Information & Ethics Committee on July 15th, 2008

[Marc Mayrand]

Mr. Lamothe is at the Commissioner's Office. The Commissioner has been conducting an investigation for a little more than a year now. Obviously, if I can rely on this document, the Commissioner gathered information during his investigation that was not available at the time I had to make my decision more than one year ago.

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

That means that he, the Commissioner of Elections, has more information than you.

[Marc Mayrand]

After a one-year investigation, yes.

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

Did he meet any other people that your office didn't meet?

[Marc Mayrand]

I'm not informed about all the Commissioner's efforts, but I assume he met people.

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

He met other people and obtained other information, and he is able to attribute the expenses to the candidates.

[Marc Mayrand]

I think that, if you read the entire affidavit, you'll see that it also refers to another procedure that the Commissioner conducted, which was a production order served on the firm that handled media buying.

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

Retail Media, yes.

[Marc Mayrand]

And I think he was able to obtain information—

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

—that you didn't have.

[Marc Mayrand]

No, obviously, that's an order. It's information that, once again, was obtained as a result of a court order. It was not available to me at the time I made my decision to deny the claims.

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

Is the referral you made to the Commissioner called a referral?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes.

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

Do you often do that?

[Marc Mayrand]

I would tell you quite quickly, that more than 500 referrals were made to the Commissioner respecting the 39^th general election.

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

So for each of them, you were satisfied that a referral was required.

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes. The financial side was evaluated and there had indeed been offences under the act.

I'll give you a typical example of what unfortunately happens too often and constitutes an offence. I referred very briefly to it. Transferring funds to a candidate before he is officially a candidate is an offence under the act. The act is drafted in such a way that that constitutes an offence. This is the kind of matter that will go to the Commissioner and that he must address.

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

This is my last question. I'm going to go quickly. What kind of cooperation did you get from the Conservative Party as a result of which you were unable to obtain the information you needed and had to send the RCMP to conduct a search?

[Marc Mayrand]

Once again, it is the Commissioner who conducts his investigation and who uses the tools at his disposal to conduct his investigation—

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

Did the Conservative Party cooperate in order to give you the information, the documents, you needed?

[Marc Mayrand]

I believe there were frequent exchanges, as I said in my presentation a little earlier this morning, with party representatives, agents and candidates concerning all these transactions. Unfortunately, I ultimately didn't find the information sufficient to authorize reimbursement, and that is why there is a dispute before the courts.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you, Madame Lavallée.

I believe it's Mr. Hiebert now.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Mayrand, for being here.

Mr. Mayrand, we respect the work that Elections Canada does both here and around the world, but that doesn't mean we can't necessarily disagree about the interpretation of an act that you might agree is incredibly complex. It's certainly possible that Elections Canada could make a mistake. In fact, we know that Elections Canada has made mistakes in the past, even recently. The Federal Court earlier this year made a ruling that indicated that the interpretation of Elections Canada was mistaken.

Do you admit it's possible that Elections Canada might be mistaken in this case?

[Marc Mayrand]

That's why we have a court of law.