Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 18th, 2006

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Peterson, you'll have wait for the next round.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Fine. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Kenney.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Thank you.

On the practice that led to the speculation about Mr. Bronskill having made an ATIP inquiry, in this instance, on the March 15 call, is this a practice speculating on the names of journalists or others who have made ATIP requests, or is this more or less an isolated incident? Is it a general practice, an isolated incident, or somewhere in between?

[Gregory Jack]

Thanks for your question, Mr. Kenney.

The speculation in the e-mail was not that Mr. Bronskill was the requester. It was that he may end up writing a news article about the information that has been released.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Right. Thank you for correcting me.

[Gregory Jack]

I would say that speculation as to the likely result of news articles based on ATIs is not a common practice.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

In the whole controversy surrounding this, for some reason, there was an article that with some suspicion raised the fact that two members of the Prime Minister's staff—I think it was Christine Csversko and somebody else—in an e-mail circular that you made, Mr. Jack, asked to be added to this distribution list. Do you recall that?

[Gregory Jack]

Mr. Kenney, the two individuals you're referring to are Ms. Croy and Ms. Thompson. The article was published in The Gazette, I regret. I do not recall specifically any instance when they would have asked to be added, but that doesn't mean that they didn't.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Okay. So to the best of your recollection or your documentary record on this incident, their request to be added to this distribution list had nothing to do with an effort to seek the names of ATIP requesters, as the article implied.

[Gregory Jack]

No, sir, because the call summary that was being distributed in fact had nothing to do with the circulation of ATIP requesters and was a legitimate summary of a phone call on communications issues that pre-dated the current government and I would consider to be common practice. Therefore, no.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

So you were offering to broaden the circulation list to people on the grounds that they would be presumably interested in the content of these conversations dealing with pandemic and security-related issues. That's the rationale of the call and of your minutes that get circulated. It's not about ATIP requesters. It's about pandemic issues and security-related issues.

[Gregory Jack]

Can you clarify? I'm not exactly sure what you're asking.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

The purpose of your call and the minutes that you take and then circulate is to summarize current issues with respect to pandemics and security matters, and not ATIP requesters' names. Is that correct?

[Gregory Jack]

Yes.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Do you have anything else you'd like to clarify, anything you've seen in the media about this story? This has been blown up into some huge matter of deliberate violation of the law. I'm interested to see if those who have written these stories will now issue corrections or retractions. But do you have anything you'd like to add?

[Gregory Jack]

I don't want to add anything, except to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear and to reiterate that in fact we are not privy to the names of requesters and never have been.

[Dale Eisler]

I would just reiterate that. We aren't privy to this information, and allegations that we are are not true.

I would also add that just as an operating principle for us, for myself at least, on access to information requests, it's really irrelevant who it goes to. I don't need to know that. I don't want to know that. I just work from the assumption that this is information that's going into the public domain, and therefore, we should assume it will be public information and we will need to deal with that and just work from that level playing field on all of them. There's no need to differentiate even what categories they're going to. It's just not relevant information, in my mind.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Laforest.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

My question is for Mr. Eisler.

Last weekend, the Ottawa Citizen reported that there is a computer system that, in a way, is designed to conceal from the public certain information forwarded to the minister.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

On a point of order, is that why this witness was called, to deal with this item? I think it's another item on the agenda and not this particular item. So is it fair that he ask a question that has absolutely nothing to do with why this person was called?

It's just a question of the clerk.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I haven't even finished my question.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'm just asking, Madame, if it's in order or not.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Order.

Have you finished?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Yes, sir.