Government Operations Committee on June 19th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Good afternoon. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 131 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. We're on our final day here.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Boo.

I'm sorry. We're on our final day. That's what I was booing about.

Excuse me. That was unparliamentary.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I was going to turn it over to the witness for his opening statement.

Please go ahead, Ms. Vignola.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a procedural question for you before the witness takes the floor.

I apologize in advance to the witness, who is an expert in his field. I want to thank him for his patience, as he has already been waiting for a good hour and a bit.

However, I absolutely must ask a question about the discussions we had on Monday about the motion from April 10.

There seems to have been some confusion, given that the April 10 motion we voted on clearly stated that we would first study the documents and then create a subcommittee. This is what both Mr. Genuis and I understand from the blues. This was approved with the agreement of the official opposition whip and the sponsor of the original motion.

However, this aspect of the motion is not reflected in the minutes. In fact, last Monday's discussion did not reflect the full content of the motion.

I would therefore like to ask that we take a few minutes to clarify this. We reached a unanimous agreement on April 10, and I would like us to be able to discuss this matter again quickly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. I missed the final sentence there. Would you repeat your final sentence?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Basically, we need to clarify what exactly was adopted on April 10. The chief whip of the official opposition party and all of the parliamentarians around the table agreed to the amendment I had proposed to Mr. Genuis' motion. In the end, it was completely changed. In other words, the blues don't reflect what's in the minutes regarding the subcommittee to study the issue of indigenous procurement.

I therefore request clarification on the motion as amended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

The motion that I have, and that I've been working from, is the one that I think we distributed a couple of days ago.

It starts with, “That, pursuant to Standing Orders 108(1), (2) and (3)(c), a Subcommittee on Government Operations”. It then goes through (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) and finally (f), which ends with, “as long as this decision is made before Thursday, June 20, 2024”.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

The motion recorded in the minutes of the June 17 meeting does not reflect the testimony given at the April 10 meeting. Here's what I said on April 10:

My amendment will allow us to do an analysis before we undertake a much more in-depth study, which would probably require a lot more documents than the ones I'm going to suggest. Nevertheless, it will allow us to do an analysis, which will then help determine whether there is a widespread problem. If so, we'll have to carry out a much more in-depth, much more comprehensive analysis, including a number of meetings. Without further ado, here is the amendment I'm proposing. All that would be left of Mr. Genuis' motion are the substantive ideas. The wording would be different. It would read as follows: “That, in accordance with Standing Orders 108(1), 108(2) and 108(3)(c) of the House of Commons, the committee order the production of the Government of Canada's list of qualified aboriginal businesses in both official languages; the list include (a) any summary of the key details about each company in the government's PSAB database, (b) the number and value of contracts received by each enterprise and (c) the list of subcontractors used for each contract; the information be provided to the committee by May 20, 2024”. … “committee members will conduct an analysis of the list and, further to that analysis, decide whether it is necessary to conduct a longitudinal study of the matter in committee or subcommittee, as they so choose, provided that this decision is made before June 20, 2024”.

This was the response from Mr. Genuis:

Thank you, Chair. We're hopefully coming towards a consensus. I think this is an important area to study. If it gives members greater confidence in the process, requesting documents as an initial step is very reasonable, and then the committee can evaluate next steps after that. I'm supportive of the amendment as well.

There was a consensus, both in terms of understanding what I was bringing and on the substance and content. The June 17 minutes do not reflect the consensus on the motion as amended on April 10.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

There are a couple of ways forward here that I see, but everyone can please weigh in.

On your amendment, it was kind of a shemozzle. I don't know how that will translate. Your amendment is actually an out-of-order amendment because it doesn't amend; it completely replaces Mr. Genuis's. At the time, we should have ruled it out of order, but the committee kind of pushed together a way forward, as we often do, less formally.

It's not perfect, so we have a couple of ways forward. One is that the subcommittee is not happening because we did not receive names. We're obviously down to our last day. We can choose to revise this when we come back in September, which will give plenty of time to look at the documents I think you're asking for, and then, present a new motion come September, ignoring this and ignoring your out-of-order amendment that we used to push together one complete motion.

We can move forward that way, if the committee chooses. The other way forward is that the committee can now decide on a whole new motion, but we have the minister in a few minutes.

I'm going to interrupt here.

Mr. Anderson, I apologize. Because of late votes, and because we have our next witness coming here at 5:30, we're not going to have any time. I'll let you know that we can excuse you, and the intent is that we will bring you back at a future date. I hope you are local. We will bring you back at a future date.

The original intent was to write the report over the summer, but I think we will have you back, and then we'll write the report then.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Before you do that, Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Yes, Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

—may I just request, through you to the witness, that he submit his statement in writing and that it be distributed to be on the record, should something happen materially over the summer and should we not get back to this in time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Yes, if he'd submits it, we'll have it translated.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It has recommendations, I imagine.

[John Anderson, As an Individual]

Yes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Perfect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I think you mentioned you have your opening statement.

[John Anderson]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Provide it to us. We'll have it translated and sent out, and then the intent is we'll have you back in September or October, and then you can actually read it to us. We'll give an opportunity for Q and A, and then we'll finish off the Canada Post study after that. We have you for only about five more minutes, anyway. I don't think you want to listen to us chat about someone else's motion.

We'll send it to the clerk, and we'll have it translated and sent out. It will got to the analysts as well, and then we'll see you in September or October, Mr. Anderson, with my apologies. Between the late vote and this, we won't have time to hear from you today. Thanks.

Go ahead, Ms. Vignola.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Chair, you know that I appreciate the work you do, but in my humble opinion, if the amendment was inadmissible, that should have been said at the outset, not two and a half months later. On April 10, the amendment was adopted as it stood by all committee members.

I don't know how many of you have managed to read and analyze the 6,900 or so documents. Personally, I'm a fairly fast reader but I haven't finished my analysis, so I'd venture to guess that most of us haven't.

I feel it would be quite premature to decide to create a subcommittee. In my experience, we'd run the risk of going round in circles instead of ensuring that Indigenous businesses really benefit and don't become front companies for other businesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Are you comfortable with the suggestion, then, that we perhaps reintroduce a whole new motion when we're back in September on this? The April 10 one is what our clerk cobbled together, as he often does, from our conversations, and that's how we got this one. We won't be doing the subcommittee because we're not able to re-establish it. We can put this aside and we will have, with everyone's general agreement—I sense that's where we're at—a whole new motion to do this after the summer. Is that satisfactory?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

As long as I can be assured that no one will take advantage of the summer to start a subcommittee study that we haven't agreed to, that's fine with me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We won't be able to...not a subcommittee.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm writing notes now to create a subcommittee for the summer with one member: Ms. Vignola.