Public Safety Committee on May 23rd, 2024

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I'm confused by Mr. Genuis. We moved his motion. He seems resolved that we not be able to vote on his motion. We've heard hours of his argument on why his motion is worth supporting, but he won't let it come to a vote.

I'm just wondering if he could clarify that point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. McKinnon.

Mr. Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Though it's not a point of order, I'm happy to clarify what has occurred.

I think the record will show actually that debate on my motion has barely occurred; there's been maybe three or four minutes of discussion.

To review, what happened was this, and I can't remember the precise dates. There have been two meetings, broadly speaking, at which this matter has been under consideration. The first meeting was one in which the chair presented the subcommittee report. When I began to read an amendment into the record, the chair then suspended so that the amendment in writing could be distributed and translated. Then a vote began, so the meeting was immediately adjourned. There was no debate on the main motion at that time.

At the next meeting, I sought unanimous consent for a motion to resume consideration at that time. Mr. Bittle forcefully denied unanimous consent to allow us to resume consideration of this motion at that time. The Liberals have persistently prevented the issue of the Bernardo transfer, in the context of this amendment, from even being considered. Now they have, strangely, brought two ministers to a committee, pretending that they want to let those ministers testify. Instead of going to the ministers, the chair, Mr. MacDonald, who I think people will know is a Liberal MP—I know he does his best in the context of the committee, but he is a Liberal MP—chose to give the floor to Ms. O'Connell before the ministers could testify, which was a strange thing to do. If you had ministers here to testify, normally you wouldn't just give the floor to Ms. O'Connell.

That certainly implies that there was a plan to not have the ministers testify but to move consideration of a different matter. Ms. O'Connell is in fact agreeing with me. It sounds highly suspicious, and I agree that it is highly suspicious.

She moved the motion that we not allow the ministers to appear on a different item, and that is what has then directed us to a different item here. This is an item that needs to be discussed. We're not going to dispense with the discussion of the subcommittee report under this kind of artificially designed pressure tool by the government. We want to hear from ministers, and we also want to discuss the subcommittee report.

My suggestion would be that we proceed to hear from the ministers and then set aside some time to discuss the subcommittee report. I would even say there might be resources to allow for the resumption of discussion of the subcommittee report after the ministers and the other scheduled witnesses have appeared.

In the hope that members will see the benefit of allowing this to occur, I move that we proceed to hearing from the ministers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Is that a motion you're asking for?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Yes. It's a dilatory motion. I think it's dealt with on page 1187, but I might be off by a little bit.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

He has a lot of friends. Don't worry.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

It's a motion to proceed with hearing from the ministers.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Could we have a recorded vote about hearing from the ministers? We could even pass it on division.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

We could even pass it on division.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

We'll proceed with a vote.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Could we have a recorded vote, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Could we have a recorded vote, please, for the second time?

(Motion negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

Continue, Mr. Genuis, please.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I had hoped that the intervening moments would provide an opportunity for clarification of conscience among some of my colleagues, but sadly that has not occurred. This is a truly bizarre display.

I want to remind you that this study on car theft was proposed by the Bloc Québécois. However, today, the Bloc Québécois has decided to vote against giving the ministers the opportunity to answer questions on this subject. It's very odd.

The NDP, Liberals and Bloc are, allegedly, concerned about this issue, yet we have proposed multiple times that we adjourn debate on this other matter to allow the ministers to speak. I just proposed a motion that we proceed to hearing from the ministers, yet we have this Liberal-Bloc-NDP tactic of blocking ministers from presenting. This is consistent with the evident desire of Liberals to prevent any prospective leadership candidates from being heard at committee.

Mr. LeBlanc, as well as Mr. Rodriguez, should be held accountable on their files. That said, Ms. O'Connell was suspiciously given the floor at the beginning of the meeting, and she's reinforced the point. That was suspicious.

I do welcome the sort of [Inaudible—Editor] chorus reinforcement of my messages today.

Suspiciously, she was given the floor by the chair, and when she was given the floor, she moved a motion to shift to a different item, an item that was not on the agenda and an item involving the subcommittee's report.

Here we are, and I have tried, through a number of dilatory motions, to give the committee the opportunity to hear from the ministers, but those proposals have been blocked by the cover-up coalition. I hope other colleagues will see reason here and see the outcome. I hope they realize that it is better to give the ministers an opportunity to present and give us an opportunity to ask them questions.

On the subcommittee report, we are debating amendments that we proposed to the seventh report of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. The amendments we proposed are to a number of different sections. We have not proposed any changes to sections of the subcommittee report that deal with Bill S-210, so any suggestions to the contrary are verifiably false. These amendments are public. These amendments do not, in any way, impact the sections that deal with the study of Bill S-210. They deal with other matters.

The first change is in section three of the subcommittee report. The existing section proposed that the ministers appear together. It actually deals with the appearance of ministers. It proposes that ministers appear together for the first hour of a meeting. We proposed, instead, that it be amended to say that the ministers appear separately for one hour each on the study of auto theft.

This amendment is consistent with a proposal made publicly yesterday, as well, highlighting and reinforcing our belief. If each minister has an hour of time available, it makes more sense that they appear individually for an hour, so that they can each individually be asked questions about their own individual activities and their own work on their own portfolio.

Liberals are clearly doing everything they can to minimize ministerial accountability, first, by saying that the ministers would appear together all at once, and now, by moving this motion by Ms. O'Connell to prevent ministers from testifying. They are repeatedly lining up with their coalition partners to prevent us from hearing the ministers.

Our proposal as part of the amendment to the subcommittee report was, frankly, quite generous in terms of ministerial appearances. We did not propose that they each appear for two hours on auto theft. We proposed, rather, that they appear for one hour each. In the context in which the ministers have said they have an hour available to them, it would have been reasonable for them to appear separately for an hour each. That's what we proposed.

I also proposed that we invite the Minister of Public Safety to appear for one hour to answer questions on ArriveCAN. I can tell from his expression that Mr. LeBlanc is very interested in addressing the arrive scam scandal. We have been able to have a number of different witnesses, public servants and deputy ministers, come repeatedly to answer important questions on the arrive scam scandal, but we have had ministers relatively reluctant to appear, although I will say that one of Mr. LeBlanc's fellow contenders in the upcoming Liberal leadership race, Minister Anand, did appear and answered one hour's worth of questions at the public accounts committee. Ms. Anand has exceeded her future competitor Mr. LeBlanc in terms of her willingness to appear before committee on the arrive scam scandal.

Of course, the arrive scam scandal is something that happened. It involves procurement and various issues, but, crucially, it involves the CBSA. There seem to be some significant problems there, even in terms of officials pointing the finger at each other and accusing each other of lying. This is why, in our subcommittee report, we proposed that Minister LeBlanc be given the opportunity to answer questions from members of Parliament on the issue of the arrive scam scandal. We've been very generous in our proposal of only one hour.

The committee would, I think, be interested in hearing from Minister LeBlanc on the arrive scam scandal—what he knew when, what he did with that information, whether he thinks it's normal that a two-person company based in a basement somewhere received an overwhelming amount of money from his department, and what he did with that information once he received it. We have a system of ministerial accountability in which ministers should answer questions. Of course, the agenda for today was to have ministers answer questions on auto theft.

Look, there are many issues: the main estimates, of course, but also foreign interference and the proliferation of corruption and scandal under his watch. There are various other matters that we would be interested in hearing from the minister on. That is why, as part of the subcommittee report, we proposed amendments that would allow for the meaningful questioning of ministers, instead of this very limited and abbreviated interaction.

I know members of this committee and members of the public are very interested in our having that opportunity to question ministers, so in that vein I would propose—time having elapsed, with perhaps my having persuaded some members—that we now proceed to hear from the ministers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

A recorded vote....

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Could we have a recorded vote, please?

(Motion negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Yes.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

First of all, Chair, Mr. Genuis—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have a point of order.

Is Ms. O'Connell on a point of order?

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Mr. Genuis, it's a point of order, and I have the floor, so you can wait.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Is it a point of order?

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

You can wait. I have a point of order and the floor, so you can wait.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

You don't have the floor. You do have a point of order.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

I actually do. You're not the chair, so you can wait, and don't speak over me, as I've said multiple times.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Genuis can't continue to make the same motion over and over. If he wants to hear from the ministers, we have no speakers up. We're prepared to vote on his amendment. He's filibustering his own amendment. We're prepared to vote and get right to the ministers.