EVIDENCE

Standing Committee on Finance NUMBER 005 2nd SESSION 43rd PARLIAMENT Thursday, November 5, 2020 Le jeudi 5 novembre 2020 Standing Committee on Finance CANADA [Recorded by Electronic Apparatus] EVIDENCE November 5, 2020 Committee NUMBER 005 NUMBER 005 NUMÉRO 005 05 05 11 2020 2020/11/05 16:15:00 House Of Commons Comité permanent des finances Standing Committee on Finance FINA Chair The Honourable Wayne Easter 2 43

(1615) [ English ]

The Chair (Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.)) :

I call the meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number five of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. We're welcoming a couple of new recruits here to the finance committee this evening. Thank you for coming. The committee is meeting today to conduct committee business, as we have been doing for a little while. Pursuant to the motion adopted by the House on Wednesday, September 23, 2020, the committee is meeting virtually. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference and the proceedings will be televised and made available on the House of Commons website.

I don't believe it's necessary for me to repeat all the rules, as we don't have any witnesses before us. I think committee members are well aware of the rules. When we last adjourned, it was reported that discussions would be ongoing to achieve, hopefully, an agreeable settlement on the motion in the name of Mr. Poilievre . I take it that no agreement has been reached as yet, although I understand considerable progress is being made. Therefore, we'll start where we left off on the subamendment to the amendment to the original motion by Mr. Poilievre . I have on my list to start off the engagement tonight with Mr.

Fragiskatos, followed by Ms. Dzerowicz and Mr. Julian. Mr. Fragiskatos.

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos (London North Centre, Lib.) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to see colleagues. Mr. Chair, I won't take too much of the committee's time. I just wanted to take a few moments, if I could, to recap where we are. For those back at home, after weeks of watching it could be easy to be confused as to why we're here. We have our initial motion, which pertains to Mr. Poilievre 's matter of privilege in relation to redacted documents. These documents were received by this committee in accordance with a motion that was passed by committee members. The documents were in the format as requested in the motion and were provided on time.

The redactions that Mr. Poilievre seems to be taking issue with, it would appear, are directly related to the work done by the parliamentary law clerk. I can appreciate that Mr. Poilievre is not happy with the results of the motion. However, it was his party that drafted the original motion. Subsequently, we have an amendment and a subamendment on the table related to the production of documents, on which version of documents should be disclosed, how they are compared and whatnot. I won't waste time going into detail on that. What is key to the subamendment is the appearance of the Clerk of the Privy Council.

As my colleagues have noted previously, and as my opposition colleagues are fully aware, we are in possession of a letter from the most senior civil servant in the country. The Clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to cabinet is the head of our civil service, the head of the Privy Council Office, which coordinates the functioning of the government in Canada. As secretary to cabinet, they are the chief adviser to cabinet and are responsible for the accurate recording of meetings and decisions.

Clearly, the clerk is in a position to be an expert witness on any number of matters, particularly because it was the clerk who pre-emptively ordered the release of documents, including cabinet confidences and the names of relevant public servants, prior to this committee making its motion. It's important that we focus for a moment on the matters at hand. As I noted, the clerk is the secretary to cabinet and is responsible for keeping information related to cabinet. As a result, he is the keeper of cabinet confidences.

He can choose whether they're waived in a particular circumstance, as he did in the matter of the Canada student service grant. He did choose to waive confidence and provide all documentation that flowed through the cabinet papers system. The clerk committed to doing this before we even voted on requests for these documents. Further to his responsibility to keep cabinet confidences, the clerk did take the position that matters unrelated to the student service grant should not be disclosed. Is this an unreasonable position? I think not.

Is this position by the clerk to redact unrelated cabinet confidences outside the normal scope of practice? No, it is not. Is it outside the normal scope of practice for department officials, non-partisan public servants, to redact said documentation at point of source? No. Is it outside the normal scope of practice for the public service to provide completely unredacted cabinet documents to the parliamentary law clerk and for him, and him alone, to choose what should be redacted as a cabinet confidence? Absolutely, 100%. This is exactly what Mr. Poilievre and my opposition colleagues are calling for here.

The opposition majority is calling on this committee to take a position regarding document requests that is very far outside the normal practice. It's happening not just here. We see this happening at other committees as well. We also see it with the structure of the motion the Conservatives made in regard to their opposition motion the other week, again, requesting documents unredacted and calling on the law clerk to make those redactions for cabinet confidences. The parliamentary law clerk has never had powers to review cabinet confidences. There are legal precedents and reasons for this—very good reasons.

For the information of colleagues, I am on point in relation to our subamendment. I believe setting the proper context is important. You will fully understand my point momentarily. As I have explained, the way in which the majority opposition has requested documents is rather unorthodox and out of the ordinary. To make it even more interesting, the original motion drafted and passed by the opposition recognized that unrelated cabinet confidences would be redacted at source and then forwarded to the law clerk for a personal privacy check.

The motion was structured and passed in that way and no one from the opposition said otherwise. Imagine our surprise when Mr. Poilievre appeared post-document release dramatically throwing blacked out papers around at the press briefing, papers he received from the law clerk and conforming to the exact specifications of a motion that he proposed. Now this brings me to the Clerk of the Privy Council. In mid-August the government House leader released documents, the exact documents that the clerk had promised and that the clerk had requested in the motion, minus the redactions by the law clerk.

This was an extraordinary release of Crown secrets. As has been said in this committee in the past, this release of documents this was unlike any that had occurred in the past. Included in the information was reference to specific public servants, which the clerk took the extreme step of leaving unredacted. This required the clerk to file a notice with the Privacy Commissioner advising him of his move. I think colleagues need to let the gravity of that decision sink in.

We now have two sets of documents, the lightly redacted information from the government House leader , which saw the complete release of information as it relates to the CSSG, or the Canada student service grant, minus unrelated cabinet confidences, which included the names of public servants. We also have the documents from the law clerk, which are a bit more heavily redacted, removing the names of public servants, phone numbers and emails, among some other items.

Now the opposition has taken issue with the preredactions made by the public servants in relation to unrelated cabinet confidences, which again I find strange considering that this was in the motion from the committee. It's the regular practice when documents are sent to the committee as well, though clearly this doesn't fit the partisan narrative of the majority opposition. Mr. Poilievre , Mr. Julian and others have concerns about these preredactions. We can debate all day about how this was to be expected because of the motion that was passed. However, let's set that argument aside for a moment.

As I've said, the Clerk of the Privy Council is the keeper of cabinet confidences and is an expert witness when it comes to their release. He has offered to come before this committee. That letter sent by him states clearly that he and his relevant deputy ministers would gladly come before the committee to explain how they went about reviewing the motion from the committee, compiling documents and complying the best they could with our request. I know this has been reported in the press as well, so Canadians across the country will be aware of this fact too.

Personally I'm not sure why the opposition has questions about why there were redactions for unrelated cabinet confidences. I get that they have their political game to play so I'm willing to play ball on some level. That's why I think it's completely reasonable to have the clerk and his fellow deputies here to explain themselves. What is important for us to remember is that, like us, the amazing public servants who work for the Government of Canada swear an oath, an oath to uphold the secrecy of all matters that come before them in their duties and to uphold the statutes that govern privacy laws in Canada.

As we push these public servants for the release of information, they are conducting a delicate balancing act between our rights as parliamentarians to reasonably access government documents and their sworn responsibility to uphold the confidence of the cabinet process and protect the functioning of responsible government. I think that, up front, the clerk should be commended. He recognized that this program, while on its merits was a good concept as far was the program was concerned, clearly had issues on the implementation front.

He recognized the need to be 100% up front and transparent in regard to how the CSSG came into being, and he ensured that the cabinet documents relating to its creation and approval were made available for parliamentarians. However, as committee members, we have to recognize that this unprecedented move to make the information available had to be balanced with the need to protect cabinet confidences on matters that were unrelated. If we accepted the request from the clerk to appear, I think that is what he would tell this committee.

I think he has a measured and reasonable explanation for why some information was released and other information was not. I think the testimony he will give will side with the fact that it is not the responsibility of the Clerk of the Privy Council to assist the official opposition with their politically motivated fishing expedition

(1620) I think it wouldn't be appropriate for him to unredact information for purely political reasons, to help the opposition. It would taint the cabinet process. All these explanations would be better heard coming from the lips of the clerk himself. I think we know what colleagues on the other side are afraid of. They are rather annoyed that we will not allow the tyranny of the opposition majority to rule supreme here in this place.

I think they are annoyed that a non-partisan professional public servant is willing to come forward and testify, and that the testimony that would be given would likely counter their narrow partisan strategy. I encourage all my colleagues to vote in favour of the subamendment to allow the clerk to come forward and explain the position of the government in regard to the redaction. It's the right thing to do. I ask colleagues to do the right thing: Allow the clerk to come before us. Let's move past this matter after he testifies and get to the work that Canadians expect of us.

In particular, I am very much looking forward to discussing the motion from Ms. Dzerowicz regarding pre-budget consultations. It's the whole reason this committee exists. Let's hear from the clerk and then let's get to the work on pre-budget planning. This is a critical point and one that is quite relevant, because, if we think back, this debate around Mr. Kelly's amendment and the subamendment that has been proposed by the Liberal side really does, as we continue with it—and I think we should because the subamendment is tremendously important—stand in the way of our looking at Ms.

Dzerowicz's motion, which is completely on par with what this committee, as I just said, needs to do: commence pre-budget consultations so that we can begin to hear from Canadians about what their priorities are. As we face a second wave, COVID-19 continues to impact almost every part of this country in some shape or form. In my own province, Ontario, we are seeing real challenges, not only in the GTA and in Ottawa, but also in other parts. As we start to grapple with it, we need to hear from experts, particularly on the economy, and consider how COVID-19 is impacting the land.

I can't emphasize enough to my colleagues how imperative it is that we move in this direction. If we think back to when we were elected, what was it we were sent here to do? The committee process for all MPs is central to the job of being a parliamentarian. We all know that this job is many things. It's really two jobs, at the end of the day. You have the constituency work, which is vital, but you also have the work that takes place on Parliament Hill. On this latter point, the work on Parliament Hill, our committee work is crucial, imperative.

I have had the honour of serving on the committee for foreign affairs, on the committee for public safety and national security, and now for the previous two years, under your learned leadership, Mr. Chair, and I say this very sincerely.... I know you're a modest man, and you're shaking your head there. You should not. You have led the committee in a very able way, Mr. Chair. It is a tremendously important thing to sit on the finance committee, and the work we do is varied.

We have a role in the gathering of ideas that relate to COVID-19 and the economic response, the gathering of ideas that find their way in the form of recommendations for the finance minister to consider and for the Prime Minister also, of course, to consider. That is not a small thing. It is something that I and colleagues around the table will take pride in, but our constituents also feel a great amount of pride when they know they have MPs representing them who sit on this committee, arguably the most important committee on Parliament Hill.

As we have engaged in this debate, I have thought back to what it is preventing from happening. It is obviously preventing us from dealing with Ms. Dzerowicz's motion, which is calling on us to begin immediately pre-budget consultations.

(1625) However, that doesn't mean this debate is one that I'm willing to simply surrender to the opposition, because there are a number of things at stake here. We have the Clerk of the Privy Council, who has made the very important point that he wishes to come before committee to be asked questions, not only by members of Parliament on the Liberal side but by opposition members of Parliament as well. It is an extraordinary move on his part, and we see the opposition standing in the way of that happening. This is where I have real concerns.

We have not dealt in previous meetings with this point that I'm about to make at this committee, but it has been suggested, especially by Mr. Poilievre, and I am disappointed not to hear opposition colleagues challenge him on this point.... I will tell you—and I think I speak for the entire Liberal side—that when Mr. Poilievre suggested that it would not be something he would be open to, that he would not be in favour of having the clerk appear before this committee, because in his view the clerk operates at the whim of the Prime Minister and, as I think Mr.

Poilievre put it, is somehow under the thumb of the Prime Minister, is reliant, is “dependent”, on him.... These are the words he continues to use. Mr. Poilievre has said that the Clerk of the Privy Council is dependent on the Prime Minister. It's just not true. The most senior civil servant in the land is, by definition, neutral and objective. They must be in order to carry out their role, which is what?

The clerk has the most important role in the public service, and we need to make sure that, while there naturally will be quarrels between members of Parliament on opposite party sides, we do not attack the public service, which, as we have seen with the issue of the day, COVID-19, were it not for the federal public service.... We could also talk about the public services operating at the provincial and municipal levels, but I won't do that. I'll focus on the federal public service and what an extraordinary job they have done through COVID-19.

By suggesting that the head of Canada's public service is somehow under the rule of and entirely “dependent”, as Mr. Poilievre put it, on the Prime Minister , that is something that besmirches not only the reputation of this particular clerk. It besmirches the reputation of clerks previous and those who will come after Mr. Shugart. It also attacks the reputation and honour of existing public servants at all levels, whether they are public servants who have just recently joined Canada's civil service or whether they are experienced ones as well.

I wonder why it is that my Conservative colleagues continue to do this at almost every opportunity. It surprised me as well that Mr. Poilievre made the point, because he speaks very highly, at least he has in previous sessions and meetings of this committee.... In the previous Parliament, for example, I remember him putting on record that he held Mr. Shugart in high esteem. That was an interesting point, but one that he completely contradicts when he says that Mr. Shugart is under the thumb of the current Prime Minister . It's just not the case. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, when Mr.

Poilievre served in cabinet, Mr. Shugart was the deputy minister to Mr. Poilievre and has served under a number of different governments. All of which is to say, that the moment we begin to attack public servants is the moment when we see a tide or a shift in our democracy that we should absolutely avoid. All of us are in this position as members of Parliament, a position that will not be forever. We are here for sometimes a few years and sometimes a good number of years. The reality is that partisanship plays a role in that process.

We've decided to approach our public service in that way, but public servants who decide to work in the civil service, making a contribution along those lines, want nothing to do with politics. Once we begin attacking them, we violate a central, a cardinal, rule in a democracy, and that is that the public service must never be politicized.

(1630) Public servants are not politicizing this process but by making the accusations that Mr. Poilievre has put forward, and which again I emphasize to my amazement, the opposition has not intervened to correct him or to voice their view on the matter. We take away, we do away with the need to ensure that our democracy, in terms of the public service, is free of politics. There's another thing, too, here. I remember Mr. Gerretsen suggesting this, although he didn't complete the thought, if I remember, when he sat at this committee a few weeks back.

It was that we have to be very careful about how we decide to engage discussions around the public service because they're not here to defend themselves. When Mr. Poilievre makes these accusations he does so without Mr. Shugart and other public servants present. That to me is offensive because public servants are not to be attacked for all the reasons I've laid out. Also, it's not their position to engage in these debates. Mr. Shugart realizes that but in a very honourable way has put forward a letter to this committee so he can be heard.

If members of the opposition at that point wish to engage combatively with him I suppose that can happen. To launch these accusations without the Clerk of the Privy Council present is quite extraordinary and something I don't think I've seen at any committee level. I wonder if it's happened before in previous committees. Perhaps it has, as that parliamentary history is long. I'm going to assume, because of the strength of our democracy, that the times it has transpired are few and far between. This point about not attacking the public servants who serve this country—

(1635) Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC) :

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. I hate to interrupt but Mr. Fragiskatos has repeatedly asserted, falsely, that wild accusations or criticisms were made of the Clerk of the Privy Council, which is not correct. Mr. Poilievre did not attack Mr. Shugart in any way. He pointed out that he is an employee of the Prime Minister —

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

He said he was dependent on the Prime Minister .

Mr. Pat Kelly :

In fact, he went on to assert repeatedly that he was, if I can quote him from the record, a heck of a guy. I don't think he at any point attacked the integrity or the—

The Chair :

Mr. Kelly, we're into debate, unless you have a point of order. If you want to make that point you're welcome to it.

Mr. Pat Kelly :

There are two points. One point of order was on the correction of the record. The other point of order I have would be relevance. He strayed far beyond the subamendment.

The Chair :

I can take relevance. I'll go to Mr. Fragiskatos on relevance. I do think in part he was refuting an argument that was made in a previous discussion by a member. Before I give you the floor again, Mr. Fragiskatos, Madam Clerk, you will have to give me a signal if Mr. Ste. Marie wants in. I usually can see him on my screen even when he's in the room but I can't see him tonight. You can give me a shout or wave your hand if he happens to want in. Mr. Fragiskatos, you have the floor.

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It was an interesting point of order. I think you ruled it a point of debate. In that vein I would like to thank Mr. Kelly for his intervention because.... I see he's now put his thumbs up. He doesn't realize that he just gave me a new track to follow, one that is actually entirely relevant to the discussion at hand. Mr. Kelly says that the attack didn't happen because Mr. Poilievre was actually honouring Mr. Shugart. He did have some good things to say. He's also put that on the record in previous meetings, but when Mr.

Poilievre uses the word “dependent” it implies that the clerk is not “independent”. To make that kind of an accusation against the Clerk of the Privy Council of Canada is probably the ultimate insult that can be launched towards the highest-ranking public servant at the federal level that this country has to offer. I won't belabour that point, but it's an interesting intervention on the part of Mr. Kelly. He knows I have respect for him. I've been open about the way I've worked well with Mr. Kelly in the past. In fact, I first met him when we carried out pre-budget consultations a few years ago.

If I recall, he has a background in business. He is known in the business community.

(1640) Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP) :

I have a point of order. I'm sure that singing the praises of Mr. Kelly is something we'd all like to do, but it is not relevant to the subamendment. If Mr. Fragiskatos has nothing else to contribute to the debate, let us proceed to the vote.

The Chair :

We have four other people in the lineup at the moment, including you, Mr Julian. Mr. Fragiskatos, Mr. Julian has a valid point, though, on relevance.

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

I acknowledge your ruling there, Mr. Chair. I always strive to keep it relevant. If, for a few seconds there, I broke the 20-second rule that Mr. Julian has talked about in the past, I really apologize. By the intervention here.... If the opposition wishes to raise points of order, it's obviously within their right to do so as MPs working on committee. I have to put on record here again that when the accusations were launched against the clerk by Mr. Poilievre, I didn't hear anything on the part of the NDP. Mr. Julian did not raise his voice. Those who replaced him at committee when Mr.

Julian stepped out for a few hours in the last meeting that we had on the subject, and in meetings before that, nothing was put on the record from the NDP that has, at least in its rhetoric, consistently put forward a message that would have Canadians believe that they have real respect and admiration for public servants. Here we have Mr. Julian working with the Conservative opposition and Mr. Poilievre, which is an interesting alliance, to put it mildly and to be polite about it. I leave that there. I know that others want to speak.

I have more ideas on the importance of never attacking public servants, and by extension never politicizing the public service, or at least debates that would tend in that direction. I'm glad to bring those matters up later on, but I know that Ms. Dzerowicz is at the edge of her seat, getting ready to put forward a speech that we're all ready and excited to hear. With that said, Mr. Chair, I will turn it over to my colleague from Davenport.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos. That's quite an introduction, Ms. Dzerowicz. The floor is yours. I can see it in Mr. Julian's eyes. He's looking for relevance already.

Ms. Julie Dzerowicz (Davenport, Lib.) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I want to say thank you to my colleague for giving me such an introduction. I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint. I am not ready with any oratorical speeches at the moment, although I probably have a few interesting things to say before I go into some prepared remarks. To be honest, a lot of it is expanding on where Mr. Fragiskatos has been. It's been exactly along the lines I've been thinking about, so I am expanding on some of his points. Here is where I am going to start off.

I am going to say that we on the government side do not believe—and I say this wholeheartedly—that we're hiding anything. I always like reminding everyone who is listening, and maybe some of the new colleagues who have joined us today at this committee meeting, that we actually had almost two months of testimony over the summer, just to look into the WE Charity being selected to deliver the Canada student service grant, the CSSG. We have heard very clearly through that testimony that there was no corruption, that there was no misuse of funds and that WE was actually independently selected by civil servants.

The reason we rushed before the summer was that, we knew that university students really wanted to be able to access as much money as possible so they could fund their continued education. We went to a contribution agreement and not a sole-source contract for very deliberate reasons and we explained that, and we absolutely did this for students. Not only did we introduce the CSSG program, but we introduced over $9 billion in supports for students. The vast majority of that money has gone out. It's been very helpful, and it's been very helpful for my nephew, who is now at Brock University.

I'll tell you, he laments that school is not fully back in session, but I know that he has taken advantage of some of the programs because he needed to. I wanted to put that out there because I think it's very important. The 5,000-plus documents—I think there are around 5,600—do not have a smoking gun. There is no smoking gun there. What the subamendment before us tries to get to is to say, let's bring all the parties relevant to this matter—to the redactions, to the documents and to why things were redacted—around the table.

Then we can address any outstanding questions and concerns and try to do it in a public way, in a transparent way, so that we can move on to pre-budget consultations. This is a motion I had introduced at our very first session, after we came back from prorogation and after we listened to the Speech from the Throne. That was, I believe, on October 8. I found something in the paper that I want to share with you. This is from the Toronto Star weekend edition. There was a foundation that decided.... It was a group that actually had been very involved with the WE Charity for over 10 years.

They took out a full-page ad and it's exactly relevant to what we're talking about. It says:

The Real #WEscandal is the Loss of #WEcharity

My name is Andy Stillman. I believe in smart, impactful philanthropy. That's why for nearly a decade, my family foundation supported WE Charity. But over the past months I've been confused, reading negative press about WE and its founders. If you're like me, you want to cut through the politics and get to the truth.

So that's exactly what I did. I hired top-rated, non-partisan investigators and forensic accountants, including Matt Torigian, former Deputy Solicitor General for the province of Ontario, and forensic accountant Dr. Al Rosen, who has appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada.

The review included over 5,000 pages released by the federal government, and nearly 400 documents released by WE Charity, as well as a full evaluation of WE Charity's finances and that of the social enterprise ME to WE that funds the charity.

The findings convinced me. So much so that I wanted to pay for these full-page ads to ensure that Canadians have the truth.

Here Are the Top Five Things the Experts Found:

1. The public service considered multiple other charities and groups, and the public service determined that We Charity was the best partner to administer the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) to help students.

(1645) 2. The Prime Minister's Office did not predetermine that WE Charity would be selected to administer the Canada Student Service Grant.

3. WE Charity would have made no profit from the CSSG, but only been reimbursed for eligible expenses to administer the program. WE Charity was clearly motivated by helping students.

4. ME to WE Social Enterprise has created jobs to help lift people overseas from poverty and given 100% of its profits to WE Charity or reinvested funds for social purposes.

5. Marc and Craig are volunteers who never profited from WE Charity. In contrast, the Kielburger family are the among the most generous financial supporters of WE Charity.

Simply put, there was no funny business. The real #WEscandal is politics causing the loss of an incredible Canadian charity which has helped millions of young people for over 25 years.

See the facts for yourself at FriendsofWE.org and learn how you can help right this wrong.

I remain a believer in WE Charity and I will continue to support them. Today's world needs more youth volunteerism, not less. We need to take a step back, think critically and check our assumptions.

It is my hope that these reports will renew your confidence in an important organization, like it has mine. If you want to make your voice heard, I hope you'll share your WE story of impact with FriendsofWE.org

I just want to say that because, again, it validates.... The reason we're actually talking about a subamendment to an amendment of an original motion is that the original motion had an implication that there were redactions done by our independent civil servants that were hiding things that were some kind of smoking gun, that were covering up some kind of big scandal or some sort of big cover-up. That is indeed not the case. Again, because of the two months of testimony we've had....

I found it so amazing that this foundation decided it was going to hire its own independent investigators and forensic accountants to actually see if there was any funny business, and when it found the results, decided to go out and put out these ads, and it was really important to do so. I thought I'd start with that, because it is really important for us to put it on the table.

Getting back to the subamendment, again, the reason we want the subamendment to pass is that it was our attempt on the Liberal side to try to deal with any concerns that there was some sort of document that hid some big secret or cover-up, so that we could move as fast as we could to pre-budget consultations. Now, because we've had a number of discussions, it feels like where we are at is that there is agreement that we'll eliminate cabinet confidence and we'll eliminate anything of national security.

However, I think where we are sitting is that there are some redactions within the original set of documents that went to the law clerk that had zero relevance to WE and that never needed to be submitted, but because they were just part of the documents they ended up being submitted and were automatically redacted. What is important to state is that if those sections were not included as part of the submission, no one would have ever complained, because it was never part of the original intention that they be included.

Anyway, I don't know if any of that is clear but we have a few hours to actually make it clearer. Where I am going to take us is actually what my colleague, Mr. Fragiskatos, talked about when he indicated that Mr. Shugart, our Clerk of the Privy Council, had submitted a very clear letter to the Clerk of the Committee indicating the following:

I am writing further to recent discussions at the Standing Committee on Finance.

My colleagues and I would be pleased to make ourselves available to appear before the committee to speak to the redactions that were made if it would be useful to do so.

I know that we've been discussing the documents requested by this committee for some time now, and I think it is fair to say there is some disagreement among parties in relation to the redactions of non-relevant cabinet confidences by the public service. As well, there seems to be clear-cut confusion as to who redacted which set of documents that are floating out there.

(1650) If you look at the subamendment we've put on the table, we've actually proposed to bring forward to the committee both sets of documents. The set of documents that is coming forward that was redacted by our independent civil servants, that's package number one. Package number two is the package that came back from the law clerk, which was further redacted. That way we can see the differences. In any case, there seemed to be some confusion in regard to who redacted which set of documents.

We have the very comprehensive set of documents released by the government House leader , which had some light redactions in relation to personal privacy and unrelated cabinet confidences. We then have redactions completed by the law clerk, which were intensive. On the first set of documents, the redactions and instructions came from our law clerk. Mr. Fragiskatos talked a bit about how it was the clerk who gave very clear instructions to all departments as to what information needed to be released. I want to add to the discussion that cabinet confidence is very clearly defined.

There are six short points that are defined in terms of confidences of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. It's in a subsection of our Privacy Act, which states:

70(1) This Act does not apply to confidences of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, including, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, any information contained in

(

a) memoranda the purpose of which is to present proposals or recommendations to Council;

(

b) discussion papers the purpose of which is to present background explanations, analyses of problems or policy options to Council for consideration by Council in making decisions;

(

c) agenda of Council or records recording deliberations or decisions of Council;

(

d) records used for or reflecting communications or discussions between ministers of the Crown on matters relating to the making of government decisions or the formulation of government policy;

(

e) records the purpose of which is to brief ministers of the Crown in relation to matters that are before, or are proposed to be brought before, Council or that are the subject of communications or discussions referred to in paragraph (d); and

(

f) draft legislation.

It's important to point that out for anyone who is listening. To be honest, I had to learn this as well. I learned it as part of all of these discussions. It's very clear, when formal documents are actually requested, that there are very clear guidelines about how to define cabinet confidences, how to define items of national security and how to define things that are irrelevant. I wanted to make sure that I put that out there.

As a result of the proper instructions that came from the Clerk of the Privy Council, several departments undertook to release an unprecedented level of information, including cabinet confidences relating to the CSSG, where 5,000 pages were disclosed, including documents that would never had seen the light of day.... It says here in my notes that they would “never have seen the light of day under the previous Harper government”. That comment just highlights the point that our government is trying its best to be as transparent and as open as possible.

The release of an unprecedented number of documents is part of that. I would also point out, and it's important to note, our Prime Minister did not prorogue Parliament until all of these documents were formerly released to the public. That's a very important note to reiterate, because to me that is another clear action our Prime Minister took that showed there was no desire on our part to not release the full documents, as was agreed to at our July 7 finance meeting. The release of these documents is significant.

The opposition members can now take umbrage with the fact that some redactions were made by public servants, but it's to be expected. I explained that there are very clear

definitions about what redactions need to be made. I would also add that there's probably a lot of training that goes into making sure that we only redact what we need to redact, and everything else is made public.

(1655) To my friends in the Conservative Party, as they will know, Mr. Poilievre especially, typical cabinet meetings are not solely focused on one topic, particularly during this ongoing pandemic. Countless important topics are discussed at cabinet, and relevant decisions are taken in order to ensure proper functioning and responsible government. Reasonable redactions were made to unrelated topics, including these cabinet documents, so as to allow for their release. This isn't out of the ordinary, and I want to make sure that I reiterate that. I'll move on here. We have in possession this letter from Mr.

Shugart, who wishes to come before this committee along with the relevant deputy ministers to discuss the documents that were released by the Government of Canada. Because of Mr. Shugart's position and his initial commitment to release all documentation related to the Canada student service grant, he is, in fact, uniquely positioned to answer our questions. Therefore, it begs the question: Why does the opposition not want to hear from the clerk and the relevant deputy ministers?

I'd also ask, as it relates to the subamendment, why we would not want to bring our Clerk of the Privy Council and the law clerk together at the exact same time. This is what the subamendment also highlights. I also want to mention something that Mr. Poilievre indicated in the last session. I don't know if other Conservatives also mentioned it, but I do recall Mr. Poilievre saying this a number of times. There seemed to be an implication that the Clerk of the Privy Council is not independent, and I think this is troubling.

I pointed out very quickly that, if you're in government—and the Conservatives were in government for a while—Canadians and all other parties assume that our public service will be independent and act independently, and that they will do that irrespective of whichever party is in government. I absolutely believe that this is true right now. If Mr. Poilievre or other members believe that, for some reason, our public service is not independent anymore, this is a much bigger issue that we need to address.

It is not the focus and should not be the focus right now, but I'm pointing out something that is very troubling in terms of that line of questioning or that type of indirect sort of accusation, which it is fairly direct. I truly believe that our Clerk of the Privy Council, who had—and this has been pointed out—been a deputy minister for Mr. Poilievre when he was a cabinet minister in previous governments.... At that point Mr. Shugart acted independently, and I absolutely believe that the Clerk of the Privy Council, who is now Mr. Shugart, is acting independently as well.

I was going to say that it's a slippery slope, but I don't even think it's a slippery slope. I don't even think there should be any kind of a slope that we should be going down in terms of saying our civil servants are not independent and are not acting in the best interests of all Canadians. Where I am going to go from here? I think one of the things I'd like to get to is the whole thing of why. To be honest, I'd prefer if we were on pre-budget consultations right now. I'm not quite sure why it is that our opposition is not allowing us to hear from the Clerk of the Privy Council and from our law clerk.

Honestly, I've never heard of parliamentarians refusing to hear from these independent civil servants, and the very act of refusing to allow them to testify here at committee is effectively politicizing our public service. The public service in this country is expressly non-partisan for a reason. It's absolutely unacceptable that the opposition is taking the position that they have. Let's put partisanship and politics aside for a moment. Let's acknowledge the fact that, at the instruction of the Clerk of the Privy Council, the public service compiled documentation related to the Canada student service grant.

In keeping with the motion of this committee, cabinet confidences were removed. That is a standard practice, and I talked a lot about that before, and I know everybody knows about it. The clerk added only one caveat to the release of these documents, that personal information was to be removed from the documents. Even then, the names of political staff and public servants were left visible. Only phone numbers and unrelated family member names were removed, as the clerk indicated in his letter to us.

(1700) The law clerk, upon receiving the documents on August 8, went about his duty to review the documents for personal information, as indicated by the committee motion, and redacted appropriately. Those are the blacked-out documents the opposition members are waving around in, as it says here, “moments of grandeur”, but I think it's also the opposition waving around the same documents in French and in English. I want to get this on the record. I have the utmost respect for the parliamentary law clerk and the work he does.

I know that the role of the law clerk is essential to the functioning of Parliament and to protecting its rights and privileges. Like most lawyers, he will always defend the rights of his clients strenuously. His legal opinions will always take the most conservative view of Parliament being the ultimate authority amongst the three branches of government. This makes complete sense. That's his job. I'm happy to have him on my side. I think he's done great work on this file under the most strenuous circumstances, particularly the pandemic.

However, the Clerk of the Privy Council and public servants at large also have inherent responsibilities. For them it's to the Crown, to protect Crown secrets and uphold and enforce the statutes and legislation passed by legislators. This leads us to the normal tension that exists, and not just now. It has always existed. There will always be tension between the law clerk and the Clerk of the Privy Council as it relates to this type of release of documents. The law clerk will always take the most expansive position on the rights of parliamentarians for access to documents.

The Clerk of the Privy Council, and by extension the public servants, will always take the opposite position, that cabinet confidences have to be protected and upheld at all costs. Typically, we resolve this tension through negotiation, where a happy medium is found. I think that is where we ideally want to go. I think that's the reason we proposed this subamendment. Let's bring both to the table. As I have said time and time again, we already proved through the testimony in the two months over the summer that there is no scandal and there is no cover-up, as Mr.

Poilievre, I think, is very fond of theatrically stating there is. There is no smoking gun in terms of any of the 5,000-plus documents. Don't just take our word for it. You also have this independent foundation that had been very involved with WE and became very troubled with all these allegations about WE. They independently hired Dr. Al Rosen, a former deputy solicitor general for the Province of Ontario and forensic accountant, who has appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada, to also validate that, as he said, there is “no funny business”.

With that, the only thing I would leave with everyone before I pass the baton to the next person who would like to speak is that at this point I will tell you that I am really quite worried about our pre-budget consultations. I wonder whether we can really give the proper time that is needed to the almost 800 organizations, individuals and corporations who have made submissions to us. I have an interview that I'm supposed to be doing about what happens if there are no pre-budget consultations. I truly believe in the work of our government. I truly believe in the work of this committee.

I believe we have important work ahead of us to not only listen to those who are going through an unprecedented pandemic but also to hear their very best ideas about how we can support not only them as organizations, as corporations, but also Canadians overall, how we can get our economy back on track, how we can create a strong economic foundation from which to pivot after we come out of this pandemic, how we can also set ourselves up to be even more competitive and address some of the structural financial issues we have had in the past, how we can put our capital to work to become as competitive as we can, and how to address maybe some of the bigger issues we have in terms of trade surpluses.

It's really important for us to try to get past this. I've heard Mr. Julian say a couple of times—I know he's about to speak, so he'll probably respond to this—that he has put all these ideas on the table. Quite honestly, Mr. Julian, I have not heard all your ideas on the table.

I've only heard a “no”, or there seems to be a reluctance to actually agree to the subamendment so that we can maybe bring all the actors to the table to try to get past this so that we can have a certain number of meetings and considerations for pre-budget consultations, and put forward these very excellent ideas to our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and to our government so that they can be incorporated into the much-awaited and much-needed budget 2021.

(1705) With that, thank you so much, Mr. Chair and everyone, for lending your ears. Thank you.

(1710) The Chair :

Thank you very much, Ms. Dzerowicz. Next on my speaking order is Mr. Julian and then Ms. Koutrakis. I still have Mr. Fragiskatos on it. I don't know if you're on after that or if you just didn't take your “raise hand” function down. Mr. Julian, the floor is yours.

Mr. Peter Julian :

Mr. Chair, could the clerk read the subamendment please?

The Clerk of the Committee (Ms. Evelyn Lukyniuk) :

It is that the amendment be amended by adding after the words “current session” the following:

That the committee requests the complete package of documents provided to the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons by relevant Deputy Ministers or the signatories of the transmittal letters, as well as the final package of documents that the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons approved for release, that both of the document packages be provided to the Committee no later than October 19, 2020, and that after the committee reviews the two different versions of documents, the committee invite each of the relevant Deputy Ministers or the signatories of the transmittal letters, as well as the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons, to give testimony regarding the redactions applied to the documents that were requested and granted in the motion adopted on July 7, 2020, and that until such a time as this testimony is complete, debate on the main motion and amendment from Pierre Poilievre be suspended and that the Chair be authorized to

schedule these witnesses, and convene a meeting to resume debate on Pierre Poilievre’s motion once these meetings have taken place.

Mr. Peter Julian :

Mr. Chair, I'd like to propose the following amendment to the subamendment: It is that we strike everything from “until”—the final sentence that suspends and destroys the point of privilege—and that we add “and, following a vote on the point of privilege, that the committee proceed immediately to committee discussion on pre-budget hearings.”

The Chair :

Can you, Mr. Julian, go through that again a little more slowly?

Mr. Peter Julian :

It's the final sentence. Perhaps the clerk could read it again. It starts with “until”.

The Chair :

It begins, “until such a time as this testimony is complete”.

The Clerk :

It is:

...until such a time as this testimony is complete, debate on the main motion and amendment from Pierre Poilievre be suspended and that the Chair be authorized to

schedule these witnesses, and convene a meeting to resume debate on Pierre Poilievre’s motion once these meetings have taken place.

Mr. Peter Julian :

Again, my amendment to the subamendment is to strike everything from “until” to the end of the subamendment, and to replace it with “and that the committee proceed immediately following a vote on the point of privilege motion to discussion of the pre-budget hearings.”

The Chair :

Madam Clerk, I have to ask this of you because we are into an amendment of the subamendment to the amendment of the motion. Do we need unanimous consent to do that? I believe we do. I'll wait for the clerk to respond. She knows the rules better than I do.

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

We are waiting for the clerk to give me clarification on that point. I don't believe it's allowed, but go ahead with your point of order.

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

I wonder if text can be sent. Mr. Julian did read that, but it's always easier if the text is made available to members, so that we can further consider.

The Chair :

Yes. Could you read your amendment to the subamendment again, Peter, while the clerk is clarifying this point?

Mr. Peter Julian :

From the word “until” to the end—

(1715) The Chair :

I'm a little lost. You're removing before “until” or after after ”until?”

Mr. Peter Julian :

Including the word “until” right to the end of the subamendment, I'm striking that and replacing it with “and the committee move immediately following the vote on the motion of privilege to consideration of the pre-budget hearings”.

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

I have a point of order, Chair.

The Chair :

I'm going to need clarification from the clerk before we do anything. What is your point of order?

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

I was simply going to ask if that is available in French as well.

The Chair :

Okay.

[ Translation ]

Mr. Peter Julian :

The motion is to strike everything from the word “until” and to add a point that asks the committee to move immediately to consideration of the pre-budget hearings, following the vote on the motion of privilege. Mr. Ste-Marie will say that it's not a perfect translation, but it's the best I can do.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Madam Clerk, I think I have to rule the amendment out of order, but I'd like clarification from you.

The Clerk :

Thank you. I'll just draw your attention to pages 542 to 543 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice , third edition. At the last line it says, “Since subamendments cannot be further amended, a Member wishing to change one under debate must wait until it is defeated and then propose a new subamendment”.

The Chair :

It is out of order, Mr. Julian. This one will have to be dealt with. It's amending the subamendment, so I guess you'd have to start in a new place. Mr. Julian, the floor is still yours.

Mr. Peter Julian :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. We've been hearing from Liberal members all along that it's something about having the Clerk of the Privy Council before committee. That is obviously not the case. Their subamendment kills the motion of privilege. The core of the problem is that for a month we've had Liberal members absolutely stonewalling and stopping the work of the finance committee and refusing to proceed to pre-budget hearings. The reason they are doing that isn't because of some differences around witnesses.

I don't think there is a single member of the committee who objects to hearing from the Clerk of the Privy Council or the law clerk on this. It's to kill the motion of privilege. This is the core of the issue. The Speaker, who is elected by all members of Parliament, has the ability to rule on this motion of privilege. All the committee is doing is flagging what is a grave concern. The grave concern is the censorship, substantially, of 1,500 pages of documents. That is what was delivered to the finance committee in response to the motion that I tabled on July 7, which was voted on by the entire committee.

We have substantial censorship and redaction of the documents. The law clerk drew our attention to this immediately. We have a motion of privilege that is a very valid motion, but government members refuse to have this committee rule on that and actually have a vote. Why? What is in the documents that they don't want us to see? The issue is not, as the government members have tried to put forward, whether or not the Clerk of the Privy Council comes to committee or whether or not the law clerk comes to the committee. The issue is trying to kill a motion of privilege. As you know, Mr.

Chair, when a motion of privilege is submitted to the Speaker it has to be in a timely manner. With the filibuster that the Liberals have undertaken for the last month we can justify not submitting it to the Speaker in a timely manner. For the committee to decide—

(1720) Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

I have a point of order, Chair.

Mr. Peter Julian :

—that it is not going to proceed with it, that means the motion of privilege is killed—

The Chair :

Mr. Julian, I do have a point of order. I'll have to take it first and then I'll let you proceed. Mr. Fragiskatos.

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

Thank you, Chair. I'm listening to Mr. Julian and he is implying that improper redactions have occurred. That's quite the accusation, so I have a hard time following the argument without disagreeing very strongly—

The Chair :

Mr. Fragiskatos, I don't believe that is a point of order. If you want to enter that into debate, you're more than welcome to, because Mr. Julian has made that point. I'll go back to Mr. Julian, because that is debate. Mr. Julian.

Mr. Peter Julian :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The reality is that I do feel it was improperly censored. A lot of members of this committee feel the same way. It is not up to me or to any member of this committee to voice their opinion. All we can do is inform the Speaker of our consideration around this, and it is up to the Speaker to judge. That's the issue here. We believe we should be referring this matter to the Speaker. Government members have been stonewalling now for a month, destroying any possibility of having the thorough pre-budget hearings that committee members would like to have engaged in.

They are basically stonewalling the progress of the committee. If government members feel there is a way through this, it is exactly the amendment to the subamendment that I just tabled. If government members really just want to hear from the clerk and the law clerk, then they should amend their own subamendment, allow for the motion of privilege to be voted on and refer it to the Speaker. The Speaker determines—none of us—whether or not there are grounds for a violation of privilege. That's up to the Speaker, elected by all of us.

If government members are saying they have no confidence in the Speaker, I would be very surprised. In fact, I would be stunned that they would be that critical of the officer of Parliament, the Speaker, who we have chosen collectively as members of Parliament. I have confidence in the Speaker. I have confidence in his ruling on this in an independent way based on what the committee refers to him.

If government members really want to proceed to the pre-budget hearings, if government members really have confidence in the Speaker, and if they are saying, also, they'd like to hear from the Clerk of the Privy Council and the law clerk, I'm fine with that, of course. They then have to amend their subamendment, pull out the part that kills the motion of privilege, that no longer makes it timely, that no longer allows this committee to report back to the Speaker, and ask the Speaker his opinion on this matter. They should amend it as I've suggested.

They have the power to do so, and I hope they do so, rather than continuing to engage in this filibuster, which has stopped the work of the finance committee now for over a month. They have many different paths they can take to work with the opposition members. They have refused all so far because their intent is to kill the motion of privilege. Their intent is to withdraw the right of the Speaker to rule on this issue. I am in complete disagreement with their approach and I find disingenuous their speeches this evening. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Julian. I believe now on my list is Ms. Koutrakis first, followed by Ms. Khalid. Ms. Koutrakis, the floor is yours.

Ms. Annie Koutrakis (Vimy, Lib.) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank my colleague Mr. Julian for his comments. We, too, have confidence in the Speaker of the House, as does he and all of our colleagues in the House. We also have a lot of confidence in the law clerk to make the judgment based on fact. I think both arguments can be made and should be considered before we make a final decision on how to proceed. I can remember a time not long ago, watching the proceedings of this place, where members of Parliament were able to set partisanship aside, work together and come to a consensus on how to handle the issues of the day.

It really is a shame to see the polarizing politics that have taken hold in other countries throughout the world continue to creep into our own Parliament of Canada. Unfortunately, this is most present in the tactics or strategy of my colleagues from opposition parties. Before Mr. Julian begins to play defence for Mr. Poilievre and tries to call relevance on me, I'm hoping for a few moments of latitude because I will be coming to my point in regard to the subamendment, not the subamendment of the subamendment that Mr. Julian discussed, but the first one.

However, it requires a few moments to lay the track before arriving at that station. It is so clear in the attitude of my Conservative colleagues, especially, that they have fully bought into the misinformation tactics of the extreme right. It's never been more present than in the initial purpose for the debate that we're having here today. We are here on Mr. Poilievre's privilege motion, and in debating that we have an amendment and further a subamendment on the floor, and perhaps another one now in regard to that motion. The initial motion is what is key here.

It is the reason behind the subamendment before this committee today. The Clerk of the Privy Council is an expert witness on the release of cabinet confidence. It was Mr. Shugart who agreed to release all documentation related to the Canada student service grant, even prior to this committee making any requests. The appearance of the Clerk of the Privy Council really is important as it relates back to Mr. Poilievre's initial motion. The truth is, this matter of privilege raised by the honourable member is nothing but what appears to be a cheap partisan stunt.

It is complete mistruth wrapped in a procedural bow meant to further the narrative of the Conservatives. That is a tactic of the extreme right, which we have seen throughout the world as of late—this penchant for casting the truth aside and continuing to make an argument that has no basis in reality. As many of my colleagues have said before this committee, over 5,000 pages of documents were released by the Government of Canada with all information relating to the design and implementation of the Canada student service grant present and accounted for.

I think the opposition was just plainly dumbfounded at the level of detail that the non-partisan public servants left unredacted. Mr. Poilievre must have been completely stunned to see that documents stamped “Secret” and “Confidence of the Queen's Privy Council” were actually included in the documents and unredacted. We can find out exactly why those documents were included if we have the clerk come before us and testify about that, yet for some strange reason my opposition colleagues are blocking that attempt.

It's a whole new world, when opposition members are blocking the appearance of the non-partisan head of the public service. It's truly a real shame. Getting back to my point, I'm very sure that my colleagues were shocked at the level of detail included in these documents. At this point, the Conservatives and perhaps other opposition colleagues had a problem. They were likely sitting there thinking that since all the documents were actually released, between that and the testimony, they have nothing.

(1725) I cannot imagine the sinking feeling they had when they realized this, yet what is the truth? To my colleagues on the other side, truth is in the eye of the beholder. Taking a page from these extreme-right groups that have sprung up around the world, they have perhaps decided to obfuscate and create their own narrative. When you think about it, this explains why colleagues do not want the Clerk of the Privy Council to testify before us today, because his testimony would very likely crush the narrative that they have been trying to peddle for weeks now.

As I noted earlier in my remarks, there was a time when civility would win out and parliamentarians would work together to fix the problems of the day. There was a time when the truth would have been accepted when the facts were presented. Unfortunately, we no longer live in those times. We now live in a time when, if, after being presented with the facts, your argument is disproven, you double down anyway. When you are presented with expert witnesses—

(1730) Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC) :

I have a point of order.

Ms. Annie Koutrakis :

—you attack their credibility or stop them from speaking.

The Chair :

Ms. Koutrakis, there is a point of order from Mr. Lawrence. Mr. Lawrence, go ahead.

Mr. Philip Lawrence :

I'm a patient man. I have a five-year-old and a six-year-old, and they've taught me patience, but when we're talking about Mr. Julian perhaps being part of the extreme right, I think we've gone too far. I have no idea how this has anything to do with the subamendment.

The Chair :

I don't—

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

That wasn't a point of order. It was a point of debate. Mr. Fragiskatos, is yours debate or a point of order?

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

I believe it is a point of order, Mr. Chair. It is simply a matter of being respectful and collegial towards colleagues to allow them to finish making their points and not twisting around their words for political purposes.

The Chair :

I don't think that's a point of order, Mr. Fragiskatos. That's debate. We'll be going back to Ms. Koutrakis.

Ms. Annie Koutrakis :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank my colleague for his point of order. I guess we're going to agree to disagree on that point. I'll go back to my comments and say that I have never, in all my time as an MP—and it's been just a little bit over a year—seen an opposition party refuse to allow a public servant with relevant information to testify before a committee, especially when that public servant is the top boss. I've said this before in previous comments, and I echo what my colleague Ms. Dzerowicz said earlier.

If we place doubt in the Clerk of the Privy Council, then we absolutely have a much bigger issue on our hands than debating the subamendment to the subamendment to perhaps another subamendment. It was clear from the outset what this committee requested in regard to documentation, and it was clear from the testimony of the Clerk of the Privy Council here what we would receive from him. In fact, again, over 5,000 pages of relevant information were released with limited redaction.

The clerk noted that he would endeavour to ensure that this committee would have the information it needed to fully understand what occurred with the design and implementation of the Canada student service grant. He kept up his end of the bargain. My colleagues on the other side know full well that the redactions present in those documents are about unrelated matters, but due to the nature of the document, they were redacted to allow for the information about the CSSG to be present. The law clerk himself redacted further, not only when he received the documents but he redacted some of the redactions.

That is my understanding. The motion by this committee recognized that these unrelated cabinet confidences would be redacted. This committee also understood that the parliamentary law clerk would remove some personal information from the documents as well. The Clerk of the Privy Council could be saying this himself if we were to invite him here. I'm happy to hear that Mr. Julian says he wouldn't have a problem to have Mr. Shugart before us because I really believe we should, sooner rather than later.

He actually took the extraordinary step of leaving in the names of public servants, and advised the Privacy Commissioner that this would be the case. The Clerk of the Privy Council cannot control the fact that it was the motion by this committee that later caused the law clerk to redact those very names that the clerk endeavoured to release. If he could be here, he could explain that positioning himself. This committee received these documents on time.

They were forwarded to the law clerk, as was expressly stated in the initial motion, and here we have the law clerk completing his own redactions right around the time of prorogation. The law clerk released these documents to the members of this committee. The interesting thing here is that clearly the redactions by the law clerk are much more intensive than the redactions in the original documents handed over by the public service. In order to ensure full transparency, the government House leader released the less-redacted documents anyway.

In essence, the Government of Canada fulfilled the promise of the Clerk of the Privy Council and the request of this committee vis-à-vis the motion requesting documents. If the Clerk of the Privy Council were allowed to testify, he would back up this very simple fact. This brings us back around again to why we are still here debating this subamendment. Quite simply, we are here because the opposition majority cannot accept that they were actually given everything they wanted.

It doesn't square with the narrative that they are trying to put out in public, just as the testimony of the clerk would not fit the narrative they are trying to put out in public. Here we are debating a subamendment to an amendment to a motion that, in the end, is just a procedural trick to try to further this cheap political stunt that is now falling apart day by day. We are weeks into this at this point. We have pre-budget consultations that this committee is mandated to complete, and I fully agree with Mr. Julian that we have to get to that.

(1735) We have a fix before us. With one simple vote we could set aside Mr. Poilievre's motion today, not defeat it but set it aside. We can invite the head of the public service, the Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Shugart, to this committee, and then he, along with relevant deputy ministers, can present their thinking and reasoning around the documents that were provided. They could walk us through how all discussions and decisions regarding the Canada student service grant were unredacted. They can walk us through why some matters were redacted, and how they were unrelated to our topic of study.

They can finally put to rest any concerns of the opposition. I know this wouldn't fit the narrow political interests that the majority opposition has tried to push. I know this would completely blow apart the fictitious narrative that Mr. Poilievre is trying to spin; however, so be it. Mr. Poilievre and the other opposition members want to get to the truth, so here we are. Let's get to the truth. It's time for the non-partisan head of our public service to come before us and give us the truth. I have done this before. I am going to repeat my comments.

I urge colleagues to put aside their partisan differences, to finally return to past times of collegiality and decorum in Parliament, to remember we are here in this place to serve our constituents and to put their interests first. Let's show some respect for our professional and non-partisan members of the public service, not use them as ploys in a political game. Mr. Chair, I ask colleagues to work with us to approve the subamendment to invite the Clerk of the Privy Council and other deputy ministers here forthwith.

The Chair :

Thank you, Ms. Koutrakis. I am hopeful for discussions on the side as well. I have on my list Ms. Khalid, Mr. McLeod, Mr. Fragiskatos and Ms. Dzerowicz. Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.

Ms. Iqra Khalid (Mississauga—Erin Mills, Lib.) :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all the members for indulging my participation in the committee today. Mr. Chair, if it's okay with you, can I please concede a few minutes of my time to Ms. Dzerowicz?

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. It's my understanding that every MP is an associate member of the committees of Parliament, so it's no indulgence at all. Ms. Khalid is here by right, and she is very polite and generous to talk about indulgence. It's our pleasure to have her here. I want to put that on the record.

The Chair :

It's absolutely our pleasure to have her here, and Mr. Lawrence. We've had others from time to time. You are sworn in, Ms. Khalid, in place of Mr. Fraser, I believe, and notices went to the clerk that you are in his place.

(1740) Ms. Iqra Khalid :

Thank you very much for that.

The Chair :

Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.

Ms. Iqra Khalid :

As I was saying, Mr. Chair, is it okay to have Ms. Dzerowicz take a few minutes of my time at this point? I'd like to add on to what she has to say as well.

The Chair :

It's okay if you're ceding some of your time to Ms. Dzerowicz. Go ahead, Ms. Dzerowicz.

Ms. Julie Dzerowicz :

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Thank you to my honourable colleague Ms. Khalid. Welcome to our committee. I appreciate the nobleness of Mr. Fragiskatos' comments. He is indeed correct. Sometimes when people make a point, I kind of forget it. As I get older I do forget my comments and I prefer to make them almost right away. Mr. Julian made a number of comments, and I want to address them directly. The first is that we're holding up the finance committee from moving forward to pre-budget consultations. In this meeting I've not said this and it's very important for me to reiterate it.

On October 8, when we first convened as the finance committee after we had elected our chair and our vice-chairs, I presented a pre-budget consultation motion. I was the first one out the door to do so. We could have gone ahead with it if Mr. Julian or any one of the opposition members decided they were going to support it. That did not happen. Mr. Poilievre interrupted our ability to move to a vote to decide on pre-budget consultations with a motion on a point of privilege, following which we have gone to a subamendment to an amendment of the original motion. I want to make sure I put that on the table.

We wanted to go right into pre-budget consultations. I do not take lightly anyone saying that in any way the Liberal government team has been trying to stop us from moving directly to pre-budget consultations. I want to get to Mr. Poilievre's motion. In his point of privilege that he says we should vote on, he said, “Your Committee has concluded that the government's response failed to comply with the order”—which is the July 7 order—in terms of having all of the WE documents submitted to the public and the law clerk for redaction.

We have spent every single meeting since October 8 proving that we have completely followed through on that July 7 motion. We've explained why we followed through on it. We have explained what cabinet confidences were. We explained the transmittal letters. We have gone through every single bit of it. We even gave examples ad nauseam of what was actually redacted. We then put the subamendment on the table in order to say, look, even if you don't believe us, why don't we bring the people to the table? Let's bring the Clerk of the Privy Council. Let's bring the law clerk.

Let's bring any relevant deputy ministers, and let's, in public, transparently, deal with this once and for all, because we don't think there is any smoking gun. There is nothing that we are trying to cover. We proposed that motion fairly early on, and that was, again, not taken up by Mr. Julian or by any of the other opposition members. I do not take lightly anyone saying that we have in any way tried to hold up the pre-budget consultations. If anything, we have done our very best at every moment to try to move as quickly and as expeditiously as possible to pre-budget consultations.

I want to reiterate another point I've made. Mr. Julian has proposed zero new ideas for how we can actually break this logjam. With that I want to say a huge thanks to Ms. Khalid for allowing me a few minutes to address Mr. Julian's comments. Thank you.

The Chair :

Thank you, Ms. Dzerowicz. We'll go back to Ms. Khalid.

Ms. Iqra Khalid :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As Mr. Fragiskatos pointed out, I am an associate member of this committee but I only watch the committee proceedings from the outside. I don't get to see what is happening within the committee and to understand the intricate delicacies of all the motions and the various amendments to the motions, and then the various subamendments to the motions, and then, as Mr. Julian tried to do today, a subamendment to the subamendment.

As I get on the phone with my constituents about what happens in Ottawa, I had a very interesting call with a young lady who had been following what's been happening with this specific topic over the past number of months. She asked me to explain to her what is going on. She asked what exactly is the objective of doing all this? What are we trying to prove here? Is this going to better our government services in any way? How is this going to impact me personally? I listened to her and her frustrations, and initially I started to try to explain exactly what was going on.

I think we both got lost in all the proceedings, etc., and then she told me to stop. She asked if I could tell her one thing that was going to help her as my constituent out of all these documents that were being put forward, all this questioning of the integrity of the public service or the integrity of x , y or z people among those whom we elected to serve us.

I thought about it for a minute and I said I really couldn't point to a single thing that would impact the challenges she was having at this time with affordability, housing, finding affordable child care, worrying about her kids and their safety in their school—how that's going to go—and her job. As I sat here today, watched the discussions with intrigue and saw the subamendments being proposed here in front of me, I tried to get a grasp of this myself.

I think my two cents to this debate would be to help us understand and to add that extra value of why we're sitting in these seats in the first place, why we are working long hours, why we travel all across the country or halfway across the country, whether it's virtually or in person, to sit in the House and to debate a lot of these important issues.

Really why we do all of that is to serve Canadians, to ensure that the time we're spending in these debates is of value to individual Canadians and to young families who are trying to thrive and strive in this very serious pandemic, and to make sure that the health and well-being of Canadians is well taken care of. I think that's our obligation as members of Parliament, regardless of what side of the aisle we sit on. I know for a fact how hard each one of us works. I sat on committee with Mr. Falk in the last Parliament.

We were on the justice committee together and we had such a wonderful relationship with respect to the work we were doing in that committee, again serving Canadians. We've travelled together—

(1745) The Chair :

Ms. Khalid, I believe Ms. Jansen is making a point. I see her waving her hands around. I don't hear her through the system, but I think she is making a point on relevance, although I know Mr. Falk wanted you to talk about him on the justice committee.

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

If yours is a point of order, go ahead, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

I believe it is a point of order, Mr. Chair. I don't know Ms. Jansen very well. Obviously, she is a newly elected MP. I would just ask her, if she does, indeed, have an issue, something that she wishes to raise by way of a point of order, that she actually formally intervene because it's not parliamentary practice to wave one's arms. I also noticed that when she does have particular issues, she seems to be laughing along. I'm not sure if that is done as a measure of goodwill or if that's done because she disagrees with the speaker.

(1750) The Chair :

I don't think that is the—

Mr. Peter Fragiskatos :

She can simply say, “I have a point of order,” and intervene that way, rather than forcing you to guess, which is very unfair to you, Mr. Chair. Frankly, the point of order that she apparently wished to make is one that I take issue with. Ms. Khalid was staying entirely relevant, and I think was putting on the record very pertinent points.

The Chair :

We'll go back to Ms. Khalid—

Ms. Julie Dzerowicz :

I have a point of order.

The Chair :

—and let her start—

Ms. Julie Dzerowicz :

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

—and Ms. Jansen wasn't waving her fist. It was just her hand. Ms. Dzerowicz, go ahead.

Ms. Julie Dzerowicz :

Do we have quorum? I see that there are some Conservatives missing and Mr. Julian is missing. Perhaps we don't have quorum anymore.

The Chair :

We do have quorum.

Ms. Julie Dzerowicz :

I'm sorry. It was just in case. Thank you.

The Chair :

Okay, thank you. Ms. Khalid.

Ms. Iqra Khalid :

Thank you very much for that, Mr. Chair. I do appreciate your proactivity and your diligence in ensuring that members all have their say and are well respected with their perspectives here in this committee.

As I was saying, the point that was being raised that I was trying to lend to this debate is an outside perspective of what the Canadians we serve as members of Parliament see and what they interpret when they see all of these amendments, subamendments, subamendments to the subamendments, and all of this questioning around the integrity of the public service, the integrity of elected officials, regardless of what side of the aisle they're on.

I was giving my personal anecdotes as to what Canadians see, what my constituents see, the feedback that they've been providing me over the past number of months, as well as the issues they've been telling me that they're faced with on a daily basis as they deal with this pandemic. There have been a number of organizations that have reached out to me, to my constituency office, to my Hill office, to ask if they could participate in the pre-budget consultations.

I know how important it is that we hear from Canadians to really form that policy and to really provide that assistance and that help to Canadians as we spend so much time travelling across the country and doing that hard work that we're elected to do. I'll hit on one more phone call that I had quite recently. It was from a gentleman who had just at the beginning of this pandemic lost his job, and he was able to get the CERB to be able to keep the lights on in his home.

As we were having a discussion last week about his job situation and his intrigue with the new CRB and when that was going to be put forward, he again asked me, from that public perspective, what is going on in the House. I again tried to explain to him, and he used a very interesting phrase that I questioned him on. He said, “It looks like, Ms.

Khalid, you've been CoNDP'd,” and I said, “What's a CoNDP?” He said, “Well, it looks like the House has been taken hostage, dealing with and just falling into completely irrelevant matters, into amendments and subamendments and all of this extra language that just does not impact Canadians at all.” I told him that using a term like CoNDP is probably not the best way—and if Mr. Chair had been there on that call, he would probably have told him it was unparliamentary.

However, it's again to the point that we need to ensure that whatever we're doing as parliamentarians, we're doing with integrity and we're doing it with a commitment and a focus to support Canadians in this really important time. They have been telling us consistently that now is the time that they need that help and that support. I will leave it there, Mr. Chair. I see that you've unmuted yourself. Perhaps it is to talk about something?

(1755) The Chair :

I was going to ask you to tie this into the subamendment to the amendment, if you could.

Ms. Iqra Khalid :

Absolutely. As I said, I have been trying to give that outside perspective on what Canadians are seeing when they see all of these debates. To them, in layman's language, they just do not understand why we're spending so much government time and resources, when what they really want and what they elected us to do is to provide support to them during this pandemic during the toughest time in our country in our history. I will leave my remarks there, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much again for your indulgence.

The Chair :

Thank you very much. We will go to Mr. McLeod, who is followed by Mr. Fragiskatos and then Mr. Kelly. Go ahead, Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Michael McLeod (Northwest Territories, Lib.) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's certainly an honour for me to sit here to serve on the finance committee. I have been doing exactly that for the last three years. I'm trying to listen very patiently to everything that's being said. I have been around for a long time on this committee. I'm second only to you in terms of longevity and tied with Mr. Poilievre. Over the last three years, we've certainly all worked really hard to speak freely and allow people to speak freely, although it has been a little bit challenging sometimes.

Over the last couple of years, our committee has done some very good and important work that we can be proud of, from our review of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to our hearings on multiple budget implementation acts, our meetings earlier this year on our government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the work and the efforts we made to deal with the WE Charity issue. A lot of information was requested and received that I don't think we really did justice to by not getting together and putting all the documents on the table to go through as a committee.

I come from a different style of governance. The Northwest Territories practices a consensus government. The basis of a consensus government is good communication. It includes trust and also includes respect. We also go to great lengths to make sure that people don't attack staff, public servants or other people who are not present to defend themselves. It really is troubling to hear somebody say that the clerk's bonus depends on this Prime Minister . It's almost implying that the clerk would be dishonest and would do it for money. That's a very offensive comment in my view.

Amongst our most significant work is the committee's pre-budget consultation report, which is required by the Standing Orders, and this upcoming study would be my fourth with the committee. I found every one of these studies to be very valuable to my work as a member of Parliament, and I believe it's the same for all members I have served with. It allows us to hear from many witnesses, from coast to coast to coast, and it brings many requests for the government's next budget, and this year is no different.

These recommendations would be brought forward to several dozen final recommendations for consideration by the government. Not only do we hear from groups and advocates that we deal with regularly in our constituencies, but it allows organizations whose members we may not otherwise hear from in our regular day-to-day work to address us. I'm one of three members who represent the northern territories, and I'm one of 10 indigenous MPs. I always try to make it a priority to have northern and indigenous voices come before our committee during consultations.

The Standing Committee on Finance has been able to hear from many of these voices during our in-person Ottawa meetings and our committee tours, which, because of COVID, we will not be able to do.

(1800) Mr. Pat Kelly :

I have a point of order.

The Chair :

Go ahead, Mr. Kelly, on a point of order.

Mr. Pat Kelly :

I sincerely apologize to Michael McLeod for the interruption, but I want to ask the clerk to clarify. If we go past 6 p.m., will that interfere with a—

The Chair :

It's a very valid point, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Pat Kelly :

Maybe the clerk could tell us what—

The Chair :

I was interrupting Mr. McLeod due to capacity problems on the Hill. The heritage committee can't meet if we continue to operate, so the meeting is suspended. [ The meeting was suspended at 6 p.m., Thursday, November 5. ]

(18:00)

[ The meeting resumed at 4:02 p.m., Tuesday, November 17. ]

(30400) The Chair :

Okay, we'll try this one more time. We shall call the meeting to order. We're now resuming meeting number five of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. Pursuant to the motion adopted by the House on Wednesday, September 23, 2020, the committee is meeting virtually in a hybrid format. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference, and the proceedings will be televised and made available on the House of Commons website. We're meeting with just committee members, both here in room 025 and virtually across the country.

I think that all the members know the rules by now, so I don't think I need to go through them. We're starting where we left off. I have first on my list, Mr. Peter Fragiskatos, but Mr. Poilievre you had...?

(30405) Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, CPC) :

Yes, I put my hand up before everyone else and I'd like to have the floor.

The Chair :

Okay, you can do that. I don't have a screen with the hands on it here. Mr. Fragiskatos has informed me that he wants to speak, but your hand is showing up on the deck here, Mr. Poilievre. You're coming through bigger than in life right in front of me, so go ahead.

Hon. Pierre Poilievre :

I don't even know how that's possible, but thank you very much for saying so. It's great to be with you today, Mr. Chair. As you may have heard, there's been some debate in the public realm about the proceedings we've had over the last several weeks. I think we all agree that it's time to get moving on our work and put an end to this Liberal filibuster. As a result, I am prepared to move a motion that would achieve that goal. This motion would effectively set aside for the time being my point of privilege until it can be addressed, and hopefully, the breach of privilege that precipitated it removed.

In a manner consistent with the words that members of the government have spoken, I have a motion that I think should garner unanimous consent here today. I think my assistant Craig has sent this over to you and to your clerk so that it can be distributed to all members. It is translated in both official languages and it is in order, because it, of course, is on the subject at hand. It reads as follows:

That the committee temporarily set aside the motion relating to the point of privilege put forward by the Member for Carleton on October 8, 2020, and the subsequent subamendments moved by the Member for Calgary Rocky Ridge and the Member for Kingston and the Islands, and that the committee adopt all evidence heard in the First Session of the 43rd Parliament during the committee’s study on "Government Spending, WE and the Canada Student Service Grant"; and that the committee order that by November 20, 2020, the government provide the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel with all documents originally requested in the July 7, 2020 motion moved by the Member for New Westminster-Burnaby, without any redaction, omission or exclusion except as would be justified in sections and subsections 69(1) through 69(3)(b)(ii) of the Access to Information Act, and that the Clerk of the Privy Council and the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner appear no later than November 25, 2020 to discuss "cabinet confidence" exclusions to public disclosures, and that the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel testify before the committee regarding documents received from the government pursuant to this motion.

I believe my assistant Craig has shared that with all members of the committee. I think this should pass without any controversy, given that it's consistent with what government members have been stating publicly for the last week. We have a tweet from Mr. Rodriguez saying that he wants to end the Liberal filibuster and he is prepared to release everything except for cabinet confidences. Hopefully, we can dispense with that and then quickly get on to discussing committee business. I'll conclude by saying that this has been five weeks of delays.

Government members have now spoken for 28 hours over five weeks, some 171,000 words. This is at a time when our economy is effectively in a depression. We are the finance committee. It is our job to respond to that. The Conservatives have been trying to get us back onto financial issues so we can help Canadians protect their lives and livelihoods.

Given that the Liberals have agreed to change course and release documents that they previously had redacted and guarded jealously, and given that they have said the only objection they have now is to the release of cabinet confidences, then I think we have a consensus to move forward and release all other documents that are not cabinet confidence, while we talk to the Privy Council clerk to find out his rationale in defining what he considers to be a cabinet confidence for the purposes of the July 7 motion. I think we have a solution.

After we pass this, Chair, I'm hoping we can take a few moments to get on to the agenda of the committee. Thank you very much.

(30410) The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Poilievre. We haven't received a copy of it yet, or the clerk hasn't, so we certainly would have to receive a copy of it before we go to debate. We have a problem procedurally as well. We can't take another motion when one motion is on the floor, so technically we'd have to adjourn debate on the previous motion we were debating in order to get to this one. There are a couple of problems. One—

Hon. Pierre Poilievre :

Mr. Chair, if I may, this could simply be considered an amendment to the previous motions and thereby supersede them.

The Chair :

Yes, I understand that, but we can't take an amendment. We already have a motion, an amendment and a subamendment. We can't take another amendment. Mr. Julian has his hand up.

Hon. Pierre Poilievre :

You can take as many amendments as you like. You can have a thousand amendments to a motion, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

No, we can't.

Hon. Pierre Poilievre :

Okay. That's new.

Mr. Sean Fraser (Central Nova, Lib.) :

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

If I have missed.... We have a point of order. Then I think Mr. Julian is going to speak. Point of order, Mr. Fraser.

Mr. Sean Fraser :

There are two issues that I want to raise. The first is of a purely technical nature. I saw a couple of notes coming through staff members stating that there was an issue with hearing the phone line. I don't know if that's been resolved. I just wanted you to confirm that's okay. The second issue, though there might be a procedural snafu, is that I haven't actually seen the suggested motion. It might make sense if we could get our hands on a copy so that we could actually read it before we decide what to do with it. Would a 10- or 15-minute suspension be okay with committee members so that we would have an opportunity to review what has just been proposed?

The Chair :

I'll see if people are willing to do that. Did we get a copy? Mr. Poilievre, we haven't got a copy of that yet. You can ask your staff to get it to us. I'll take your point of order under advisement. I think we could possibly suspend. I want to go to Mr. Julian first, though, to hear his comments. I expect this is related to the same issue. Go ahead, Peter.

Mr. Peter Julian :

Yes, Mr. Chair, but I think the path forward, if government members are amenable to this compromise, is that the government would withdraw its subamendment, which would allow the amendment that was proposed earlier to be.... This would be the subamendment to the amendment to the motion. Procedurally, there is a way forward, but the government members would have to get the ball rolling by withdrawing their subamendment.

The Chair :

Procedurally, there are a couple of ways forward: to do as you suggest, Mr. Julian, or to adjourn debate on the motion as a whole and consider this proposal. Are we agreeable to suspending until 4:30 p.m., Ottawa time? Hopefully, we have a copy here so that people can look at it and we can resolve this issue. Are we agreed? Okay. Before I suspend, Mr. Poilievre, did we get the copy? The clerk now has the copy, so we will get it out to everybody. We'll reconvene at 4:30. Thanks, all of you. The meeting is suspended until 4:30.

(30415) (30430)

(30435) The Chair :

We shall reconvene and see where we are on this particular issue. Mr. Fraser, you are on deck.

(30440) Mr. Sean Fraser :

Mr. Chair, I hope you'll be forgiving in the procedural scenario, because I don't plan to address the subamendment but I do want to have a conversation with committee members. Thanks, Pierre, for putting something forward. I think there's a starting point for us to work with. I have questions about a couple of things and I don't know if I'll be satisfied about them in the next hour. Your motion, towards the end, mentions having the Clerk of the Privy Council and the Ethics Commissioner appear. Was that supposed to say the law clerk?

Mr. Pierre Poilievre: No, it's supposed to say the Ethics Commissioner.

Mr. Sean Fraser: Okay. There are a few technical issues on the timing of what's feasible for the government to get their hands on and get to the law clerk. I'm not sure about whether.... I don't want to set up a potential violation of privilege by saying that documents have to arrive by Friday if in fact they can't get them for a few days after that. The bigger thing here—and I don't know how committee members will react—is that I could use a little bit of time just to make sure I understand the motion and that we're not being rushed to the point that I make a mistake in my understanding of it.

I'm curious to know if committee members would be amenable to suspending until either our next meeting or the next available meeting slot, whenever it may be, in hopes that we can use this suggested language as a starting point for a solution to move on with the committee's work. Is that something the committee members would entertain?

The Chair :

I will first go to Mr. Poilievre and see where the others are following that. Mr. Poilievre, do you have some comments you want to make? We're certainly out of procedural order, but given the amount of time we've been spending on this issue, I don't think anybody will challenge the chair on that. Mr. Poilievre, respond in kind if you could, please.

Hon. Pierre Poilievre :

On the procedural question, as you know, Chair, committees are their own masters, so it is possible for us to do whatever we want from a procedural point of view if we all agree.

The Chair :

We can, with unanimous consent. It's not a problem. On Mr. Fraser's point that he needs some time to go back to his colleagues, the government as a whole, are we amenable to that to see if we can come to some agreement?

Hon. Pierre Poilievre :

How long is this going to take?

Mr. Sean Fraser :

I don't know. I don't want to commit to being back here in 90 minutes, which is the ordinary

schedule for our meeting. I would suggest we look at whatever the next available slot is for the committee to sit. I do want to solve this problem, and I don't want to continue to kick the can down the road. Ideally, if we can reach a solution, we are looking at having the Governor of the Bank of Canada here as soon as our next meeting. I would love to be able to solve this problem before that. Obviously, this is not something I control. It's a committee decision, and I'm here in good faith. I do want to solve this problem, and I appreciate efforts of different committee members, Pierre in particular.

I think what you're trying to do is put forward something productive, and I would like to work with it. I haven't even had the chance to review

section 69 of the Access to Information Act, since we got your motion just after this meeting started. I really do want to find a solution here, so I would take the next available slot in hopes we can solve this problem and still have the governor attend our Thursday meeting.

Hon. Pierre Poilievre :

When is the next slot?

Mr. Sean Fraser :

I don't know.

Hon. Pierre Poilievre :

Chair, can the clerk or someone tell us?

The Chair :

Our next regular slot is Thursday. Certainly, if there's any availability tomorrow,,,, There's no availability, Madam Clerk. That's one of the problems we have in the world we live in now. Normally, we would be able to find some time tomorrow. Unless another committee forgoes their spot tomorrow, it would be our next regular meeting. I would suggest, if there are also some backroom discussions, to see if we could be relatively certain when we got to committee that we're going to solve this impasse.

I think we could still deal with getting the pre-budget consultations lined up and probably hear the Governor of the Bank of Canada and the deputy governor in the second hour on Thursday, if behind the scenes discussions look like this could be solved. You can think about that, Mr. Poilievre. Mr. Julian had his hand up. Peter.

Mr. Peter Julian :

Mr. Chair, I'm a little perplexed because this compromise proposal basically corresponds to things that government members have been offering for weeks. I'm a little surprised when the documents have already been provided. We already know which documents are subject to cabinet confidence so the deadline of this Friday should not be a problem. The issue around the Privy Council and the Ethics Commissioner is upon invitation. That shouldn't be a problem either. I'm a little perplexed.

This is a compromise that seems to meet the government more than halfway, maybe three-quarters of the way, and we have not had a functioning finance committee since August, as you know, Mr. Chair, since the Prime Minister abruptly prorogued Parliament and shut down all the committees. I don't understand why we would take more time to meet what the government members have already offered. I think we should be able to resolve it at this meeting.

(30445) The Chair :

I would note one thing as well, Mr. Julian and Mr. Poilievre, that in the motion there is really not a clear direction, I think, to what we want the law clerk to do. That may have to be rectified as well, if we're going to try to deal with what's here. That was drawn to my attention by the clerk. In any event, I will go back to Mr. Poilievre. Members, my screen is not working. The only members I can see are in this room. If you want in, raise your hand. The clerk will notify me and we'll get to it. Mr. Poilievre is next...or Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Pat Kelly :

I'm happy to let Mr. Poilievre speak instead, if you're going to give him the floor. My only contribution is just to say that I heard what Mr. Fraser said. I understand his concern around wanting to review the

section that is referenced in the motion and his desire to ensure that he actually knows what he is agreeing to. I understand that. I wouldn't think we'd need to wait until there is another committee meeting available. Maybe he can get back to Mr. Poilievre or other members of the committee outside of the committee structure and meet maybe later on this evening. I wouldn't think that would be too soon for him to review the section, maybe talk to his colleagues, and satisfy himself that he knows what he is agreeing to.

The Chair :

Mr. Poilievre or Mr. Fraser, whoever wants to go next.

Mr. Sean Fraser :

Sure, Mr. Chair. Pierre, I hope you don't mind me shortcutting you here. Just in response to Mr. Kelly, I would plan, if this meeting were to suspend or adjourn, to get on the phone and open up some of the legislation and review a few pieces of the motion this evening. I can't guarantee saying it will be two hours and I'll have an answer. If I do, I'll call Pierre as soon as I do, or the other members of this committee who are interested in speaking, with a view to resolving the situation as soon as possible. I do hesitate, having just received the motion, to make decisions on it.

I would like to satisfy myself that I'm confident on what I'm agreeing to. There are a few items in there that we hadn't discussed before as a committee, including the Ethics Commissioner. I mentioned the technical possibilities of just getting documents quickly, but I do want to take the time to fully appreciate what the sections of the legislation that have been cited actually say. I would undertake to have a phone call tomorrow morning with anyone on this committee who wants to speak.

The one caution I have is that I am booked for a couple of meetings later this evening that will eat into a few hours up until about 10 p.m. It's not as though this is the only task I'll be working on this evening. If it's possible for me to get through my concerns that soon.... I will give it my best effort, Mr. Kelly, to resolve it on that timeline, and if not, hopefully as soon as tomorrow.

The Chair :

Mr. Kelly wants in next, and then Ms. Jansen.

Mr. Pat Kelly :

I think you were going to let Mr. Poilievre get in.

The Chair :

Okay. I can't see people, as I said. It will be Mr. Poilievre, then Mr. Kelly, and then Ms. Jansen. Did you want to hold back, Pierre?

Hon. Pierre Poilievre :

Well, I think Ms. Jansen was before me, so I think we should go to her first.

The Chair :

Okay. Ms. Jansen, the floor is yours.

Mrs. Tamara Jansen (Cloverdale—Langley City, CPC) :

Thank you. I'm just worried for Canadians, who are in an incredible time of crisis, that we have been just holding off and stalling. This feels like more stalling, giving, perhaps, the Prime Minister more time to do his great reset. I'm getting all kinds of calls about this right now. It's a big concern. I'm begging you. We have come this far. We have come where you wanted us to come. Please let us go forward with this now so that we can actually help Canadians where they most need it.

The Chair :

Thank you, Ms. Jansen. Mr. Poilievre.

Hon. Pierre Poilievre :

I agree entirely with Ms. Jansen. On the first point regarding the WE scandal, this is five weeks that the government members have been dawdling and giving 171,000 words of speechifying. They're talking about the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, Greek philosophers, cartoon characters and everything under the sun to run out the clock and avoid releasing these documents. Today I came forward with a motion that reflected the compromise that the Liberal House leader effectively agreed to when he tweeted about it earlier this week. Now we're finding that tweet isn't consistent with what the Liberals are prepared to do.

We said we would be willing to put aside for now the documents that the government claims are cabinet secrets and that the government would release everything else. They claim it was cabinet confidentiality that they needed to protect, and that was their major objection with releasing these documents unredacted. We put forward a motion that does what they they wanted to do, and now they're saying they're not so sure. The timelines are not an excuse either. The documents are in the government's possession. All they have to do is send them over without the black ink.

If they have versions with black ink, they must also have the pre-existing versions without black ink. These are digital documents. I presume that the copies sent over to the committee were not the only copies, that they are now blacked out and there's no way to get hold of the originals. The originals are there. The government knows what they are. They have an army of public servants who can produce them without the black ink. They could send them over on a USB stick, or possibly even an email attachment, to the law clerk this evening if they wanted to.

To suggest that they can't get it done by Thursday—sorry, Friday.... I gave them until Friday, for God's sake. I don't know how long it takes it to send an email. Then to claim that they can't get their act together and have the Clerk of the Privy Council come to testify by the date in the motion, which is I think mid next week...that too is ridiculous. He lives in Ottawa. He has access to electronic communications. He certainly can make himself available. It would not be hard for him to move his

schedule around because the Parliament of Canada has asked him to do so. There is no logistical reason that the government can't simply agree to this motion tonight. It's more dawdling and more delay. Meanwhile, we have millions who are without work and businesses are getting evicted, because the government once again messed up the rent relief program, a program that could have been fixed here in this committee but for the fact that we're paralyzed by a five-week Liberal filibuster. Now we're being asked for another 48 hours for them to go back to read a one-paragraph motion. With regard to

section 69, Mr. Fraser, I think you're being a little bit modest about your abilities. You are a skilled lawyer and a learned gentleman. You can read

section 69 of the Access to Information Act in a couple of minutes. You are more than intelligent enough to do that. In fact, I rather suspect that you know the

section already, because I know you spend a lot of time reading these statutes. I don't say that facetiously. You could master that

section very quickly. It's short. It's about 100 words long and basically says “cabinet confidences”. None of the excuses we're hearing today make any sense. It looks like we're being sent off on another wild goose chase to waste 48 hours of our time, rather than getting this done so we can get back to our jobs. Ms. Jansen is quite right.

I sometimes wonder if the government is not just covering up the WE scandal here with this endless filibuster but also doesn't want any scrutiny of this grand reset that the Prime Minister is now talking about, this idea that he is going to renovate Canadian society to fit his “Trudeaupian” ambitions. This is not a time to re-engineer society to his liking or his socialist ideology.

(30450) This is a time to get people safely and securely back to work, to protect their lives and livelihoods, not a time for government to take advantage of the crisis in order to massively expand its powers at the expense of Canadians' freedom. That's what we should be talking about here in the finance committee. We should be standing up against government power grabs like this grand reset the Prime Minister is discussing.

I'm beginning to wonder if this filibuster is about more than just covering up the WE scandal, and also about covering up the government's grand schemes for social and economic engineering, to cover up the power grab that he has lusted over since the beginning of this crisis. Frankly, we've lost patience. We want an answer. We want to get on with the job. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

(30455) The Chair :

I have three people on my list: Mr. Kelly, if you still want in, Ms. Dzerowicz and Mr. Julian. Mr. Kelly, do you still want in?

Mr. Pat Kelly :

No, I don't think I'm on the list, or I don't need to be.

The Chair :

That's not a problem. I have Ms. Dzerowicz, Mr. Julian and then Mr. Fragiskatos.

Ms. Julie Dzerowicz :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's nice to be back here in Ottawa, actually. It's nice to see everyone in the room. For Ms. Jansen, I absolutely agree with you, and I think we probably all agree that we all want to get back to business. Getting back to business for me, at this moment, means that we want to get right to pre-budget consultations. I'll just remind everyone once again that on October 8 when we first met, within the first few minutes of our actually convening the committee, I did introduce a motion for us to get started on pre-budget consultations.

I will tell you that if we want to get right down to business, we can get down to business ASAP if the point of privilege that Mr. Poilievre introduced after my motion to start pre-budget consultations were withdrawn. There is absolutely no delay on our part. There was a motion that I'm very grateful to Mr. Poilievre for putting forward today. I will say to you, though, that it was given to us during committee. If this were something that we would have wanted to already have decided on, it would have been.... Often, it's not uncommon for us to be given these motions beforehand.

We could have contemplated it beforehand. We could have already read and reviewed it and then have come here today for a decision, but that was not done. It was given to us during our meeting. Again, I am very grateful that Mr. Poilievre has proposed something. As my colleague Mr. Fraser has indicated, I think it looks promising. I think there are a lot of elements that could get us to where we all want to end up, but we do want a little time to actually reflect on it properly. My understanding of what Mr.

Fraser has proposed and what our chair has actually tried to relay is that we've proposed something very expedited that maybe could set us back on track by the time we get here on Thursday. If I heard my colleague Mr. Fraser correctly, he has indicated that he is willing to start working on this immediately this evening, in addition to a couple of other things he has on the table, and that he has offered a phone call tomorrow to whomever would like to discuss it—from all parties—so that we could maybe answer some questions and continue to proceed toward what we are hoping is some sort of agreement.

I think I heard that we could also figure out—if we do find some agreement—a way to deal with it procedurally at the onset of our meeting on Thursday if we are not able to find an available meeting space tomorrow, if one doesn't miraculously come free. Then we can actually get down to business and hear from our governor and deputy governor this Thursday. I didn't hear anybody trying to say “let's just keep on waiting”. What I heard is, let's try to move as quickly as possible, let's fairly have a chance to actually look at this motion and let's make sure that we understand it completely.

We're going to start working on it right away. We're willing to actually meet on this by phone call tomorrow morning and try to figure out all the steps we need to be able—if we have some sort of agreement—to resolve it within the initial part of our Thursday meeting so that we can get right down to business on Thursday. That is what I heard, and I don't think that in any way is us trying to delay or any further delay tactic. I think that is just responsible on our

part in terms of reviewing the motion that was presented to us here at committee. I also want to address Mr. Poilievre. He always makes me laugh with some of his references. I just want to correct for the record that there was no one who was bringing up the Quran or the Torah or some of the other references he was mentioning earlier today during our last few weeks. I think we were desperately trying to find a compromise, and we had proposed a subamendment that we had hoped would address the issues raised by the opposition—

(30500) Mrs. Tamara Jansen :

On a point of order, is that not changing the actual testimony—

Ms. Julie Dzerowicz :

That is not a point of order.

Mrs. Tamara Jansen :

—with what she just did...?

Ms. Julie Dzerowicz: That is not a point of order.

Mrs. Tamara Jansen: I'm just worried that you're changing the testimony.

Ms. Julie Dzerowicz: No. I'm just saying that—

The Chair :

No, Madam Jansen. She is relating to what Mr. Poilievre said in his remarks, so I think it is.... We're not on regular procedure at the moment—we're batting this issue around—so there is a fair bit of leniency. Ms. Dzerowicz.

Ms. Julie Dzerowicz :

Thank you so much. I also agree with Mr. Poilievre when he says that my colleague Mr. Fraser is extraordinarily capable. In spite of his great capacity, I do think it is fair for us to make sure that we understand the motion to ensure that we have a chance to read the references relayed in the motion to be crystal clear because no one wants to delay this any further. The last thing I'll mention, again, is that it's important t