QUESTION PERIOD — Privy Council Office
Office of the Government Representative
October 1, 2025
Senator Moreau, your Carney government has expanded taxpayer-funded positions in the Government Representative’s Office. What you call the government liaison now has a deputy government liaison. What do these people do?
According to the Senate Rules, the government liaison ensures adequate votes from government party senators, substitutes government senators at committees and does some kind of undefined outreach. But you, and GRO, insist there are no government senators, so your liaison doesn’t actually need to count votes, and she’s the only government member of a committee, so I suppose she substitutes herself.
Also, no one in your Liberal government group seems able to define what “outreach” means. Your former deputy leader said, “We have discussions with different senators on different subjects. Do I have a definition? No.” With such limited prescribed duties for the government liaison, why do you now need not one but two people to do that job?
I have explained very explicitly why we are increasing the GRO to five members. First, we want to represent all regions of Canada: Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, Western Canada and Northern Canada. This is the main reason why we are going from three to five members. Then, it will be possible for all senators in this chamber to reach the GRO more effectively and rapidly, and — most importantly — it will be possible for the GRO to get its business done.
We are not only the representative of the government here in the Senate, but also the representative of the Senate to the government. Increasing the capacity of the GRO is very good news for all senators in this chamber.
Your GRO website says the government liaison “. . . works to ensure that all senators have the information they require in anticipation of votes.” Yet in June, the GRO team couldn’t tell me what the Liberal government spent $73 billion on in Parliament’s absence. Only Conservative senators voted “no” to that spending.
The GRO website also shows a Prime Minister’s Office photo of you on the same day with Prime Minister Carney and Minister MacKinnon. Was that beaming photo taken before or after you voted “yes” to that unexplained $73 billion?
We will have to agree to disagree on what the GRO is and should be.
I explained very clearly what I have in mind by going from three to five members at the GRO: to make it possible to best represent the Senate to the government and to best represent the government in the Senate.
Regarding the picture, you know we have people taking pictures every day. As far as I’m concerned, when and where the picture was taken are questions that are not as important. My main —
