Information & Ethics Committee on June 6th, 2024

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

I have a point of order, Chair.

Just to make sure that we understand exactly what Ms. Khalid is proposing, it might be best to suspend for a few minutes because certainly I'd like to see some text.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Yes, I was moving in that direction, and I'm sure members want to see the subamendment.

I need to talk to the clerk.

Let's suspend for a couple of minutes until everybody has it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

The subamendment as proposed by Ms. Khalid has been sent out to the members of the committee. It is in order because it's in relation to finding out who Randy is, potentially.

We are on the subamendment by Ms. Khalid, so I have Mr. Green first, and then I'm going to go to Mr. Kurek.

Go ahead, Mr. Green on the subamendment, please.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

You're quite right. I think the heart of the matter of where we're at right now is trying to find out who this Randy is—the person I affectionately call “alibi Randy”. There have been lots of bizarre twists and turns at this committee in just trying to get to the heart of the matter.

Quite frankly, whether it was the minister or the company in question...and I respect that the minister would have to say, of course, that he wouldn't have any knowledge of anybody inside this company. However, we've heard arguments from the governing side here, from the Liberal Party, that somehow disclosing this information is a grave violation of privacy. It has been equated to some kind of circus. I would say that in this particular case, the circus is of the minister's making.

Just to recap, this is a company with millions of dollars in contracts, something like $8 million. There are allegations of fraud, which, to my understanding and publicly reported, haven't even been defended, and then there's just the whole structure of the way in which the minister has such a close relationship to this day. It doesn't pass the smell test, quite frankly.

Really, all of this—I'll say it again—could have been avoided if the real Randy had just stood up. If the company had just said it—this is Randy, this is what Randy does, this is Randy's contract—it would all have gone away. Now we're going down some rabbit hole about phone records. While I think the use of the term “burner phone” might perhaps come off as a bit dramatic, the truth is that it would be expected that a minister and it would be expected that most members of Parliament would have their own personal phone lines. Of course they would. You wouldn't want to conduct anything personal or non-business-related on your cabinet cellphone.

I'm unwilling to accept all of the drama around time zones and cabinet retreats and faraday boxes and all of these different types of things. I'm simply interested in finding out, officially, who this Randy is. Who is alibi Randy? Absent alibi Randy, I would say that the minister has dug himself into quite a hole here. On the surface of it, he lacks credibility in his testimony. On the surface of it, on the stories that have been reported—they are publicly reported and have not yet been refuted, I think, in a meaningful way—that a minister would even want to be tangentially related and connected to a company as nuclear as this, in this moment, seems beyond my understanding. He wouldn't answer basic questions about payouts, and was obstructionist and obfuscated on what I think were very straightforward questions. For that reason, we're at this point.

I would have liked to hear from the Ghaoui company. I would have liked to hear from all of the witnesses to get to the heart of the matter. If it is the case that this story, as convoluted and bizarre as it is unfolding, was technically legally allowed, we have problems. To the average person, to the objective person on the outside looking at this, given the facts that have been reported, given the lack of any, I think, substantive defence by the minister and by this company, I think it puts it all at risk, quite frankly. Any time there's a scandal in this committee, I believe the general public doesn't necessarily discern whether it's Liberal, Conservative, Bloc or New Democrat. In their minds, I believe they just see all politicians as being corrupt. There's a kind of broad brush.

We've heard today in the arguments from the Liberal side that they're now being pulled into this. Why? Why are you allowing yourselves to be pulled into this mess when it's not your mess? You are not receiving deferred payments from this company. You do not have a 50% interest in a company that had almost $8 million in contracts that, as I understand, are being pursued for various allegations of fraud. That's not your mess. Why you're putting in the extra overtime work to try to make this go away doesn't make sense to me as a New Democrat.

While I appreciate the way in which social media, personal attacks, ad hominem attacks and information taken out of context has a direct impact on the way we do our business, this simply could have been solved, absent the filibuster last meeting, with straightforward answers and with a minister who was willing to take responsibility and accountability for the role and involvement they had in this company and whether or not they were in contact with them.

What we have to do, as a committee, when this is done, hopefully, is provide recommendations to close whatever gaps and loopholes seem to exist and are present here.

For that reason, Mr. Chair, I certainly will not be supporting this amendment. I don't want to go down this bizarre rabbit hole of the forensic auditing of people's phone accounts, assuming that they only have one phone line. I don't know what Randy's number was before he was a minister. I don't know what phones he has or doesn't have. I don't think we have the power to investigate that.

This notion that we're just going to take their word for it, quite frankly, doesn't cut it. It just doesn't cut it. I'm unwilling to do that.

I have no ill will toward Mr. Boissonnault or my Liberal colleagues here. I get along with them, I think. We work together. I work together with members on the opposition side to hold the government accountable. That, ultimately, is our role.

Again, for the people who are watching, all of this can be solved by Mr. Boissonnault and the people who are connected to this company proactively disclosing who alibi Randy is. That, to me, would have been the simplest thing to do a week ago to make all of this go away. Say, “My name is alibi Randy, and this is who I am. This is what my job is. Here's my contract. Here's long how long I've been working” and it's case closed. We can move on.

I'm telling you that all of this extra effort.... I said this to the minister. I'm going to say it to my Liberal colleagues. It doesn't look great. It just doesn't look good from where I sit, which is certainly not anywhere close to the Conservative caucus, but as an objective person of this committee, from where I sit, the more you all dig in on this, the worse it's going to look for everybody involved.

Let's avoid all of that. Let's have alibi Randy stand up, maybe even do an interview, talk about the good work of this company and perhaps provide some kind of defence for the allegations that have been thrown their way—I don't think they've done that in court yet—and then let's move on.

I'm not going to be party to some procedural shenanigans or anything else, like some subamendments to an amendment that will take us off track and ultimately try to obstruct, delay or frustrate our just getting to a basic answer. I don't intend to participate much more in this meeting beyond this. I just want to go on the record and be very clear on where I stand.

I support this. I think it's a reasonable motion that Mr. Barrett has put forward. I think it could all be solved if this company just took some accountability and responsibility for once and disclosed who alibi Randy is.

What I'm telling you right now.... I'm just going to say it. You have all had your time for your filibusters, so I'm going to have mine right now. I don't think there's an alibi Randy. There it is. There it is folks. I don't think there's another Randy, and I think that's why we're in this mess.

Now it's left to Mr. Boissonnault and his colleagues at this company, which he supposedly no longer has any dealings with, but still receives 50% ownership and, ostensibly, payouts to the extent that we aren't fully clear about.... I don't think there's a Randy. The onus is going to be on this company to prove there is, not on us to prove there isn't.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We are on the subamendment. I have Mr. Kurek, followed by Ms. Damoff.

I see your hand, Mr. Housefather.

On the subamendment, it's Mr. Kurek.

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

Thanks very much, Chair.

I always find it interesting because quite often I hear from Liberal members of this committee that they're concerned that we're distracted doing other things and they want to get back to the hard work of what this committee is doing. I know we have some some reports and whatnot that are are sitting on the table, yet here we are into a multiple-meeting filibuster by Liberals based on the answer to what seemed at the time, when initially posed by the media, by Conservative members and by other opposition parties, to be a pretty simple question: Who is this Randy that's in question?

We now have parliamentary resources, hours and hours of committee time and the Liberals doing backflips trying to make excuses and muddy the waters. They're saying phone records but not witnesses, and this but not that and the other thing. It all comes down to a very simple question: Who is this individual referred to as Randy in these text messages?

I don't understand. It is truly bewildering that the Liberals would burn so much political capital, that they would burn so much time and that they would spend so much energy trying to equivocate on this very simple question and turn a simple question into a scandal.

While the Liberals are blaming opposition parties for asking these questions and suggesting that maybe there's something to hide here.... Mr. Chair, the reason we are asking these questions is that the Liberals refuse to answer that one very simple, straightforward question.

In the absence of an answer to that question, one is inevitably led to the conclusion that they are trying to hide something, whether it is the members of this committee doing it willfully or whether it is a direction from the top that they cannot allow these answers to be given. Whatever the case is, quite frankly, that's their internal policies and, I would suggest, an attitude that has led them to the situation they're in today.

When it comes down to it, Chair, what this committee needs to get to the bottom of is that very simple question, and then we can proceed very logically after that point.

The one question I would hope that all members of this committee.... I understand there are some question marks around the conduct of these companies and contracts, including some government contracts and some very suspicious things. I know that when the minister came before this committee that was one of the most partisan attitudes that I've ever seen a minister of the Crown present before committee. He, members of the Liberal Party and so many others simply refuse to answer the very basic question of who this Randy in question is.

My encouragement to all members, to you, Mr. Chair, and to those who are watching is that until there is a forthrightness and willingness from the Liberals to answer that simple question, the inevitable conclusion is that they are trying to cover up and hide something damning.

I would simply leave it there, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Kurek.

I have Ms. Damoff next, followed by Mr. Housefather.

Go ahead.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

First, I want to offer to Mr. Green that it was Minister Boissonnault's personal phone records that were provided to the committee.

I have a question through you, Chair, to the clerk. Has the request ever been provided to Minister Boissonnault from the committee to provide the information that was asked of him?

I know he provided his phone records proactively, but have we ever requested that information from him?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I'm going to leave that to the clerk to respond to.

Madam Clerk, I know that we did ask for the phone records. That was one of the requests.

Have there been any others that you had acted on?

I'll let you address the committee on that.

[The Clerk]

I have not specifically sent an email to flag the questions because it's really the responsibility of the minister if he wants to answer the questions or not.

Questions were asked. He has access to the blues and he can send the information.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Does that clear it up?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Yes, it does.

I want to clarify, because Mr. Green said that we needed to see his personal phone records, and I wanted to clarify that what he provided were his personal phone records. Any other phone that he might have, be it ministerial, would be a whole.... First of all, he wouldn't and shouldn't be using a government phone for personal business. When I deal with my Terry Fox Run stuff, I use my personal email account, and we all do that with our personal business.

I would also like to make a comment on Mr. Kurek saying that we were filibustering. I think through yesterday and today.... We put forward an amendment today—thank you to my colleague Ms. Khalid. I sat through days, in fact, Mr. Kurek was there, when the Conservatives were filibustering Bill C-21, and it went into the night for hours and hours and hours with no productive amendments put forward and the abuse of public servants who were there at the time.

I don't think that we need Mr. Kurek mumbling to me, Chair, as I'm trying to speak.

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

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

He's mumbling under his breath. He's not disrupting the committee hearings. If he was, I would stop him.

I have a point of order from Mr. Barrett.

Go ahead.

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

I am loath to intervene, because I know it upsets the other side if we raise anything that they say in front of a 4K camera and a microphone. They claim that they're never interrupting, only interrupted, but yesterday Ms. Damoff was very sure—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Chair, what's the point of order here?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I'm waiting to hear it.

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

—that there must be relevance in what we're talking about.

Again, there were cries foul about interruptions, and we have it happening right now. Rules for me but not for thee. The relevance—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Chair, what's the point of order? You can't call a point of order and just go on a rant.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

He's claiming relevance.

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

There is relentless interruption. The Liberal members don't like to be interrupted but like to interrupt. They don't allow for leniency on relevance but they expect it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

I get it. Thank you.

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

She's talking about C-21, and that didn't happen at this committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Again, generally I try to give a wide latitude and expect that members are going to come back.

We are on the subamendment.

We have Ms. Damoff on the subamendment, please.