Canadian Heritage Committee on June 4th, 2024

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Hello, everyone. I'm going to call the meeting to order here this afternoon. Welcome to meeting number 122 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. I would like to acknowledge that this meeting is taking place on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Pursuant to the order of reference on Wednesday, November 22, 2023, the committee is resuming its consideration of Bill C-316, an act to amend the Department of Canadian Heritage Act respecting the court challenges program).

Before we begin, I would like to ask all members to consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback. Take note of the following preventive measures in place to protect the health and safety of participants. Use only the black approved earpiece. The former grey ones are no longer in use. Always keep your earpiece away from the microphones, and when you're not using your earpiece, please place it face down on the sticker placed on the table for this purpose. Thank you for your co-operation.

Today we're going to look at Bill C-316, an act to amend the Canadian Heritage Act regarding the CCP. We welcome back our witnesses from the Department of Canadian Heritage, who are available once again to answer our questions on clause-by-clause. We have Blair McMurren, director general.

Welcome back, Mr. McMurren.

As well, for the first time, we have Ms. Labbé, manager of human rights.

Welcome to the committee.

We will resume debate on Ms. Rachael Thomas's subamendment to amendment G-2. That's where we're going to pick it up today.

Ms. Thomas, if you don't mind, could you lead us off on the subamendment to G-2?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Sure. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the floor.

Just before I get to that, I wish to give notice of a motion that I'll be tabling here at committee. It shouldn't come as a surprise. On Sunday, we had a historic event take place, and that was game six between the Edmonton Oilers and the Dallas Stars. Of course, the winning team would go on to compete for the Stanley Cup, which is quite a great achievement. That winning team was the Edmonton Oilers, the Canadian team that will represent us as we go for that cup. Should we be successful, it will be the first time in more than 30 years, which is quite exciting.

Canadians tuned in to the CBC in hopes that they would be able to watch the game there, but unfortunately they were not able to, because it was not made available. The CBC is a public broadcaster. It's paid for with tax money, so for Canadians to be forced to subscribe in order to access that game seemed altogether inappropriate.

The motion that I'm giving notice of reads as follows:

Given that the CBC receives $1.4 billion from taxpayers, the CBC holds the rights to broadcast the NHL playoffs, the CBC chose not to broadcast the Edmonton Oilers game that sent them to the Stanley Cup finals, the committee calls on the CBC to commit to broadcast all Stanley Cup final games and to report this finding to the House.

This motion is now on notice at committee. Thank you.

(On clause 3)

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you, Ms. Thomas. As I said earlier, we're going to stay with you on the subamendment to G-2, and you're up.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That's perfect. Awesome. Where we left off last day, I understand, was with a subamendment to amendment G-2 having been moved to replace lines 26 to 28 in clause 3. I believe I already read it into the record, but, again, we would insert “and financial performance of the program, as well as a list of all the cases that received funding and the amount provided for each case”. It would end there, and that, of course, would be inserted into amendment G-2 as amended.

The reason for this is that we want a list of all cases, to create greater accountability and transparency, and we want to know the amount of money provided to each of those cases, also to provide greater accountability and transparency. These were things that numerous witnesses called for around the court challenges program. They wanted to see a greater degree of accountability being achieved and wanted to see greater transparency with the Canadian public in terms of how tax dollars are used with regard to funding cases or not funding cases. Of course there are others that are “ixnayed”, so I would be seeking the support of committee members in order to make sure that this is accomplished.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you.

Ms. Coteau.

Oh, Mr. Coteau.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, sir.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

I just wanted to make it—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I get “Michelle” and “Ms. Coteau”. That's fine.

To the officials, what is the purpose of holding back some of those details the subamendment would reveal? Is there a reason for it?

I believe you addressed some of this at the last meeting. Maybe you could take a minute to explain.

[Blair McMurren, Director General, Strategic Policy and International Affairs, Department of Canadian Heritage]

The current practice of the modernized program—as we've attempted to explain at different moments, and I think as the executive director of the program also explained during her testimony—is to try to achieve a balance between transparency, on the one hand, and respect of what you could describe as litigation privilege or solicitor-client privilege, or simply personal privacy, security and safety, on the other hand, of end recipients of the program funding. For that reason, the specific amounts and the names of recipients are not published in any format, currently.

What's envisioned, once they've exhausted all avenues of appeal, is a publication of the case names and the outcomes of those cases.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Are there cases in which the information is revealed because there is agreement that it's in the public interest to provide that information?

[Blair McMurren]

Currently, that's not the practice. It would be at the discretion of an end recipient of program funding to reveal that kind of information. It's not disclosed through the reporting of the modernized program or through the contribution agreement that governs it.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay. Thank you so much.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Okay, Michael.

We're going to move to Mr. Champoux.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I'll be very brief, Mr. Chair.

To refresh the memory of my colleagues around the table, we discussed this Conservative subamendment at length at the last meeting. I was under the impression that we had reached the stage where we had to vote. It seems to me that the ideas had been expressed on both sides and that the questions had all been asked.

That's just a comment. Personally, I'm ready to proceed with the vote, unless someone else has questions, of course.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Are there any more questions?

Seeing none, we'll have a vote on the subamendment to G-2 by Mrs. Thomas.

(Subamendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Now we'll go to amendment G-2.

I remind you that if G-2 is adopted, BQ-4, CPC-6 and NDP-2 cannot then be moved, due to a line conflict.

Is there any further discussion on G-2?

(Amendment as amended agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

Now we go to BQ-5, I believe. If BQ-5 is adopted, I'll say once again that CPC-6 cannot be moved, due to a line conflict.

Mr. Champoux, do you want to speak to BQ-5?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Chair, I think my colleagues understand the principle of BQ‑5. We're all talking about transparency, accountability, and being able to do a proper and as fair an analysis as possible of how the program is being managed. In our case, it's absolutely not a matter of trying to obtain information that could be prejudicial to the applicant, but of having a little more transparency on the way this program is managed.

With that, I'll stop here, because I want us to move quickly to a vote. However, if my colleagues have any questions, I'm obviously ready to answer them.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Are there any questions on BQ-5?

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We'll move on now to BQ-6.

Again, Mr. Champoux, if you have a few seconds....

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I had CPC‑6 instead, Mr. Chair. However, if you want to discuss BQ‑6, we're ready.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

I had CPC-6....

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That's what he just said.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

No, we just did BQ-5.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

No.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Did we not? We just did BQ-5.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Before that, we did CPC-6.