EVIDENCE

Standing Committee on Public Accounts NUMBER 035 1st SESSION 45th PARLIAMENT Monday, April 27, 2026 Le lundi 27 avril 2026 Standing Committee on Public Accounts CANADA [Recorded by Electronic Apparatus] EVIDENCE April 27, 2026 Committee NUMBER 035 NUMBER 035 NUMÉRO 035 35 27 04 2026 2026/04/27 15:40:00 House Of Commons Comité permanent des comptes publics Standing Committee on Public Accounts PACP Chair John Williamson 1 45

(1540) [ English ]

The Chair (John Williamson (Saint John—St. Croix, CPC)) :

Good day. Welcome back. [ Translation ] I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 35 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts. [ English ] Today's meeting is taking place in public and using the hybrid format, although I believe all members are in the room with us. I just want to remind participants of some of the following guidelines. Please wait until I recognized you by name before speaking. All comments should be addressed through the chair.

Just raise your hand and catch my eye or the clerk's eye, and we will endeavour to keep an accurate speaking list. [ Translation ] The committee will now proceed to the consideration of matters related to committee business. [ English ] In a minute, I'm going to recognize Mr. Lemire to bring us up to date. The clerk has helpfully sent out the motion that was originally tabled. It has been amended; that's in green. Then in red is the current amendment, which was proposed by Mr. Osborne. I'll begin with you, Mr. Lemire.

If it seems right, I'll get back to the amendment, but if there is discussion, I will allow that for a little bit as well. [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

Sébastien Lemire (Abitibi—Témiscamingue, BQ) :

Thank you so very much, Mr. Chair. I certainly think you're part of the solution. I'm grateful to everyone involved in finding solutions today, including the technical support staff and the interpreters. The main reason we're here is that the committee gave an order of reference to the House to study what's going on with Cúram following a motion on IT contracts for Cúram, ArriveCAN and pretty much all the others. Now we can add PrescribeIT to the list. There's obviously a major problem with IT contract management, cost overruns and estimates. Having said that, I think we need to learn from this.

There must be recommendations to ensure that, at the end of the day, Quebec and Canadian taxpayers don't feel that billions of dollars are being wasted on IT projects managed by private firms. That was the purpose of what this committee unanimously decided to send to the House of Commons. My Liberal and Conservatives colleagues and I, representing the Bloc Québécois, unanimously passed a motion calling on the House to study IT contracts through an independent public inquiry. That debate took place in the House three weeks ago, and there was a vote.

The Speaker ruled, tipping the outcome in the government's favour. I would nonetheless like to mention that, during the debate, the Liberal Party's official position was articulated by the member for Winnipeg North, Mr. Lamoureux, whose work in the House I hold in high regard. He said:

Madam Speaker, I totally disagree with the need for a public inquiry. I do not understand why Bloc members feel we cannot have a more effective standing committee, potentially, dealing with the concerns the member is raising today. At the end of the day, they want to spend x millions of dollars on a public inquiry, when we have a standing committee made up of members of Parliament who are already paid to do the work of sitting on the committee. They should see if they can get it onto an agenda. We should be more productive where we can. Standing committees have great potential here in Parliament.

Mr. Lamoureux levelled two minor personal criticisms at me, which I took in my stride. I can handle that kind of thing. The Liberal Party's official position brings us full circle to the work that must be done by standing committees, specifically the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, as expressed in the motion. Let's not forget that this debate comes in the wake of a report from the Auditor General, who also expressed an interest in resuming oversight of expenditures for programs like Cúram.

Now, the issue in the motion that has been before us for the past few days is whether standing committees still have a role to play and can still do the work to ensure government transparency and accountability in the best interests of Quebec and Canadian taxpayers. At this point, I am waiting for the government's proposed amendments, because, per procedure, the motion cannot be amended by the mover. Thank you.

(1545) [ English ]

The Chair :

Mr. McKinnon.

Ron McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, Lib.) :

When we left off, I believe we were debating this amendment to change “management” to “estimates and costs”. We didn't vote on that.

The Chair :

No, that one did pass.

Ron McKinnon :

Did it?

The Chair :

Then Mr. Osborne proposed an additional amendment that the documents be returned not “within 30 days of the adoption of this motion” but “before the start of the fall session”.

Ron McKinnon :

Okay. That's fair enough.

The Chair :

That's where we're at. Do you wish to speak to that? If not, I'll recognize Mr. Osborne. I don't want to cut you off.

Ron McKinnon :

Personally, I'm ready to vote on that. We have other things to carry on with. I just wanted to tidy up where we were.

The Chair :

Okay. Just as a reminder, I can't call votes. The votes happen when the debate is over. If we want votes to happen, we need less talk and more action, I guess. Mr. Osborne, would you like to speak?

Kristina Tesser Derksen (Milton East—Halton Hills South, Lib.) :

I'll go.

The Chair :

Okay. It is on the amendment to the motion—changing “within 30 days of the adoption of this motion” to “before the start of the fall session”. That is what we're addressing. Go ahead, please, Ms. Tesser Derksen.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate having the opportunity to speak again after the last meeting. Unfortunately, I missed a great deal of that because I was up in the House delivering a speech. I was in the middle of some comments at that point. I would like to wrap them up. They speak directly to what my colleague just talked about—the work of committees and the potential of committees. I tend to agree with him on that. I want to start by saying that we're all professionals here, but we're also people. We have feelings and sensitivities.

I want to ensure, certainly, from my own perspective—and, I'm sure, that of my colleagues—that at no point are we making personal comments about others' professionalism or about them as people. There shouldn't be any ad hominem attacks in this committee or in the House of Commons—well, that's a different story. I want to make it very clear that what I say is said with respect for the professional context we find ourselves in and for the work we have to do.

Our politics may be different from time to time—sometimes very different—based on whatever issue we might be debating, but I have the utmost respect for all colleagues around this table. This includes Mr. Lemire, who has worked very hard with us on making amendments and trying to find a resolution on this particular motion that I know is very important to him and the people in his riding. It's important to us too. I will get back to the comments I started last meeting. I want to talk about what the public accounts committee does and what it stands for, because Mr. Lemire touched on that in his comments.

We all know public accounts is Parliament's standing audit committee. Its mandate is to review the work of the federal government's external auditor, the Auditor General of Canada, who was here today. When a report is tabled on behalf of the Auditor General in the House of Commons, I understand that it's referred to this committee. Public accounts selects the chapters it wants to study. It calls the Auditor General and senior public servants from the audited organizations to appear.

At the conclusion of the study, it presents a report to the House of Commons that includes recommendations for improvements in administrative and financial practices. I recognize that for colleagues around the table who've been here for a long time, it might be kind of silly to review this, but for someone new like me, it's good to have. The first anniversary of the election is coming up. Having a review of what we do here at public accounts is beneficial for me, so I appreciate everyone indulging me as I go through it. That mandate is significant and worth pausing on.

It's not a general investigations committee we have here. It's not a committee whose purpose is to receive raw documents in significant amounts—in dumps—and sift through correspondence for political ammunition. I want to be careful about my word choice here, because I don't want my colleague to feel I'm overly politicizing things or assuming that he is. However, to someone on the outside looking in at what this motion requests, it might appear that way. The mandate of public accounts is grounded not in partisan inquiry but in audit follow-through. That's a different thing.

It's more demanding, in some respects, than just piling on voluminous amounts of documents. I'll go back to some history, because that's my passion, and I think it will help us review where we've come from in order to know where we're going. The British public accounts committee at Westminster is the oldest in the world. It operates on a principle that has guided its work since William Ewart Gladstone established it in 1861. I don't know if there are any other history students around the table, but I'm going to wax eloquent, a little, about history.

The committee exists to ensure that public money is spent only as Parliament intended. I think we can agree on that. It's not to adjudicate political disputes. It's not to pursue political adversaries but to ensure that the executives' financial conduct is consistent with Parliament's will, as expressed in its appropriations. That tradition is alive in this committee. It is alive in our Standing Orders. It deserves respect. Walter Bagehot, writing in The English Constitution in 1867, famously observed that “a big meeting never does anything”.

His point—and I think it's a sharp one—was that the real work of Parliament happens in these smaller, deliberative bodies, where members can examine evidence carefully, follow arguments to their conclusions and produce considered judgements. He called the floor of the House the “grand inquest”—it does feel like that sometimes—but it's in committees where Parliament actually works. As Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1885, in the American context but with equal application here, “Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work”. He called them “little legislatures”.

(1550) This committee is Parliament at work, I believe, on the specific and serious question of whether the Government of Canada is spending public money wisely and in accordance with Parliament's intentions. This is a really high calling.

I'll admit that I'm not sure it's one I fully understood when I was assigned to this committee, but over the past year of having the Auditor General and her team come here, and various officials and ministers, and engaging in meaningful debate around this table, as well as attending conferences—which I was very lucky to do at the beginning of the fall—I've learned that this is indeed a very high calling. It requires a high standard of discipline of us. I'm really proud to sit on this committee. I take the work seriously.

It's precisely because I take it seriously that I want to urge a measure of caution today about the motion before us. It's not because I'm indifferent to the concerns about the BDM programme, because I think there are real concerns there. There are real concerns that need to be examined and looked at. It's not because I think those concerns are fabricated. I do not. I believe those concerns are real, and in fact, the Auditor General herself confirmed this.

I believe the way in which a committee conducts itself—the procedures it follows, the instruments it deploys and the scope it takes on—determines the quality and credibility of the work it ultimately produces. There's a broader concern that I want to raise here respectfully, but also directly, because I believe I owe it to my colleagues—and, surely, that we owe to each other. In recent years, committees in the Canadian House of Commons have become increasingly the site of partisan confrontation. That's not a secret. We all do it.

It's been observed by members of all parties, journalists, constitutional scholars and by Canadians who have watched parliamentary proceedings. In 2024, the House itself was, as I understand, effectively paralyzed for months by a filibuster over the production of documents relating to Sustainable Development Technology Canada. In 2020—going back six years or so—this very committee and others were gridlocked for days, as government members spoke at great length on matters of questionable relevance to prevent votes from coming to the floor.

I have considered myself really fortunate to have been around this table over the past year, because we've functioned pretty well during that time. We have gotten through a number of reports. We've had good discussions and have revealed a lot of important testimony that's come from the witnesses who have been called in before us. Overall, I think the public accounts committee has functioned really well over the past year. Apparently, that's a marked improvement from the time before I came onto the committee.

(1555) The Chair :

The chair would say that's debatable, but over to you.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

That's noted, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Committee filibustering has been used by all parties. It has been used strategically as a political tactic rather than as a principled procedural tool. I want to be the first to say that when it is used that way by any party, it has the potential of corroding the institution. It can degrade the very thing that those great English parliamentary scholars I mentioned before and all others recognized as the essential space in which democratic accountability is practised.

In the Hansard of November 18, 2014—so a while before my time here—there was consideration of a national security bill. A member of Parliament who was then the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness—this has been noted in subsequent procedural discussions—said that the committee is the master of its own destiny. The principle is a profound one. It reflects the constitutional autonomy of parliamentary committees from executive direction. No minister, and I would dare them to, can tell this committee what to study, which witnesses to call, which documents to request or what conclusions to reach.

Mastery of one's own destiny carries with it an obligation of responsibility. Remember that great line from Spider-Man, “With great power comes great responsibility”. The committee that is master of its destiny must also be master of its own conduct. It must be capable of distinguishing between inquiries that serve the public interest and inquiries that serve partisan interest. Sometimes it can be difficult to see that line.

It must also be capable of asking, when a sweeping motion for document production is put on the table, whether the motion is designed to generate useful evidence for a genuine audit follow-through, or whether it is designed to generate political headlines. I just want to make clear that I'm not saying that my colleague is doing this for nefarious reasons because we have had discussions and it's very clear that Mr. Lemire does care very deeply about this particular issue and he wants to see a high number of documents.

I believe, though, we have to tread the line carefully between a request of that nature and the return on the investment for the time and money it's going to take to produce those documents. I spoke to this at my last session. I actually have an amendment I will move, Mr. Chair, if I could.

The Chair :

I'll hear it but it might be.... Go ahead.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

If I could defer to you for procedural advice, we're currently in an amendment.

The Chair :

Yes.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

I'm going to move an amendment to strike out the whole motion, but I have a suggested replacement that I would like my colleagues to weigh in on, particularly Mr. Lemire.

The Chair :

I will stop you there because unless the clerk taps me and says otherwise, that's out of order. You can come back to that later.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Okay.

The Chair :

I have to deal with Mr. Osborne's amendment, which was to change my.... Yes, I was not tapped, so I'm on the right track here.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

I can tell you're all enraptured by my, but if you want—

The Chair :

Can I pause that? Let's deal with Mr. Osborne's amendment to the motion, which was to strike “within 30 days of the adoption of this motion” and replace it with “before the start of the fall session”. [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, did you have a question? We're talking about this amendment.

Sébastien Lemire :

Very specifically, Mr. Chair, my understanding is that a comprehensive proposal was going to be sent. If we go through it point by point, obviously, concessions may be made. I feel that this is what has happened a lot, and that I have made a lot of concessions. I just don't feel like getting to the end of the process and, at the end of the day, I'm the only one who has made concessions again. I think people actually want to work with this motion as a whole. Would it be possible to see the proposed text in its entirety to see if we can agree on it? If it quickly becomes clear that we can't, we can come back to it during clause by clause as we debate each amendment.

(1600) The Chair :

No, we can't do that at this point. Ms. Tesser Derksen can send you suggestions if she wants. To stop now, we would need unanimous consent. I think we should finish the debate on this amendment and then go back to the motion. Then, after that, Ms. Tesser Derksen will be able to make suggestions or propose amendments. [ English ] If no one debates any more, then we can vote on this and carry on. Mr. McKinnon, you were down as well, but I saw Mr. Osborne moving.

Ron McKinnon :

I was going to say to Mr. Lemire that, yes, there have been discussions and there are all kinds of ideas and suggestions. It's a point of form that when we are in an amendment, we need to finish the amendment and then we can move on to bigger and better things.

The Chair :

Just to tee things up, could I ask if your text is translated?

A voice: Yes.

The Chair: That's perfect. Thank you. Mr. Osborne, it is your amendment. Do you want to say anything on it?

Tom Osborne (Cape Spear, Lib.) :

I was simply going to call for a vote on the amendment that I made. Once we get that done, we can move on to this.

The Chair :

Exactly. [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

Sébastien Lemire :

At this point, I just want to say that I have no idea what's going to be sent to us.

The Chair :

Neither do I.

Sébastien Lemire :

I haven't seen anything, so I can't make any promises.

The Chair :

I understand.

Sébastien Lemire :

However, I'm very curious, and I'm looking forward to that more comprehensive proposal. Obviously, I can express my opinion about the tenor of the negotiations that took place when it comes time to vote, but I'm not keen on voting on a single aspect rather than the overall picture.

[ English ]

The Chair :

I'm going to have the clerk do a roll call for this vote on the amendment to the motion, which strikes “within 30 days of the adoption of this motion” and replaces it with “before the start of the fall session”. (Amendment agreed to: yeas 8; nays 0)

The Chair: We're now at the motion as twice amended—unanimously, both times. Shall we hear from Ms. Tesser Derksen on her amendment? Should I call it a mega amendment?

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

It's a significant amendment, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Could your team send it to the clerk while you're talking?

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Yes, we'll get it sent out. I'll read it in French, so bear with me: [ Translation ]

That, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts request that the Auditor General undertake a report on the Benefit Delivery Modernization system and the progress done to modernize the legacy system; and, the committee initiate a study into Benefits Delivery Modernization, and invite senior officials from Employment and Social Development Canada, Services and Procurement Canada, Shared Services Canada and the Treasury Board, including Cliff Groen, Associate Deputy Minister and Business Lead, Benefits Delivery Modernization.

[ English ] You should see that in your inboxes shortly.

(1605) The Chair :

We've not actually received it yet.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Would it make sense to suspend to give people a chance to read that over?

The Chair :

I would like to receive it first.

Jean Yip (Scarborough—Agincourt, Lib.) :

It's coming.

[ Translation ]

The Chair :

Go ahead, Mr. Lemire.

Sébastien Lemire :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This motion is in line with what was sent a few hours ago. In my opinion, one of the most important elements is missing, and that is transparency around accessing documents. If we want a study like this to go smoothly, I think we need access to documents. From what I understand, the issue for the government is what's in those documents. Obviously, it's easy for me to ask what the government has to hide in those documents. We all remember the metaphors from the last meeting about the original motion, about how Bloc Québécois members were asking for truckloads of documents.

When I asked what the largest items were, they said correspondence and emails, so I agreed to remove those from the original motion. They're still telling me that there are way too many documents, so I'm starting to think the government is bluffing because it seems to me that we respond to their requests, but it's never enough. So again I have to ask: What does the government have to hide? I was prepared to remove something that it seemed to think was critical: PMO communications. I can understand that from a political standpoint.

About that, thanks to a reporter from a tech media outlet, we know that a message was sent from the President of the Treasury Board to the Prime Minister's Office in May 2022. The message was about Cúram missteps and what actions needed to be taken. To my knowledge, the Prime Minister took no action. I believe this type of question is clearly in the public interest, especially since this kind of important information has been downplayed. We all know the cost overruns add up to $5 billion. It went from $1.7 billion to $6.6 billion.

How interesting that I'm now being lectured on partisanship in committees and how difficult it is for them to function properly, when there's evidence that there has been filibustering here in our committee, in the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, and in many other committees. The government itself has engaged in filibustering. We're all aware of the current context. The government bought itself a majority with floor crossers, and that majority will come into effect this evening. I'm going to ask my question again.

What does the government have to hide, apart from its lack of accountability to the voters who gave it a minority mandate precisely so that we can perform our oversight role? To me, downplaying what's going on right now is very dangerous. One of my still-unanswered questions is this: What about the tens of thousands of seniors who are still waiting? That is the crux of this issue, the computer system's mistakes. Not only is it very expensive, but it is also glitchy. Where are we at with it? Have any departments hidden, erased or covered up any data? I'm starting to wonder.

Instead of blaming employees for these screw-ups, as certain members did in question period, we might ask whether the instructions were properly communicated to the employees. Was it done properly in both official languages? These questions remain unanswered. I'll stop there so nobody accuses me of filibustering.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Go ahead, Mr. McKinnon.

Ron McKinnon :

Mr. Lemire is worried about what we are trying to hide. We're not trying to hide anything. We want to do a real study. We do studies in all of our committees all throughout Parliament. We do them all the time. We bring witnesses in. We ask them questions, and we get them to provide us information that they can offer. That's exactly what we want to do. The notion of getting this massive dump of documents, even though we have agreed to narrow it down somewhat.... It's still a massive dump.

To think that we're going to take this massive number of documents and suddenly discover magic solutions to this problem is not realistic. From my perspective, we're trying to make this not into a backward study. We want to call the witnesses forward, drill down into the issues that were identified before, conceivably invite the Auditor General to do a further study to follow up, and absolutely find out what went wrong here. I'm an IT guy from way back. I spent probably 30 or 40 years doing IT. Things happen when writing code. Things change.

We're not going to get some magic document dump that's going to tell us what went wrong. I think we have to look at the matter systemically, and we have to do that from a coherent perspective, looking at the salient witnesses that we can bring forward to do the study. I'm fully prepared and fully interested in doing a study to drill down and find out what went wrong. I just think that getting this mass of documents ahead of time is, without having an opportunity to narrow the scope according to the witnesses and find out what the problems might be, extraordinarily problematic.

I certainly will support this amendment. If this amendment is not going to pass, and one hopes it does, we will basically go back and start to work on the original motion to see if we can make it more effective and more useful. Anyway, my perspective is that we absolutely want to do this study. We want to find out what went wrong, and there is absolutely nothing we're seeking to hide here. We just want to undertake a process that's most likely to give us answers that are meaningful.

(1610) The Chair :

Thank you. Next, I have Mr. Osborne.

Tom Osborne :

Thank you. I won't belabour this. I won't repeat everything that Mr. McKinnon just said. He touched on some of the points I wanted to talk about. I will acknowledge that Mr. Lemire has moved since his original proposal. The challenge is that officials trying to put this together are telling us that the volume of documents is still very large. I won't elaborate on that, because I know that Mr. McKinnon has touched on it. I'll just say that it would bog this committee down. It would bog officials in this committee down, and it would bog down officials within departments to produce a large volume of documents.

A study by the Auditor General, who would have unfettered access to documents and can go down any rabbit hole that the Auditor General or the Auditor General's staff chose to, would find anything that may not pass the test of acceptability in terms of what should have been done in this regard. The public accounts committee will also, with this amendment, be undertaking a study. Even in majority governments, we have seen for decades that the public accounts committee can be very efficient and very effective in undertaking studies and bringing issues to light.

I do think that this is a fair compromise without bogging officials down within departments and officials within public accounts with an enormous number of documents that would have to be read through to try to find whatever may be there. It's a fishing expedition, as opposed to having the Auditor General be able to drill down to determine whether things were done the way they were supposed to be done or what recommendations would be made by an unbiased, non-partisan arm's-length agency on how things could be done better.

The Chair :

Thank you. The clerk has sent two emails. One is a Word document, and the other is a PDF. I suggest that you look at the PDF. They could be the same, but my Word document does not show the track changes. The PDF does. Go ahead, Ms. Yip.

(1615) Jean Yip :

Shall we suspend to look over...?

The Chair :

No.

Jean Yip :

I would like to echo what my colleagues, Mr. Osborne and Mr. McKinnon, said. I believe a study makes more sense than a complete document production project. It's a question of committee efficiency and how we want to best use our time. Is asking our public service to go through mountains of paper really the best way to look at the production of documents? We could instead have a study, bring officials in and have them as witnesses before this committee for some vigorous questioning. We could ask more pertinent questions.

We're also asking the public service to look for information, but they aren't sure what they're looking for. In fact, it may or may not be relevant to the topic at hand. To me, that's not a good use of resources, when they could be doing something else. When you have witnesses come to committee, you can really examine what they're saying, ask more follow-up questions and hear different perspectives from the other members on the committee. When we have the meeting, besides having targeted questions, it avoids fishing.

Looking at the context of the Auditor General's report, I would say that the work has already been done by this committee. The AG has already looked through all the documents. Our committee, PACP, has already scrutinized the findings of the report, and we have issued our own report. We don't want to second-guess the Auditor General by asking the same questions again and wasting our public servants' time. I think we should use the powers of this committee to look at a study and invite relevant witnesses.

The Chair :

I'm going to make a ruling, in consultation. Ms. Tesser Derksen, I see what you're trying to do here, and I mean that in a positive way. You're trying to come up with a solution. However, it strays so far from Monsieur Lemire's motion that it doesn't try to advance it or refine it; it seeks to replace it. Therefore, I'm going to rule it out of order. I wanted to hear some of the debate. I've been chatting with the clerk and going over the Standing Orders as well. If Monsieur Lemire's motion is defeated, it can be brought back in as a stand-alone. There's too much of a substantive change taking place here.

It doesn't just craft, refine and advance it, but seeks to replace it. I will recognize Mr. Osborne, as a courtesy. Go ahead, if you have a question.

Tom Osborne :

With respect to your ruling, Mr. Chair, I understand where you're coming from. I don't know if others want to weigh in on this. If this is an acceptable approach, maybe Mr. Lemire would withdraw his motion, and we can make a new one. Otherwise, we have a number of amendments to the existing motion. This would be far more expedient, I think.

The Chair :

Thank you. I would do that if I sensed some uptake from Monsieur Lemire, but I don't. I try to get members to work it out, but my sense is that this is going in a direction that is not acceptable. I'm going to have to steer us back to making individual amendments to this motion, unless you can convince Monsieur Lemire. However, that's not going to happen as we're debating the motion. You will have to take that off-line and say something to convince him. The chair's rulings are not debatable. I want to hear from you, Mr. Osborne, as a courtesy. We're now back to the original motion, as twice amended. (1620) [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

Sébastien Lemire :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm obviously not going to challenge your ruling. No one here would object to the Auditor General looking into this. In fact, it would be good for her to look into it and for us to be able to give her as much access to information as possible. We actually moved a motion last week to give her full access to the documents she is requesting. As such, adding something to the motion about having the Auditor General examine the matter, when the Auditor General has already expressed interest in doing so, seems to me to add little value, but I'm not opposed to it. Mr.

Chair, your decision is correct. There are two key issues in what's before us today. The first is why they want to hide John Ostrander, the former technical lead for benefits delivery modernization. He was mentioned in the original motion, but not in the second one. There is broad agreement on the principle of conducting a study. Mr. Ostrander is the architect who started at IBM and then became the technical lead within the department. Then he went to work for Ontario. I have a lot of questions about how that unfolded.

He was the one who was supposed to be responsible for the decisions that were made, decisions that may have had a lot to do with the financial irregularities, and Canadians are now paying the price. Because of those irregularities, seniors are not getting their money. I would point out that that's what's at issue. The second thing is access to documents. People keep telling me that it costs millions and millions of dollars, but at some point, I have to think it's a bluff. That's the same answer I got after I took the most voluminous items out of the motion.

What is so voluminous about the documents, correspondence and official reports? I'm genuinely asking. It seems to me that official reports, letters and documents can easily be found on a computer. Basically, if the government isn't able to provide them quickly enough and have them translated, that means it's poorly organized and doesn't deserve to be trusted with managing said documents. I honestly wonder how the volume of these documents can be a problem. Those are the two stumbling blocks right now in terms of the motion and where we stand. I think we need to keep the testimony of the former technical lead, Mr.

Ostrander. I also think we need to maintain transparency around access to documents including official correspondence, official reports and official documents pertaining to Cúram and how it evolved with respect to managing operating costs and the issues that were identified. I strongly believe that this is in the public interest.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Thank you. Mr. McKinnon, you're next, to be followed by Mr. Osborne.

Ron McKinnon :

I'm going to be bold and move another amendment.

The Chair :

That is your right, sir. Please go ahead.

Ron McKinnon :

I really like the idea of doing a study. Of course, we're not going to find out what's going on unless we do a study. The big problem with the document request is that we can talk about the kinds of documents, and if you say it fast it doesn't sound like much, but we're talking about 10 years' worth of documents and—who knows—hundreds or maybe thousands of people involved.

I would like to focus on doing a study, so I'm going to move that in this motion, at least in the English version, the second paragraph be dropped entirely, and that in the third paragraph, which starts, “That the Committee hold the first meeting on this study one week after receiving the documents”, that phrase be removed. That's my amendment.

The Chair :

Would you repeat that? It's to delete paragraph two...?

Ron McKinnon :

It's to delete paragraph two and delete the first portion of the following paragraph, which says, “That the Committee hold the first meeting on this study one week after receiving the documents”, and start that paragraph with the words “That senior officials”. That commits us, as a committee, if we're doing a study on this matter.... I don't know what the

schedule is for this committee going forward, but I know the chair is fully aware of the kind of business that lies before us, and I trust the chair to be able to allocate some time for us as we go forward. Once we get into and do a study and we talk to the officials and the people who were involved in doing this design and development, and we drill down into where the problems happened, at that point we'll be in a much better position to do a focused request for documents that are going to actually make sense to us. Anyway, that's my amendment.

(1625) The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. McKinnon. I'm going to hear from Mr. Lemire, please.

[ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

With all due respect, Mr. Chair, the wording of the motion as presented would have us remove the request for documents entirely, yet start a meeting one week after receiving the documents that we are no longer requesting. In other words, no study would be done and that, basically, amounts to avoiding accountability.

The Chair :

Okay, but the proposal is to remove the sentence beginning with the following: “That the committee hold the first meeting on this study one week after receiving the documents…” and it begins—

Sébastien Lemire :

Okay. That makes more sense. I apologize if I misinterpreted the translation.

The Chair :

That's fine.

Sébastien Lemire :

Regardless, that's the whole point. Obviously, I have questions for all the people named in the third paragraph. However, if the questions are to be relevant, they must apply to the documents we are requesting, which are key to this study, to accountability and to the credibility of our democratic and parliamentary system. One of our parliamentary privileges is requesting access to documents. As I said, I think what we're asking for is reasonable and limited. At some point, cost estimates started to skyrocket, and people realized the system wasn't working. What is the official correspondence? What are the official documents? What official reports were made?

[ English ]

The Chair :

Thank you. Give me one second. I'm going to rule on this as well. Mr. McKinnon, I'm trying to be as even-handed as possible. The challenge is that your amendment is undoing not just the motion but amendments this committee has made to the motion. It's a more surgical amendment than was previously proposed by your colleague, but its effect is the same, with the exception of keeping the witnesses in. I'm going to rule it out of order. Again, I welcome amendments. I know Mr. Osborne said he has others.

If I could use one that we talked about on the sides, it's that we get away from this one-week meeting after the documents are tabled at the chair's discretion or something. I know how long it takes to go through documents, and a week's not sufficient. That's my comment. I'm going to make just that one. If the committee decides to pick up on it, that's great. Now, I'm going to recognize Mr. Osborne, please.

Tom Osborne :

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Again, we're back to the original motion as twice amended by this committee. Thank you.

Tom Osborne :

Thanks. I take your advice, Mr. Chair, on that as well. I had the same thought in terms of ruling out or striking out an amendment we had just made. I will move an amendment that we strike out all references to the Privy Council and the Prime Minister's Office in the second paragraph. We do know, based on some of the access to information rules, that this would be in line with some of the policies and rules that are currently in place. This is basically just housekeeping, in my opinion.

The Chair :

I concur. I'm going to allow that. The amendment is that, in the second paragraph, we strike “the Privy Council, and the Prime Minister's Office”. [ Translation ] We strike “ au Conseil Privé ainsi qu'au cabinet du premier ministre ”. [ English ] We are asking, then, the departments to provide the documents. [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

Sébastien Lemire :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm open to this being a friendly amendment that could be incorporated insofar as I've been assured on numerous occasions that the information I was looking for—information made public by a tech media outlet—is the memo that the Privy Council president, Janice Charette, sent to the Prime Minister's Office. These two offices exist for the purpose of providing this information, which dates back to May 2022. I was assured that it would be forwarded to me or to the committee. It's not intended for me personally, and I don't consider it to be personal information, obviously.

Given that this correspondence can be secured and forwarded to the committee, I am prepared to accept this amendment.

(1630) [ English ]

The Chair :

Would you like to respond to that? Go ahead, Ms. Tesser Derksen.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thanks so much, Mr. Chair. I'm heartened to hear that my colleague is in agreement with this. I think one of the major reasons it's valid is that we are still honouring the core intention of the motion while refining the scope, which is primarily my concern in this particular instance. I didn't really understand why conflating the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council would have been a good use of our time or resources. I was talking earlier, before I tabled the other motion, about how I understand my colleague's need to continue to move this forward.

I'm still concerned, and I know we're going to get to a whole bunch of other motions, but I want to be more pointed about what we are requesting. I think it's progress for all of us to have this portion removed, but I'm still concerned about how we're going to resolve this in a more global context. I understand that the Clerk of the Privy Council has oversight responsibilities for the public service, and I think that's probably why it was originally included in the motion from Mr. Lemire.

They may be directly relevant to a program of BDM's scale, but removing the PCO from the production request doesn't necessarily create an evidentiary gap, and I think that's what Mr. Lemire was largely concerned about. I don't think it's going to cause any problems for our ability to understand the governance decisions made. I would like to hear from my colleagues about the service delivery. I still feel the administrative burden is something we have to keep in mind, but the service delivery is important as well. We're talking about delivery of an issue of scope.

It's not just about the use of resources, and I don't think we should only be mindful about how resources are used. We also have to recognize that there's a detrimental impact on the time spent on collecting these documents, and it's compounded by the fact that it's time not spent on actually delivering services to Canadians. This also goes to the point that I had raised. It's two things: It's the time and the money, and time is money. The more time we spend on staff resources and staff hours—we talked about the

interpretation hours it would take—the more money we spend as well. That money comes from somewhere, and it's being pulled away from the delivery of services to Canadians, particularly seniors, which I believe I'm correct in presuming are at the heart of my honourable colleague's concern with this program in general. I would be interested in hearing from folks about the development in this amendment to remove the Privy Council and Prime Minister's Office. I think it's a positive step. I'll yield the floor, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Thank you. Mr. McKinnon is next, please.

Ron McKinnon :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree that it's a positive step. I think it helps us to narrow the focus to the documents we're looking for. The more we can do to keep things focused and keep things to reasonable volumes of documents, the better. That's really all I have to say about that. I think it's a good amendment.

(1635) The Chair :

Thank you. Ms. Yip, are you looking to speak?

Jean Yip :

Yes. I want to add my support. I'm glad that the Privy Council and the Prime Minister's Office will be removed. After all, we do also have senior officials from Employment and Social Development Canada. We have the Treasury Board, and we have Cliff Groen, the former associate deputy minister, and John Ostrander, technical lead, benefits delivery modernization, who will be summoned. I think that will be very helpful. Thank you.

The Chair :

Thank you. [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, do you have any comments?

Sébastien Lemire :

Mr. Chair, I just want to make sure of one thing. When I spoke earlier, I said that I wanted the information to be made public, but I want the committee to clearly state its commitment to obtain the information regarding the letter that Janice Charette sent to the Prime Minister in May 2022. I'd like to talk about an

article published by The Logic, but I don't have the date handy. The

article is about this program. I feel this information is crucial. I understand that, by striking the reference to the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office, we are probably missing out on other such correspondence. However, I want us to move forward and vote on this motion. I think that is what the other side wants too. I see that we want to move toward adopting it, but I'm making it clear that I want firm, public assurances that this letter can be sent to committee members.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Clerk, could you call the roll?

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Wait. I need to speak.

The Chair :

Ms. Derksen, go ahead, please.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

I apologize for holding up the vote. I want to clarify what Mr. Lemire was referring to when he mentioned a letter from Ms. Charette. I need a little more detail on that. I'm not sure what that's in reference to.

[ Translation ]

The Chair :

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

Sébastien Lemire :

My request has to do with information indicating that we may have to reject this amendment, which would exclude the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's Office. According to the

article in The Logic, the Prime Minister's Office had the information but has not done anything with it since 2022. It's been four years, Mr. Chair. That was before the Auditor General's report came out and before we knew more about the cost overruns. The Prime Minister knew about it, but he obviously did nothing. To me, this is clearly a matter of public interest. The content of this letter enables us to move forward as parliamentarians to find out what actions have been taken and, above all, what failures to take action allowed the situation get out of hand.

That inaction also had an impact on service delivery and left tens of thousands of seniors without income for months and months. I think that's the real issue here. It's one of the most important things. That said, this information is known, and we should have access to it to see whether the actions were taken. For my part, in the absence of a formal, public commitment in committee, I will vote against this proposed amendment.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Mr. Osborne is next.

Tom Osborne :

This kind of gets to the point of where we were. If there's specific information, government officials are happy to provide that information. Part of our concern here—and I'll get into it in my next amendment—is the massive production of documentation that will be required, which will bog down—as I had mentioned earlier—officials on this committee, our staff and our offices, as well as the officials within departments.

Instead of looking for millions of documents, if we know there's a specific piece of information, maybe an amendment can be made to this that seeks that particular piece of information, as we're making amendments. It would certainly cut down on the amount of time. In addition to the documentation that would have to be provided, there will have to be translation services into both official languages. The concern here is just the enormous amount of information.

If you look at the timeline even over the last couple of days, when officials from the department appeared before HUMA to discuss the program, there was a very specific, targeted request. They asked for a breakdown of the contracts that were signed to the program. They wanted the numbers, the vendors and the details for each contract. What happened there is that the department provided those details to the committee last Friday. They did exactly what was asked of them and provided that comprehensive contract breakdown last Friday.

One of the things we're trying to get here, in addition to getting the information the member wants, is to provide exactly what's being looked for, instead of bogging down and incurring the enormous cost to the bureaucracy—to government—of producing all of these documents. I don't know if Mr. Lemire wants to propose an amendment to look for specific information.

Bringing in the Auditor General to look at everything would ensure that things were done properly, but if specific information is being requested or looked for, a huge fishing expedition with millions of documents is probably not the most expedient way to get it. If something in particular is being looked for, this committee can call witnesses and all of these officials in a study of this committee and ask for specific information. I'm sure it will be furnished.

(1640) The Chair :

Thank you. [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

Sébastien Lemire :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Normally, in debates like this, repeating something you've already said defeats the purpose. I might get interrupted, but I'm going to take my chances and say it again anyway. I will repeat exactly what I just said. For the time being, I'm voting against the amendment, unless there is a formal commitment from the Liberals to table it in committee. Actually, Madam Clerk, I'll send you the link to the David Reevely

article I was talking about so you can distribute it. It was published on May 3, 2023. Of course, there may be a cost to access it. I would suggest that the committee pay for the

article and distribute it. I don't know what that might entail at this point, but I encourage you to act responsibly on this. According to the article, which is in English, the project was subject to repeated delays, as noted in a briefing note prepared for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on May 27, 2022. That's specific. I'm asking that the briefing note be provided so we can get that commitment and then support the amendment. We all know that there may have been dozens of other memos that were brought to the Prime Minister's attention but were ignored.

However, as a sign of good faith, I agree to remove that mention of the Privy Council, if we can have access to it. The whole issue of major IT projects was brought to the attention of the Prime Minister's Office, including the Phoenix replacement, which was obviously very controversial. I would like to draw your attention to the article, which also refers to the work of Mr. Groen. In light of all that, I don't think I can be more specific, Mr. Chair. There's a date, the name of the person who sent the message and the name of the person who received it.

We need a guarantee that it will be tabled with the committee.

The Chair :

We can't send this

article to committee members because it's probably not in both official languages.

(1645) Sébastien Lemire :

You don't know, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

You can do it, though.

Sébastien Lemire :

I invite everyone to go to the site.

The Chair :

No. If you want to do that, you can do it in your office. Do you want to move an amendment that says this committee—

Sébastien Lemire :

Before you do that, I would like to know if the government publicly commits to tabling this document with the committee. If the answer is yes, I will consider that to have the force of an amendment. If not, it will be in the official wording of the motion, which will refer to the

article and the information in more detail.

The Chair :

Okay. I just want to clarify something. The government is not here. The people here are members of Parliament. They don't speak for the government. If anyone wants to ask for something, it has to be in this motion. Mr. McKinnon, you have the floor.

[ English ]

Ron McKinnon :

I just want to comment that I'd be happy to see what I could do to get this document forwarded to Monsieur Lemire. As a member of the House of Commons, I need more clarification on what it is. If you're reading about it on the Internet or something, it's probably fairly publicly available. We could probably find that, get it translated and make it available. I don't know if you could subamend this to do that, but I would certainly be willing to commit to seeing if we can get this document for you.

[ Translation ]

The Chair :

Ms. Tesser Derksen, you have the floor.

[ English ]

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe I have found the article. I am happy to read it into the record for the benefit of everyone. That way it will be translated at the same time.

The Chair :

No. In a committee debate like this, you can refer to notes, but you cannot read notes, so I'm not going to allow that. Members can find it. Monsieur Lemire's office can send it out. I have enough information to know what we're talking about here. It's a letter from May 27, 2022. Does the committee want it, yes or no? That's the question before us. Members, you'll have to decide.

Sébastien Lemire :

Yes.

The Chair :

I'll turn the floor over to you, Ms. Tesser Derksen, but, no, you cannot read the

article into the record.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

I wasn't aware of a rule of that nature around—

The Chair :

Yes, it's in the Standing Orders. Members, you cannot repeat yourself in committee, and you cannot read from notes in a committee. You can reference notes, but you cannot read them. That's in the Standing Orders.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Okay. It's not notes; it's an article. Is that—

The Chair :

No. I mean, you could come here with a phone book and read that and....

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

It's a relevant article. I'm not terribly familiar with what Mr. Lemire is talking about, so it would be beneficial for me and, I'm sure, my colleagues to have the information in front of us. Mr. Chair, I tend to defer to your experience, expertise and knowledge, but I will submit that I'm not aware of any rule that prevents anyone from reading anything into the record. If there is a reference that someone would like to note—whether it's the clerk or someone else—I'm happy to entertain it.

The Chair :

I'll come back to you on a ruling on that, Ms.—

[ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[ English ]

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you.

[ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

Mr. Chair, there was no

interpretation for the last 30 seconds. I understood what was said, but I think it's important to mention it for folks listening to us in French.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Osborne.

Tom Osborne :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You continue to impress me, Mr. Chair, as chair of this committee. Having been on other committees at the provincial level, I will say that you are correct in the fact that we, as members, can't produce this document. We're not government. At a future meeting, if we were to call officials in as a committee, we can ask them for this document or to produce this document. However, we, as MPs and members of this committee, are not government and cannot produce the document. I agree with you on that ruling, Mr.

Chair, but in this particular case, the amendment that my colleague tried to pass earlier would have brought the AG in and given.... Those are amendments that we can make to this at some point as well. I don't know if we're ready to look at this amendment. I have several other amendments—or our side has several other amendments—to this as well. We can't commit to producing this document, but we can call witnesses who may be able to produce the document.

(1650) The Chair :

I have Monsieur Lemire next, and then I'll come back to you. [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

Sébastien Lemire :

Mr. Chair, I'm sure you're right. I just wanted to clarify the sentence that refers to the fact that there is a briefing note and that we must have access to it. We don't yet have the clarification that it will be sent, so I'll repeat that we are debating the amendment and that, until we have an official commitment from the Liberal Party, which holds the majority in the House of Commons, I will vote against this amendment this evening.

The Chair :

Before I turn it over to Ms. Yip, I'll clarify something. I think the only way you could get it would be through an amendment to the motion. [ English ] Ms. Yip, you are next.

Jean Yip :

In other committees, I've heard people read whole books in fact, and great paragraphs, so I would just like to know where in the Standing Orders this is referred to.

The Chair :

I will come back to you on this, Ms. Yip. I'm going to read here, but in the meantime I'm going back to Monsieur Lemire. I won't call a vote or anything like that. I won't allow a vote until we've settled this.

Jean Yip :

Okay.

[ Translation ]

The Chair :

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

Sébastien Lemire :

Mr. Chair, per your recommendation, I will move an amendment. We agree on striking the reference to the Privy Council and the Prime Minister from the motion. We can deal with that quickly. I move to replace the deleted portion with the following: “as well as the briefing note prepared by Janice Charette, Clerk of the Privy Council, dated May 27, 2022, for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau”, as indicated in the May 3, 2023,

article by David Reevely in The Logic.

The Chair :

Thank you very much. [ English ] Mr. Osborne, I saw that your hand was up. This is basically an amendment to your amendment, which would strike “the Privy Council, and the Prime Minister's Office" and would request this document.

Tom Osborne :

I'm not opposed to it, but I'm just wondering if it's cleaner to move forward with the amendment that is there and then put another amendment requesting this information.

The Chair :

It's now before us as an amendment to your amendment, which I view as more of an attachment to your amendment—

Ron McKinnon :

It's a subamendment.

The Chair :

Yes, it's a subamendment. Thank you. I'm just going to check with the clerk here for a second. Mr. Osborne, it has been put forward as a subamendment—thank you, Mr. McKinnon—to the amendment. It is in order, so I'll allow it to stand so that we can debate adding this to your amendment, which is going to remove those two.

Tom Osborne :

I think it is in order. I'm just wondering, I guess, more for Mr. Lemire, whether it is easier to—

The Chair :

Could I summarize this?

Tom Osborne :

Yes.

The Chair :

Where we're at is that we're going to strike “the Privy Council, and the Prime Minister's Office” and replace it with this letter date. Would you agree with that? You're welcome to take 10 seconds. Is that what you're proposing as well?

Tom Osborne :

It is. I was just wondering.... No, I mean, it is in order so we'll proceed as Mr. Lemire had put it forward.

Ron McKinnon :

I'm just wondering if we could get this clarified in writing before we carry on?

[ Translation ]

The Chair :

Could you send us your subamendment? [ English ] In the meantime, I will suspend for two minutes Thank you.

(1655) (1700) The Chair :

No one's going to explode, but there's some agreement. There's some agreement, and I'm going to take this in two steps. The first one is that we're going to move on a vote, unless there are comments on this, because I can't call for a vote. I'll read what the two steps are. We're going to deal with the first. We're going to remove “the Privy Council, and the Prime Minister's Office”. The second vote is going to be to insert the letter that Monsieur Lemire is requesting here, with specific language, which we'll read into the record. On your amendment to strike “the Privy Council, and the Prime Minister's Office”—

Ron McKinnon :

There are two places for “Prime Minister's Office”. Is that right?

The Chair :

The second one deals with.... We'll come back to that one, because I think that's a technical one. Mr. Osborne, are you okay if I proceed with your amendment?

Tom Osborne :

Yes, to Mr. McKinnon's point, it's for all references to the “Privy Council” and “Prime Minister's Office”, in the second paragraph.

The Chair :

Are you removing the other “Prime Minister's Office”?

Tom Osborne :

Yes. The amendment was for all references to the Privy Council and the Prime Minister's Office in the second paragraph.

The Chair :

That second one was just housekeeping anyway, just to basically follow the law, and I think that's fine.

Tom Osborne :

Yes.

The Chair :

All right. We went slow. There'll be another shift up here. Go ahead, Ms. Tesser Derksen.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thanks, Mr. Chair. First, I just want to make sure we are going to get an answer on the reading into the record.

The Chair :

Yes.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

It's a point of interest, too, for other committees that I might find myself in.

The Chair :

It's actually a ruling. I haven't looked at the full

article here. Hold on. It popped up. In 1956, the Speaker—and I'll come back to this shortly—ruled that the practice of reading speeches is an undesirable one and should be discouraged. That was in relation to debates in the House. That's why I said you can reference notes, but we've never had members come in here and just begin to read as a way.... I'm not suggesting you're filibustering, but we are getting on that line, where it's “potato, potahto”. Again, members are entitled to talk as long as they like provided they don't repeat themselves and provided they're not reading. I will come back with even more on it if you like, but I'd also like to keep this moving forward.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Just because I want to wrap it up, I want to submit something from

chapter 13, “Rules of Order and Decorum”. If you look at “Citation of Documents”, I take it that there was a discouragement. I think that is the term you used, which is not actually a rule against, I will submit. From my understanding, there is a convention that people can read things into the record. That is accepted, and again, it's not a rule. We have this kind of nebulous space for

interpretation. In terms of the “Citation of Documents”, we see: “no Standing Order which governs the citation of documents” and “the House is guided”, from what I understand, “mainly by custom and precedents”. If we're reading from “articles”, which is what I was suggesting to do to get it on the record, or “books or other documents by [any] Member during debate”.... I believe Ms. Yip mentioned that in another committee she'd been on, it's pretty standard practice that it is accepted.

I think our colleagues across the table would probably agree with that, because I've been at committees where the opposition members have read at length from documents that are sometimes related and sometimes not. Given that it's an accepted practice and it's not prohibited in the rules—

(1705) [ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

[ English ]

The Chair :

We have a point of order. I have to hear that.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Okay. Sure.

[ Translation ]

The Chair :

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

Sébastien Lemire :

I think this attempt at a filibuster is completely off topic. I urge you to go to a vote.

[ English ]

The Chair :

I'm going to hear this. I do want to try to find a middle ground here. Ms. Tesser Derksen, go ahead.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you so much. I believe it's strongly on topic, because my friend Monsieur Lemire is the one who is tabling a subamendment referring to a letter from an article. I don't know much about the historical context of that. Somebody had mentioned—I can't remember who it was—that they would like to see the article, but we'd need to have it translated and it would need to be sent out. This could be something significant and, as members of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and members of the government, we need to make sure we know what we're agreeing to or not agreeing to.

We can't contract into something if we don't understand the perimeters of what we're contracting into. I'll just back up and summarize what I had said. There's no order against it. There's no clear order permitting it, either. I think we've determined that it's a matter of convention and it has become an accepted practice. I do recall reading, when I was first elected, about the rules of procedure. There had been a point in time when nobody read speeches in the House. You wouldn't read statements by members, and SO 31s would not be read. You wouldn't read a speech.

I think we see pretty frequently now that people are either using notes to prompt them or actually reading verbatim. It's clearly an accepted practice within the House of Commons, within debate and in other contexts. I believe what you're referring to is that a speech shouldn't consist of an extremely long quotation that could potentially go on for hours. Also, we're not supposed to quote from the Hansard blues, I believe. This is kind of new territory for me to explore, so bear with me. I believe I've heard members quote from private correspondence before, as long as they identify the source.

If you're reading a quote, that means “reading”, and in the interest of accuracy, I think that's something you'd want to be able to do. I know we can't quote from proceedings of a committee before they've been reported to the House. It does seem like there are some perimeters there that we have to fit ourselves within. I guess it's a question that's up for debate in general. This happens sometimes in law as well—

The Chair :

Let me make the debate easy. I'm going to stand by my ruling. The option you have now is to challenge the chair. If you're not satisfied, you can then bring it before the Speaker, and the Speaker will make a ruling. I will point out that I have a pretty good record with my rulings being upheld by the Speaker—the Liberal Speaker, for that matter. I'm confident on this one that when it comes to a quasi “not accusing you of anything” filibuster, the idea of bringing in written materials and reading into the record is not encouraged. I don't know of committees that have allowed it.

Normally committee members will point at one another. Ms. Yip and I experienced that last committee when Conservatives would accuse Liberals and Liberals would accuse Conservatives in filibuster debates. Members have to be able to sustain their arguments without repetition and without reading articles into the record. We all do research on the side. If members feel they want to read the

article that Monsieur Lemire has cited, they're welcome to do that, but I'm not going to open up the door to articles when I don't know how long they are and we have the pertinent facts. My ruling is going to stand on this. I appreciate what you're saying. You say convention, but a convention is rules that we have stood by over time. Reading into the record while a debate is going on is not something we want to consider. It works in the moment, then the other side uses it and then we're here much longer than necessary. That is where we're at. We were just on the cusp of voting for Mr.

Osborne's amendment to strike “the Privy Council, and Prime Minister's Office”. Clerk, you may proceed with that, please. I've already called the vote, I'm afraid. There will be an opportunity in a second, Ms. Tesser Derksen.

(1710) [ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

Mr. Chair, I move that the amendment be adopted on division.

[ English ]

The Chair :

I will accept that. (Amendment agreed to on division)

The Chair: We're back to Monsieur Lemire's amendment. I'm going to have the clerk read it into the record. [ Translation ] It will be read in French. [ English ] You can use your listening pieces.

[ Translation ]

The Clerk of the Committee (Natalie Jeanneault) :

This amendment applies after “January 1, 2017”. Mr. Lemire moves: That the motion be amended by adding the words: “as well as the briefing note prepared by Janice Charette, Clerk of the Privy Council, dated May 27, 2022, for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau”.

[ English ]

The Chair :

This is the document Mr. Lemire is asking the committee to call for. This is the briefing note written by Janice Charette, the Clerk of the Privy Council, dated May 27, 2022, for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. I have Mr. Osborne first off the mark. Then it's Ms. Tesser Derksen.

Tom Osborne :

I'm going back to my previous amendment—where we took out the reference to the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's Office—but I will get to the point because it relates to this. I'm not trying to go back to an amendment we just voted on. The reason we took out “the Privy Council, and the Prime Minister's Office” was that it didn't fit within the guidelines of the Access to Information Act . I'm not sure here. I know the rules in Newfoundland and Labrador are, perhaps, a little different from the rules in Ottawa.

What I am wondering is this: Is it within the act to ask for a briefing note written by the Privy Council Office? If it is, that's well and good. Maybe a subamendment to Mr. Lemire's amendment could be something along the lines of, “within the policy and guidelines of the Access to Information Act”. My concern is that, as members of this committee, we are directing government to do something that may be against the guidelines and policies in the Access to Information Act.

If we put a subamendment in there saying, “as long as it's within the guidelines or the polices of the Access to Information Act”, we're not directing government to do something that is against the act.

The Chair :

I'll give you my view, and Ms. Yip is welcome to correct me. We had the law clerk in here several times on this point in the last Parliament. The committees of the House of Commons, in addition to the House of Commons, have the power to summons any document at all. It is then up to the government to respond to this however it sees fit. We've had governments in the past that have not done so. We've had others that have worked with committees to produce documents based on certain conditions. What we don't generally do is add laws, because these laws put up barriers.

For example, if a journalist wants this document, they can't just call for it. Committees are different from journalists. I'm not going to rule on this. This is up for debate. It's not necessary, because committees have the power to call for these documents, and the government will respond in the way it sees appropriate and then come back to the committee. Ms. Tesser Derksen.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To speak to the amendment with respect to this letter that's now been asked for, I know I've spoken at length about the importance of this

article that my friend Mr. Lemire referred to. I have actually read it. I would like to express my understanding of it, and perhaps there could be some discussion. I think it would help inform colleagues around the table too, given that we are going to vote on it. From what I understand, it was an

article from May 2023, and it was about how federal benefits systems were supposed to be overhauled. It is drawing from the lessons learned from Phoenix. What I understand is that there was $135 billion or $136 billion in annual payments, and the technology that handled those payments was very outdated. What the

article speaks about is that the IT system that was delivering the old age security benefits, which is really at the heart of what Mr. Lemire is concerned about here with this motion, was quite old. I think the

article references that the system is “old enough to claim benefits itself” because it's “a 60-year-old relic”—that's how I believe they referred to it—that the government had already tried to replace and had failed to replace. I don't know the years off the top of my head, but suffice it to say that the government had attempted a replacement, and the replacement had failed. In this article, again from 2023, there were updates that had been made recently, relative to the date of the article, that allowed folks to claim those benefits online. The

article was quite critical, and it does reference a gentleman, Cliff Groen, who I had put into the motion that I tried to bring forward a short while ago. He was a senior federal public servant at that time, and he had been in charge of the review and the overhaul since the summer of 2023, I believe, even though it was messed up the first time. I believe what Mr. Groen said was this: “The information gets entered by the client, if they’re applying online, but then our agents [at the department] have to...enter [that information] into the system”, so there is some data movement. It's submitted by the original user and then processed and entered by the people working at the department. The

article continued to say that the old age security program, what we refer to as OAS, was supposed to be the first program of the three big federal benefit programs, and we already talked about Employment and Social Development Canada. I believe Mr. Groen was a senior assistant deputy minister in the department at the time that this

article was written in 2023. After old age security came the Canada pension plan, or maybe vice versa, and employment insurance. There are these three buckets of services that are being provided and supposed to be overhauled by the system. “Collectively”, the

article said, these make this project “the most important information-technology project in the history of [the country].” If we go back quite some time to Confederation, this is the largest project of this nature that has been undertaken. These three programs, from what I understood, dispensed $136 billion in payments between 2019 and 2020. We're talking about large dollars that are being managed by these departments. The total package of upgrades, which we know as “benefits delivery modernization”, was estimated at the time of the writing of the

article to be $2.2 billion, and it was supposed to take more than 10 years.

(1715) The

article went on to say that if anything went “awry”, or if anything went wrong so that the “critical support payments” did not go out, it would make Phoenix, the pay system for federal public servants that had been launched in 2016, and not very successfully, as we know, “a footnote in the history of government IT catastrophes”. It wasn't very glowing or very encouraging. The

article said that nearing its end, “Things have not gone flawlessly so far.” It didn't say things had not gone smoothly. They had not gone flawlessly—thus far; the

article was from 2023. It was noted that the project had experienced repeated delays up to May 2022, I believe. That's when the Prime Minister at the time had been briefed on it “to bring him up to speed on major digital projects in the federal government. Three, including a replacement for Phoenix”—which we mentioned—“were progressing acceptably in their early phases. This benefits overhaul was the fourth.” I think the reason my colleague Monsieur Lemire brought up the

article was that it referenced Ms. Charette. Now we have a motion for potentially producing a letter. The

article mentioned Ms. Charette as the clerk of the Privy Council at that time. It noted that she was “the very top federal public servant” at the time. Whether that's right or wrong, I guess the

article thought it was correct. It's believed, by whichever journalist prepared the article, that possibly “the document warned that the benefits project had missed...milestones and had failed to spend money budgeted for it.” This is not something that's unusual for this committee to hear. In fact, earlier today we heard the Auditor General talk about all the money that had been invested in Indigenous Services Canada, yet we haven't seen a return on the investment that would be expected from dollars of that amount. I believe Ms. Kusie mentioned earlier that there had been a theme recurring. It seems this

article might be in agreement with what she said as well. The

article also noted that there had been officials in “oversight roles” who had “raised concerns about ESDC's capacity to deliver under the set timelines and budget”. The

article referenced Ms. Charette's memo as implying that as well. Getting back to the memo, which the writer of the

article apparently had some knowledge of, Ms. Charette wrote, with regard to federal computer systems generally—and this is something we also heard from the Auditor General several times when she came before this committee—“institutional knowledge about custom system design, function and interdependencies have not been captured and communicated over time”. Mr. McKinnon mentioned this when he was talking about information technology and how quickly the technology changes. If federal departments are not staying abreast of knowledge as it evolves, then there will be a lag. Eventually, it will get down to the end-user as a lag in the provision of services, which is not acceptable. The

article said that this meant that the government at that time was “critically low in the expertise needed” for the maintenance and replacement of those legacy IT systems. Again, you can have the hardware. You can have the infrastructure and the power to implement these systems, but if one is critically low in the expertise needed to maintain a legacy system that is greatly outdated, it's not much use to anyone. From what I recall, the

article mentioned that they were using something called COBOL-based screens. From my very limited knowledge and understanding of information technology—my husband, who's in IT, would be very disappointed in me today—COBOL-based screens are very manually based.

(1720) Mr. Groen was referenced in the

article again and talked about old age security in particular. In particular, this COBOL-based screen, which is very manual, is used in the OAS system. If I recall the quote correctly—

[ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. If people are reduced to talking about the type of screen, it's irrelevant. In any case, I don't think there's anything about the

article in the motion we're currently debating. Here's the basic question. What does the government have to hide? I think this very clearly shows us that the government has something to hide.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Lemire. [ English ] Ms. Tesser Derksen, you have the floor.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate my friend's interjection. I will remind him and this committee that he is actually the one who referenced this

article when he was speaking earlier. It doesn't mean the government has anything to hide. Quite the contrary, I'm summarizing an

article that is extremely critical of government systems and the lack of critical knowledge and expertise that was present in the department when the government was trying to overhaul these systems. I'm being quite critical of my own government in this context.

(1725) Ron McKinnon :

The previous government....

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Yes. Thank you, Mr. McKinnon. The devil is in the details. In terms of the old age security legacy systems, there was one of those that the

article referenced. It quoted Mr. Groen, if I recall correctly, as saying, “There's one OAS—

[ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I would reiterate that talking about an article, regardless of how relevant it is, has nothing to do with the content of the briefing note.

The Chair :

I understand, but Ms. Tesser Derksen has the floor.

Sébastien Lemire :

Mr. Chair, she's doing indirectly what you said we can't do directly. Generally speaking, that's not allowed in the House.

[ English ]

The Chair :

I'll allow her the floor a little longer. I am listening.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's certainly not my intention to annoy or irritate my honourable colleague, whom I respect very much. I think, though, it's genuinely interesting what this

article talks about. I was talking about Mr. Groen being quoted in the article. Mr. Groen said that there was one old age security legacy system, but there were “interfaces with lots of other systems as well," so one would need to shift from a different screen to a different screen. Many of us work in front of technology. We all have it in front of us right now. You have one document on one screen, but you want to pull up another document and you want to reference the two, so you have two screens in front of you that you're trying to shift through. It sounds to me like that it's not very intuitive and quite cumbersome and time consuming. The programming language this

article discussed, COBOL, was devised for mainframes going way back. I'm not going to talk about all that because it's going back to 1959. It was already something called an “occult tongue”. Again, my lack of IT knowledge is showing. I apologize.

Ron McKinnon :

I'll talk COBOL.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you. I'll pass it along to Mr. McKinnon in a minute. We all remember Y2K. That bug was referenced in this

article as well. It says, “institutions with older computers panicked about [that] in the late 1990s. Canada wasn't alone in running into [this technology] wall when the pandemic hit older social-welfare computer systems in 2020.” The pandemic seems to make an appearance in all of these cases. Getting back to pensions and unemployment benefits, the

article notes that these are “among many federal services delivered with computer systems held together by masking tape and chanting”. In other words, some of this stuff has been “forgotten”. Antiquated knowledge is problematic because, once again, it's delaying the delivery of the service to the people who need it the most. As Mr. Lemire has said repeatedly, seniors in Quebec and all across Canada have found delays in the payments of their benefits. The

article says, “The previous attempt to update the OAS system would have seen it integrated into the Canada Pension Plan system, which [was a] more youthful [system] but still old enough to vote. Efforts to migrate millions of data points about OAS recipients”—who are at the heart of what we're discussing today—“and their payment histories ended in failure,” according to Mr.

Groen, “because the pension system couldn't handle it.” It continues, “The obsolescence of [those] critical systems became a crisis when the economy crashed”, and I'm not going to take us through that debacle. “The result was the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, the CERB, which bypassed the mess because it was delivered largely through the more modern income-tax system.” Therefore, we have an example of one more modern system that was using more recent technology—more user-friendly, more accessible—that was delivered successfully.

However, these very crucial benefits that should have been going to seniors and folks on EI were being delayed because the technology was held together by what the

article calls “masking tape and chanting”. I'll go back to Ms. Charette's memo from May 2022, which my friend wants produced. The

article referenced that the memo “told the prime minister [of the time] that with benefits-delivery modernization in disarray, there was 'an upcoming decision regarding leadership for [the] project.'” That's public knowledge in the article. The

article goes on to say that the decision was to turn to the person the government put in charge of CERB back in 2020: Cliff Groen. Cliff Groen, whom I mentioned in my motion that failed, became the person in charge of this. At the time, the

article states that Mr. Groen was working alongside a “technical lead”—John Ostrander—who brought the information technology knowledge to the issue. The

article goes on to say, “Before the CERB assignment, [Mr.] Groen had had increasingly senior jobs at Service Canada starting [back] in 2006.” I think I recall this. It's important to talk about Mr. Groen because I mentioned him in my motion, and he could end up coming before this committee. Mr. Groen was even quoted in this article. He said, “I have really extensive experience and knowledge of these programs”. Those were programs the government was trying to put in place at the time. He added that his experience and knowledge was “probably more than anyone [else] at the senior level”. We're talking about someone who has extensive knowledge and expertise. The

article questioned whether that was a strength, and said it would depend on whom you ask. The

article stated another person's opinion. A senior vice-president of government relations and policy for a tech lobby group called Technation argued that there would be “no reason why people who are [really] familiar with particular programs would be the best people to replace the computers that run them.” There's a presumption there that it might not actually result in the outcome that the program anticipated.

Their opinion was, for example, “If ESDC is mandated to deliver the service, then they are the subject-matter expert,” but “They're not necessarily the expert at managing that project, nor should they be.” It goes on to say, “ESDC's programs are big...but the Canadian government is not the first to overhaul the way it delivers large social benefits.” The

article does point out some comparable examples.

(1730) I'm a big fan of comparing what we do in Canada with what other nations may have done. Of course, we always have to put a specific Canadian lens on everything we do because we are a unique country, with citizens who have expectations that might be different from those in other, comparator nations. I still think it's a good idea to make comparisons in order to see how other people are doing things successfully, so we compare against them. The

article I read—I'm summarizing here—thought the same thing. One senior adviser who was interviewed “pointed out that the Ukrainian government has rapidly expanded an app”—we all use apps on our phones, as they're quite handy—“for its citizens to access documents and services since the Russian invasion in February 2022.” You have, here, something that was calamitous for the people of Ukraine. Times were very tough, and still are. At the time of the Russian invasion in 2022, they were able to use an app that expanded their ability to access government services. This is in a time of war.

I think that's really intriguing and quite inspiring. At the end of 2021, there were 15 digital documents and 12 services in that app. The

article notes, “The additions have included tools for reporting the destruction of your home and seeking government support as a result, and for finding internally displaced people.” There's also a chatbot the app uses. It “takes information on the movements of Russian forces.” It's really incredible how, even at a time of military conflict, we are utilizing technology to keep people safe and to make it as convenient as possible for them to make sure the government knows what it is they need.

This senior adviser said, regarding the Ukrainian example, that all of this was outsourced: “It was all done by industry, in concert with the subject-matter experts”, who are really important and “know how they need the service to be delivered to Ukrainian citizens.” This is very important. I mentioned we have to look at everything through a uniquely Canadian lens because our needs are different. The

article notes, “The Canadian government's plans include [lots of] outsourcing.” I'm wrapping up the

summary here, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the indulgence. In August 2022—this is referenced in the article—“ESDC announced it had hired Deloitte”, which was a Technation member. You may remember that, earlier on, I mentioned Technation occupying a large space within technology consulting to handle the onboarding of the old age security system. “This contract alone”, at the time of the article's writing, was “worth nearly $194 million.” That's a “monster” contract, especially “by IT-world standards.” The

article mentions the senior adviser saying that they heard from one of their members that “if you were a commercial company, in most cases you would not undertake a project more than $10 million at a time, simply because of the risk for both sides”. The

article notes, “OAS is a monster program, delivering more than $60 billion a year to seven million people.” This is a tremendous program, and it affects the lives of many Canadians. The

article says the modernized benefits system is being built on a private sector platform called Cúram. I'm sure my friend Mr. Lemire is very familiar with this. He has brought it up before. Again, it informs his motion to a great extent. The

article explains that “It's formerly an IBM product, but was part of IBM's spinout of health-related offerings in 2022.” At the time of the article's writing, Cúram belonged to a company called Merative, which was owned by a U.S. private equity firm called Francisco Partners. It notes, “IBM worked on Phoenix, as well, albeit as contractors customizing software that came from Oracle.” We're getting a sense, in this article, of the web of hands involved in the development of this technology and in the rollout of these systems I mentioned Mr. Cliff Groen in my initial motion. This is what the

article says:

Groen knows about Phoenix.

“The root issues and causes of the Phoenix problems are very complex and I don't think it'd be fair and appropriate to lay that at the feet of just the technology solution,” he said.

Anyway, Curam is unrelated to the PeopleSoft software underlying Phoenix.... [At the time of this article], Curam [was] working successfully in 19 other jurisdictions, and the government has learned from the project management failures that led to the Phoenix catastrophe....

These are the words of Mr. Groen.

(1735) Cúram is, though, the software that the Ontario provincial government had chosen for an overhaul of its social benefits programs in the early 2000s, and that had gone badly—I will note. There was a provincial politician at the time, who was—

The Chair :

Ms. Tesser, pardon me. You still have the floor. I'm going to just nudge you back to relevance on the amendment.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Okay. Thank you. It was a long article, Mr. Chair, and I'm trying to give a fair

summary here. I'll talk quickly about the key lesson from Phoenix. Mr. Groen had said that there was a “need for clear and narrow accountability paired with high-level involvement from other affected departments” and that we had to move forward in small steps. There's a bureaucracy involved here, and small steps ultimately mean more time is being eaten up, again, in the delivery of these services to people who need them most. Ultimately, accountability for the program rested with Mr. Groen within the bureaucracy. He said that himself in this article.

There were other departments that were “closely involved” but “deciding whether to push the button or wait” was not a group decision; it was his. Groen said that unlike with Phoenix, there was not meant to be any “big bang”, when the old system would be turned off and everybody would start using the new one, “Not even for the first tranche of work” in the old age security system. The

article says, compared to Canada pensions and EI, old age security is “a simple benefits program”. In general, when you reach the age of 65, you get monthly payments for the rest of your life. I know this, Mr. Chair, because my parents are both well over the age of 65, and until my father's death just last February, he was collecting old age security; my mother continues to. They rely on it very heavily. However, even old age security was “being sliced into thin pieces for the changeover.” In June 2022, Mr.

Groen said that they were “going to start by using the new system to process applications from people who get OAS-like benefits from certain other countries, with which Canada has agreements to coordinate coverage.” We have agreements with a number of countries to coordinate coverage. If that slice were to work, then in the spring of 2024, the plan had been that Service Canada would “start testing the new system for all OAS applications.” Mr.

Groen went on to say that essentially he'd be taking “a swivel-chair approach, in which clients’ applications will be received, and then our agents will process those applications both in the new system, but also in the old system”. That may seem counterintuitive to efficiency, but he was the expert at the time. If that were to work, “the real changeover” would have happened in December 2024. The

article says that the old OAS system, those COBOL things we were referring to, would remain as a backup. Mr. Groen said in this

article that they were not going to be turning off the old system “until the entire program is successfully delivered and proven and it operates”. They had rollback plans that hopefully would never be needed, but if they did need to use them, they could “roll back onto the existing system.” At the time of the writing of the article, the federal budget of the day appeared to give Mr. Groen's efforts a vote of confidence. It had boosted ESDC's funding by almost $124 million, if I'm not mistaken, and that was to be “over seven years to finish the job” with the old age security.

That would be before taking on the Canada pension plan and then EI after that. Mr. Groen was quoted as saying that the systems were working “adequately” at that time. However, he did acknowledge that they were “fragile”, that they would “only get worse without action” and that he could “not accept any risk of failure in the delivery” of those programs to Canadians. That was my impression of the article, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate your giving me the time to summarize it, because it gives me a more fulsome understanding of the historical context in which we are working. I thank my friend, Mr.

Lemire, for bringing it up, because it summarizes what happened in years previous. I know there were serious concerns with the Phoenix system, and that was referenced at length within this

article as well. It's interesting to take that historical perspective and compare it against what we are dealing with now. Hindsight is 20/20, and of course if folks at the time had had a crystal ball, they might have graded themselves with an “A” in the anticipated trajectory of the program. As it was said in the

article numerous times, failure was not an option, because any failure, delay or setback in the changeover of the system would ultimately be borne by real living people. We're not talking about numbers and statistics. We're talking about real people, like my mom and dad, who were collecting and relying on their old age security benefits. The

article really brings to bear—as I called it in the last meeting—the “noble” intention of my colleague, Mr. Lemire, in bringing this motion forward to address the needs of the recipients of these benefits.

(1740) Many of us around this table.... Let's be honest, we're all paid very well for the work we do. I don't think many of us have to worry about not being able to afford groceries on our next trip to the grocery store. Not many of us need to worry about being able to afford rent next month or scraping together payments for medications and things like that. There are people who do. There are a lot of people who do.

Although there are many steps we are taking to ensure that they are taken care of and they're not falling through the cracks, something as basic as being able to count on their old age security each month is absolutely crucial to their ability to plan. Particularly in the case of seniors who really value their independence and their ability to budget effectively and have certainty, that certainty gives them the ability to be more independent in their daily lives.

Something that we or someone might consider to be a hiccup in the delay of delivery of these services can be absolutely catastrophic to folks who are in vulnerable positions and who are living sometimes day to day, or month to month, and rely on this money to come into their account in a timely manner. I will end this segment of my discussion by going back to where I started, which was saying that I commend my colleague for his concern. I commend him for bringing the issue forward. I also commend him for his willingness and his capacity to work with us on the numerous amendments that we're bringing forward.

However, underpinning all of that, Mr. Chair, is the fact I keep coming back to: If we're going to get real work done on this committee, we have to be doing it in a realistic way. The motion that was originally presented by our colleague Mr. Lemire was in theory perhaps sensible—

(1745) The Chair :

I'm going to lead you back. We're on the amendment.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry. I've lost track of the amendments. It's a production of documents, essentially, that we are referring to. The third amendment, just for my own purposes, was removing all references to the Privy Council and Prime Minister's Office with a subamendment.

The Chair :

No, that passed. It's adding “as well as the briefing note prepared by Janice Charette, Clerk of the Privy Council, dated Friday, May 27, 2022, for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau”.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Of course, Mr. Chair. I apologize. That is inevitably what led us to talk about the article, which I summarized just a few moments ago. The

article refers to that memo, which I believe is the same memo that Mr. Lemire is referring to. I believe that the

article was prepared by the Canadian Press, if I'm not mistaken, which is a reputable news agency, and by a reputable journalist, who had basically summarized the essence of the memo. I summarized a great deal of it in my article—

[ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. It was The Logic.

[ English ]

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you very much. I'm not sure what purpose would be behind requesting the production of the memo if it's already known where the information would lead us. The news services were summarizing it years ago. I will yield the floor now, Mr. Chair. I wouldn't mind being put back on the list for the next round of speakers, but I will allow other colleagues, if they wish to weigh in on either the

article that I've summarized or the purpose of making a request for such a document when it's not likely to bear out. I know Mr. Lemire has mentioned that he believes the government has something to hide.

[ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

[ Inaudible—Editor ]

[ English ]

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

I respectfully disagree. If I felt that there was something to hide, I certainly wouldn't be summarizing on the record an

article that was quite critical of the government and actually references the memo that Mr. Lemire had mentioned.

[ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

Exactly.

[ English ]

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

I don't want to use the word “conspiracy” because that connotes something that might be a little out in left field.

Ned Kuruc (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, CPC) :

Please don't.

The Chair :

Order, everyone.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

However, I want to make sure that we are careful when we say that such-and-such has something to hide, because people watching this or who may read a

summary of this meeting could potentially be misled. It's certainly not incumbent on me to tell folks what to think about what they're reading about in transcripts, but it is incumbent upon me and, I think, upon all of us to make sure that folks are well informed and are receiving information that's based in reality and on facts. I would have to respectfully disagree quite strongly with the submission that the government is trying to hide something.

The submission that the only way to come to a resolution among all these colleagues around the table is to produce some random document that's already been referenced in news articles.... I'm not sure that's getting us to where we want to be. I think it also risks having us spend a lot of time talking about something that might not necessarily yield something that's useful for all of us. Again, I said I was going to yield the floor, so I yield the floor, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

The Chair :

Thank you. Just before I turn to Mr. Lemire.... Ms. Khalid, welcome back. I wasn't sure when you came in if you were waving to say hello or if you were waving to speak, so I thought I'd better clarify that.

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

I was waving to add my name to the list, just in case.

The Chair :

I'm glad I checked. I'd hate to be brought before the Speaker again. Monsieur Lemire, you have the floor.

[ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I gather from this masterful, almost Castro-worthy demonstration, that it was indeed a very obvious waste of time. Those who respect people's intelligence don't put on that kind of performance, although there was an interesting

interpretation that a $900-million contract is a massive contract. Now it's up to $6.6 billion, which is why we're asking for documents and evidence. For me, the question remains: What does the government have to hide now, since it has clearly been showing that it's in panic mode for several minutes and hours now? Mr. Chair, I would ask that we move to a vote.

(1750) [ English ]

The Chair :

I continue to have a speaking list. Ms. Khalid, you have the floor.

Iqra Khalid :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. First off, I can tell you that it is definitely a very great pleasure to see you again sitting in that chair and to be back at this committee on public accounts. I also love that tradition maintains itself and that we're still on document production, two years after I left. I did look at the text of the motion. I'm just coming out of HUMA. The motion we were debating in HUMA is basically the exact same motion.

My question, I guess—and I hope members will indulge me as I pontificate on this—is why multiple committees are asking for millions of pages of documents to be produced within 30 days. My understanding is that this is what this motion is requiring. Also, then, I'm trying to understand where we are at with this. In HUMA, the committee has witnesses that are relevant to the documents that are being requested here. HUMA has the officials coming before them on May 7.

To me, I would feel that it would be a more productive and efficient use of this committee's time to perhaps bring in the witnesses instead of putting all of that burden on the public officials.

To be honest, I think a better way would be to say to them, “Hey folks, we know that you have a lot going on and you're supporting us day in, day out in committees and within all aspects of public service”, and to not say “and now you have to translate these million pages of documents, which we may or may not read.” I think there's a better way forward for us to identify the specific areas that we are challenged in and that we have questions on. Why don't we bring in the relevant departments and the relevant officials, as HUMA is already doing?

I know that members have the ability to sit in on various committees if they're interested in the type of work that's being done there. Why don't we be efficient, instead of wasting thousands of public service hours and so many of our very valuable resources that we rely on to maintain this place and to maintain committees, and be a bit more mindful as to how we spend Canadian tax dollars? I know that there have been questions around whether government is to be trusted. Those questions have been asked by opposition parties not just since we've been in government but since the beginning of Parliament, all in all.

I think it's time, Mr. Chair, for us to move beyond that. I think this committee on public accounts fulfills a really important role within our parliamentary system. I think government operations fulfills a very important role within our parliamentary system, and I also think it's important for us to use these committees for the purposes for which they were built. By forcing document production on something that we don't need when we already have access to that information, as was clearly outlined by Ms. Tesser Derksen....

I'm just not sure why we are spending all of this time and these resources in debating something that we could have built with consensus.

(1755) Mr. Chair, I'm sure you remember that when I used to sit on this committee, I tried my level best to build consensus among the members. I know you may not agree with that, Mr. Chair, but it was the truth. I had a good relationship with the majority of the members on this committee. I tried to see what we could do to make sure that we could move our objective as a committee forward. I think that would probably be the better way forward.

As I said in HUMA just now as well, when we have access to resources and access to department officials, it just does not make sense to me to request so many documents and then have them translated—because we have to respect both of our languages in our country—in order to read them or not read them. This stalls the work that the committee could actually be doing. We are anticipating a spring economic statement shortly. We have a lot of things on the go in this committee.

I think it would be prudent for all committee members to consider whether or not what is before us today is actually helpful or hurtful to the objective of our committee. I will leave it there, Mr. Chair. It's great to see you. I wish you the very best. I hope that I'll be back again very soon to continue to add to the conversation in this very important committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Thank you. I see Mr. Osborne and Ms. Tesser Derksen. I'll go to Ms. Yip, please, and then to Mr. McKinnon. Ms. Yip, you have the floor.

Jean Yip :

It's wonderful to see my former public accounts committee colleague, Ms. Khalid, back and speaking on such an issue, sharing her wisdom. Thank you for that. It also brings back memories of the public accounts committee and what we studied probably over a year and a half ago. I remember that there was a request for documents, and there was a big deal about looking at costs of contracts and so forth. There was a lot of time spent finding the documents and translating them, and then the staff had to also provide redactions. It took up a lot of resources.

It also detracted from our work here on the public accounts committee. We all had to take extra time, aside from our normal committee work, to go into a special room where we could peruse the documents. There were a lot of documents, so many that you didn't know, really, what you were looking for. This is why I feel that, with this, we have to really look at the scope. We have to look at what it really is that we're looking at so as to not make it a fishing expedition. When I was looking at those contracts and all those pharmaceutical companies, it was like looking for a reason.

There were thousands of pages to go through. I did not feel that it was a good use of our committee's time. At the end of the day, what came out of it? Nothing. I would hate to use our scarce resource of committee time here for exactly the same reason. Thank you.

(1800) The Chair :

Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. McKinnon.

Ron McKinnon :

I just want to build on what Ms. Khalid said, as well as what Ms. Yip said. First, the fact that HUMA is looking at exactly this same document production request is a problem for me. We don't need both committees doing this or asking for this. It makes me question the motives for doing this. However, in any case, as Ms. Khalid mentioned—and we're trying to narrow down the scope to focus it—as originally asked for, we're looking at, arguably, millions of documents. We want to have these millions of documents—

The Chair :

I'm going to interject and nudge you over. I will highlight that this is about one document now, and it is the document that Mr. Lemire was talking about, which is dated May 27. I appreciate what you're saying. I know you still have an issue with the whole motion, but we're on an amendment seeking one document. I'll direct you back to that memo that was written. You have the floor.

Ron McKinnon :

That's fair enough. I'll go back to my older problem later. I would emphasize what Ms. Tesser Derksen said—that there's really no need to incorporate this into the motion. It's publicly available. We can bring it in and introduce it any time we like. I'll leave it there.

The Chair :

Going forward, if you miss your turn, I want you to signal again that you want to speak. Mr. Osborne, go ahead.

Tom Osborne :

That's fair enough, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. I was trying to make progress through the back door to see if we could move this along. In any event, the benefits delivery modernization system is the largest IT transformation in Canada's history. Think about that for a moment. With something of this magnitude, something this large, will there be bumps in the road? Undoubtedly. This is a monumental modernization program, and it will deliver old age security, employment insurance and pensions to Canadians for generations to come. Do we have to get it right? Absolutely.

Are there people who are not being properly served yet as a result? Absolutely. We need to focus on how to fix that. The old benefits delivery system was fragile. It was experiencing constant outages and it was expensive to maintain, so the government had to move forward with a modern, reliable and efficient system, and that's exactly what this system will be. I understand the concern of Mr. Lemire that not everybody is being serviced properly by this yet. That brings me to the document that's being requested.

If we're looking for a document from a former clerk of the Privy Council to a former prime minister, I'm not sure what that would accomplish or if it would fix the problem going forward. I'm not sure at this stage if Mr. Trudeau is even worried about this document. I'm not sure what we're accomplishing with this document. I am more focused on getting this right and focusing the attention, which is part of the abundance of documents—the millions of documents—and the concern.

I know we're speaking of one document here, but we should be more focused on getting this right going forward than on finding out what happened under a previous prime minister. I would ask this again: What's the benefit of this particular document? Should we not be more focused on how we ensure, for your constituents and Mr. Deltell's constituents—I think it's mostly in Quebec that the concern exists right now—that this system is fixed and we are getting the benefits to your constituents? If this document were to fix that, then I would see the benefit, but the focus should be....

That is why I had advocated earlier for Ms. Tesser Derksen's attempt at an amendment to get the Auditor General in and find out where the gaps are and how we fix this. Aren't we here to fix things in government and ensure that we bring the whole of government or departments of bureaucrats, if they're not doing things the way they should be...to ensure that we get them right so that all constituents across the country are getting the benefits they deserve in a timely manner? Bringing the Auditor General in will highlight not only what went right but also what went wrong and how we fix what's not working properly.

Again, I contend that is what we should be focused on. What we are trying to do on this side, if we bring the Auditor General in and there are areas our staff can look at to ensure we get to the root of the problem, is do that.

(1805) A study by this committee that brings witnesses in to have them testify will do that. I'm not sure digging up a dinosaur will fix what's happening today or what will happen going forward.

The Chair :

It sounds like you're done, Mr. Osborne. Ms. Tesser Derksen, do you want to speak? Should we go to Mr. Lemire?

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

I'm okay to yield to Mr. Lemire, but I do have some more thoughts.

The Chair :

I'll come back to you.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

If you don't mind...thank you.

The Chair :

Okay. [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

Sébastien Lemire :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, we've been negotiating in fits and starts for about a week now to see if we're able to come to an agreement. I think we've just seen a rather telling demonstration of government filibustering, indicating that there is indeed a reason to raise this issue. I'm genuinely wondering. There's a vote happening shortly in the House, but even if we don't vote on the motion today, if we continue our work, at the end of the evening, one or two new Liberal members may magically appear on this committee and overturn the vote.

I think we're also speaking to Quebeckers and Canadians this evening, as well as to journalists, who act as intermediaries, as the fourth estate, who watched things unfold and realized without a doubt that the government had something to hide. In that sense, no matter what happens today, I'm going to hold my head up high because I'll know that I've done my duty to the end. This committee and my honourable colleagues across the way voted in favour of a motion to shed light on IT systems. That happened in the House, and those same members voted against the same mo