person who raised it. Mr. Angus just did it perfectly again. He just decided to mock the situation when in fact he is the source of that statement. That's what I am trying to point out.

Mr. Charlie Angus :

On a point of order, that's an opinion.

Mr. Greg Fergus :

It's no more a point of order than what you had raised, Mr. Angus, or Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Charlie Angus :

Mr. Sweet, please—

The Chair :

Colleagues...Mr. Barrett, you already have the floor; you don't need to arrest the floor with a point of floor. Now that they've been extinguished, you can go ahead.

Mr. Michael Barrett :

Chair, Mr. Fergus just said that.... First of all, he didn't hear me. He was raising a point of order to the point of order on his point of order. When I looked to interject on that point—on which I was not given the floor by you, Chair—he then said that my point was invalid. This is supreme arrogance. I want to read to you from the blues, and I quote, from November 3, 2020. At 5:10 p.m. Francesco Sorbara, Vaughan—Woodbridge, Ontario, said, “I think that boxers are better than underwear, but that's a whole different story.” Chair, this was the point that Mr. Fergus.... You wanted to read the blues into the record; there it is. We have Liberal members who want to offer their—

(1350) Mr. Greg Fergus :

Read further above, Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Michael Barrett :

I'm sorry, Chair; could you have the member repeat his comment?

The Chair :

No. I think here's what we'll do, colleagues. It looks like the temperature is rising. Let's suspend for 10 minutes. Let's let the temperature go down. Mr. Barrett, you'll have the floor when we return.

(1350) (1400) The Chair :

Colleagues, it's 2 p.m., and we're ready to go back into session. Colleagues, it's been a long time. There's no question about it. We're all human beings, and it's been a long time because everybody has a good reason for it to be a long time. I'm not asking you to respect the reasons that your colleagues have—far from it. That's what we do: We argue about policy, we argue about methods and we argue about principles. However, you are all duly elected by your constituents, you're in one of the most honoured places in Canada and you swore an oath to serve it.

That means that although you have no obligation to respect your colleagues' positions, you do have an obligation to respect your colleagues. That would be what is necessary to reflect to your constituents that you're dedicated to them. As I said, that we're human. I understand why it's a little bit heated at the moment with the many hours that this has gone on, but let's pay each other the respect that is due, continue the debate and see how our debate continues to maybe dispose of this motion. I'll go back to Mr. Barrett, and I'm going to remind us all of the speaking order again before I give the floor to Mr.

Barrett. It is Mr. Barrett, Mr. Angus, Mr. Sorbara, Mr. Fergus and Madame Gaudreau. Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Michael Barrett :

Thank you, Chair. I appreciate it. It's unfortunate that the suspension came after the pile-on. I must have hit a nerve there in talking about the connections between the conviction of an Ontario Liberal operative and the subject at hand with respect to destruction of documents. I would note for my colleagues that there were hours of speaking by them without the interjection of a point of order or a heckle or any of a number of things, and that I didn't get 60 seconds into speaking before the pile-on started.

I think it's important to note that while I have disagreed heartily with much of what has been said by my Liberal colleagues, I've restrained my interventions on the relevance or the lack thereof in what has been said today. Chair, I had concluded my remarks before we slipped into the gong show there, so I would ask that the committee members have the courage of their convictions and vote on the motion at hand. Thank you, Chair.

The Chair :

Are you asking me to canvass the members here to see if there's a willingness to go to a vote?

Mr. Michael Barrett :

Indeed, sir.

The Chair :

Okay. No, there's no consensus, Mr. Barrett. We'll go on now to Mr. Angus.

Mr. Charlie Angus :

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank you for those profound words. It is very important to remember that people across this country are watching what is happening here, and I think that little exchange about underwear and who is to blame for saying things about underwear represented a very low point in all the committees I have been on, and I have been on some very fractious and bitter committees. I think what worries me is that this is the first committee in which the actual work of the committee, I believe, is being deliberately obstructed. We had two meetings on this issue.

Back in the summer we were about to get the Speakers' Spotlight documents. The Prime Minister prorogued the House. That shut the work of this committee down for well over a month. Then we came back, feeling that we were going to simply carry on and finish the report, which, I think, we would have easily been finished by now, but we ran into one obstruction after another from government members. I have reached out to try to broker a couple of compromises because I believe it is our obligation to get these committees up and running. We don't get everything we want when we come into a committee hearing.

We sometimes get compromises. It has been said many times that a camel is a racehorse that was designed by a committee. We all wanted the racehorse, but we end up sometimes with a lopsided camel. That is democracy. I am feeling now a little regretful that I reached out to make those compromises, because I feel that whenever we agreed to change the motion to bring the Liberals onside, the playing field changed immediately.

We were told again and again by the Liberals that it was outrageous that we wanted to include Madam Margaret Trudeau and Sasha Trudeau and how much money they were paid through their work with WE. We were told that it was over the line, that it was a personal infringement, when the relevance to that issue was the fact that the WE group had started to make huge payments to the Trudeau family after the Prime Minister became elected, and when they were trying to get that $900 million program, they were using photos of the Prime Minister's family. It put the Prime Minister into a conflict of interest under

section 5 of the act. This was a very legitimate question. We told the Liberals we would have very strong processes in place to protect that documentation. The only thing we needed from the documentation was to verify it, because we had been given false statements. We had been told that the Trudeau family was absolutely not paid, and that wasn't true. Michelle Douglas from the WE board testified that she had asked straight up whether the Trudeau family had been paid and was told they weren't. Our committee had no reason not to trust the words we had heard.

Those documents should have simply verified that, and we could have moved on, but the Liberals drew a hard line there. I reached out and said that I was not all that interested in how much the Trudeau family were being paid. We had identified that it was a significant amount of money. Whether it was significantly more or not, we had been told that it didn't really change the matter.

However, as soon as we made that agreement, suddenly it became terribly unfair that we were asking about the Prime Minister's wife, even though the Liberals had identified in those negotiations that it was husband and wife, Prime Minister and wife, who were the people who should be looked at. As soon as we shortened the focus, they wanted to change it again. I found that very concerning. They came back in their negotiations and said they wanted us to look at the Frank Baylis deal, yet we have been hearing nothing from the Liberals about how terrible it is that we're investigating this Frank Baylis deal.

They have been using examples of other people from PPE companies who make donations and saying that they shouldn't be dragged in just because they make donations to one party or another. It's not the fact that Mr. Baylis made donations; it's the fact that he's a former member of Parliament. That's significant. Rahim Jaffer was a former member of Parliament who went back in with a new business deal, and he was charged, I believe, and convicted because he was breaking the rules by using his connections. We just need to verify that those connections were not improperly used. That's a pretty straightforward thing.

A committee study does not presuppose guilt. We're looking into examples.

(1405) When the Liberals said that they didn't want us to look at Mr. Silver but they wanted us to look at Mr. Baylis, I agreed. Then, suddenly, we were being told how terrible that was and that we were persecuting Mr. Baylis, so I don't have a lot of trust right now for the Liberals, particularly as I sit and listen to them, hour in and hour out, talk about anything other than getting this thing dealt with. In terms of the Bloc amendment, I believe that the Bloc amendment was out of order, and I said that at the time.

I said that if the Bloc voted to shut down the request for the documents, then that matter was finished. However, the chair ruled that it was in order. I can disagree with the chair, but once a decision has been made, then that's the decision that's been made by the committee, and we move on. We don't get to relitigate it, as the Liberals are doing. We don't get to say, “Well, it's not democratic because we didn't like the result.” What was democratic was that a vote was taken and the chair ruled it in order, so now we need to move on, but we're not being allowed to move on.

The Liberals continue to put up all matter of obstructions, even today, with my colleague claiming that the Liberals are actually concerned about the safety of Canadians—meaning what? Meaning that those of us who are doing our work at this committee are not worried about the safety of Canadians? I find that to be very, very offensive. The sideshow we just witnessed about whether or not Stanfield's underwear, founded in I don't know what year, was unfair or fair, or a drive-by smear about Liberals who wanted to talk about the underwear thing, shows to me that this is obstruction.

I would give my Liberal colleagues two quotes. One is from March 7, 2011:

It has come to this, Mr. Speaker. In order for members of the House to do our jobs and make informed decisions on behalf of Canadians, we need to pry scraps of relevant information out of the [government's] clenched fists and drag it out of them as they kick and scream at committee.

Who said that? Justin Trudeau said that.

Justin Trudeau also said:

Mr. Speaker, bits of blacked-out documents with key information missing are not disclosure. Non-answers in the House are not disclosure. Rhetorical personal attacks are not disclosure. We need to get at the truth.

What has been hidden from us are the documents that were supposed to be released. Many of those pages were blacked out. That's not acceptable. As far as the Speakers' Spotlight documents go, I was certainly surprised to learn that they didn't have all the documents, but I don't in any way assume that Speakers' Spotlight was involved in any cover-up. I would like to have them come and explain what happened, but I do know that Speakers' Spotlight has said that there is other information.

Let's just get that information and move on, because now the Liberals again have tried to move an out-of-order motion today—it's something they couldn't do—to limit the documents to 2013, when Speakers' Spotlight said that there is information preceding that. I don't think that this should be that big a deal. I think the documents should exonerate the Prime Minister and his wife. If their words are true, there shouldn't be a problem.

If we can get to this motion, we can bring in Speakers' Spotlight, because it is definitely not the work of our committee to insinuate that someone outside of a government has done something wrong. We just need to verify. Our role here is to come up with a report for the Canadian people that they can use to make their decision, so I'd ask my colleagues to stop arguing about underwear, to stop telling us about how every single PPE mask and glove has been appropriated right down to the penny, to stop coming up with reasons they don't want to discuss this, and have a vote. We're 33 hours into the vote.

The Liberals are wasting taxpayers' money, they are wasting our time and they are making a mockery of a committee that has often been very fractious, often very partisan and controversial and, at times, very bitter, but that committee has always sat, it has always met, it has always voted, and it has always produced reports, so I'm telling my Liberal colleagues that the time has come. I'd like to ask, Chair, if we could test the room to see if we're ready for a vote or if we're going to be stuck with more obstruction from the Liberals. Can we vote on this?

(1410) The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Angus. I'm just looking at the screen here to see if there's a willingness to go to a vote. No, there's no consent, Mr. Angus.

Mr. Charlie Angus :

Thank you. I'll cede the floor and I'll let the Liberals continue with their obstruction, now going on 33, almost 34, hours. Thank you.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Angus. Next on the speakers list is Mr. Sorbara, Mr. Fergus, and then Madame Gaudreau. Mr. Sorbara.

Mr. Francesco Sorbara :

I just want to say good afternoon again to everyone. We've had a lot of deliberation today and substantive conversation. I do just want to echo that the conversations do get heated. We sometimes represent different views, but at the end of the day, we represent Canadians. I'm going to do that and I always try to do. Those of you who know me and who have interacted with me over the years know that consider myself not to be a really partisan MP, if I can use that term. I represented the Liberals and am proud to be a Liberal. I was 15 years old when I first bought my membership and became involved in politics.

Nonetheless, I was voted here to represent the wonderful constituents of Vaughan—Woodbridge and I represent them all. No matter who they voted for, no matter where they come from, and no matter what their views are, I have time for them all and I love them all, and I try to do the best job that I can as the member of Parliament for Vaughan—Woodbridge here in this wonderful city of Vaughan. I know the rest of my dear and honourable colleagues do the same in their constituencies. I think that's something that I hold dear to my heart and I know that all my honourable colleagues hold dear to their hearts.

With that, Chair, I do know that my name has been bandied about several times since the beginning of our sitting today at about 11 o'clock. What is sort of surprising is that I never realized I was that popular or that im