Information & Ethics Committee on April 1st, 2010

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Sure.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Okay.

On Mr. Easter's motion as originally presented, unamended—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I'd like to speak to it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Absolutely, Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Given the committee's decision to vote against the amendment earlier on, I will have to vote against the motion itself. At the same time, I'm prepared to clarify the way the government would be prepared to respond to this committee, based on 300-plus years of parliamentary history, during which time the principle of ministerial responsibility has developed.

The staff members in question here will not be attending but will be represented by their ministers. Of course, ministers are responsible for the actions of their offices and they take responsibility for what happens in their bureau. That is a core principle of parliamentary democracy. As such, ministers will appear if this motion is passed.

So I would advise the committee that they could expect to hear from the Minister of Public Works, Ms. Rona Ambrose, and from the Minister of Human Resources, Ms. Diane Finley. At this time, I think those are the only ministries that are singled out. As such, they would be the ministers who would attend and participate in the hearings and take responsibility for the actions of their staff and their offices.

There are one or two ways we could approach that. We could either amend the motion to reflect it, or the opposition parties can pass the motion as it is and nevertheless have the same result.

In order to align the motion with the reality, I would propose that we amend it to remove the mention of staff members and replace those staff members with the ministers responsible for the offices in which those staff members work.

My proposed amendment would be that after the sentence, “Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development”, you would delete everything and you would replace it with, “and the Minister of Public Works, Honourable Rona Ambrose.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

That's clear.

Okay, that's the amendment.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, I really have a question to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Hold on for a second. The proposed amendment is in order. Now we have debate on the amendment.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I really have a question to the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister. He's certainly talking about parliamentary tradition, but would he be stating before this committee that ministers had knowledge of these acts? Seeing as we are talking about staffers in the Prime Minister's Office as well, why is he not offering up the Prime Minister to come up before the committee? The implications in the Prime Minister's Office are pretty serious here as well.

Could he answer those two questions? Then I'll give you what at least my position is on the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I'm not sure if this is a question-and-answer...but it just so happens Mr. Poilievre is the next speaker on this amendment.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Sure. The first question was about cognizance of ministers about the daily activities in their—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

No, it was, did they have knowledge of these acts?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I have the floor, I believe, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Yes.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

It was about the cognizance of ministers about the daily activities in their offices and their departments. Of course, officials who work under a minister make literally thousands of decisions a day, and the ministers are not knowledgeable about them all. However, ministers do take responsibility for what does occur within their departments and within their offices, even if they were not aware at the time of those decisions. That's the basic system we have.

The one connection Parliament has to the ministries and to the departments is through the minister. That goes back to the time of King George at the end of the 17th century and beyond. So we have to honour the convention that has worked to create successful parliamentary government over the course of centuries.

The second question was about the Prime Minister's attendance at this committee. I think Mr. Easter understands that the convention has been that the Prime Minister does not appear before parliamentary committees. That was the case under the previous Liberal government; it is the case now.

The controversies the member has raised are particular to several ministries. The ministers in charge of those offices are being offered up to take responsibility, so I would encourage him to work to allow that responsibility to be executed properly.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Okay. Mr. Poilievre has proposed an amendment to the motion, which deletes everything after “the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development” and adds “and the Minister of Public Works, The Honourable Rona Ambrose”.

That is the amendment. Does everyone understand the question that's being posed now on the amendment proposed by Mr. Poilievre? Are you ready for the vote?

[An hon. member]

A recorded vote, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I'd like to be on the speakers' list on the main motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Absolutely. You're the only person I have on the list, so please....

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I appreciate the decision that individual members of the opposition rendered in casting their vote on my previous amendment. I detected from Mr. Easter's intervention that the sticking point is one that we can resolve. Our concern on this side is that we uphold the ancient traditions of ministerial responsibility.

Mr. Easter, who brought forward the original motion, has indicated that he would like someone to respond on behalf of the Prime Minister. I indicated earlier that the convention going back beyond this government to previous governments of a different stripe is that prime ministers do not appear in parliamentary committees.

However, if Mr. Easter and his opposition colleagues are insistent on having someone represent the Prime Minister's Office directly, and explain the protocols that staff members follow, there's someone who is ideally suited to do both of those things, and that would be the chief of staff to the Prime Minister.

I would be prepared to put forward the following compromise amendment. It reads as follows. After “the Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development”, we would delete all of what's below, except for “Mr. Guy Giorno, Chief of Staff, Prime Minister's Office”. That's the first amendment--again eliminating everything after the word “Development”, except for “Mr. Guy Giorno, Chief of Staff, Prime Minister's Office”.

The second part to my amendment would be to add “Minister of Public Works Canada, Rona Ambrose”.

So you would have the ministers responsible for the sections in which the incidences in question have been raised, and you would have from the Prime Minister's Office the head of the exempt staff, Mr. Guy Giorno.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

In brief, and I think members probably understand, but just for clarity, the witness list would be the Minister of Human Resources and the Minister of Public Works, as well as the Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister.

That's what is being proposed. We'll get the wording clarified, but I think for purposes of consideration, it is to eliminate the staff in those various departments.

Mr. Easter is on the list to speak to the proposed amendment of Mr. Poilievre.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I will be opposing this amendment as well, because there's a very good reason for asking for the people who are on the list.

I appreciate the fact that the parliamentary secretary has offered up the chief of staff to the Prime Minister, but I think we have a duty as a committee looking into this issue to question the people who have the knowledge of what happened here.

It seems to me that this denying or tampering or interfering with access to information happened in such a way that it could accommodate a minister's deniability. The way this happened over a period of time and across several departments leads me to believe that it's been structured in a way to allow ministerial deniability, and therefore we have to go beyond the ministers.

I guess the other point I would make is that the Prime Minister's spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, kind of alleged that himself when he issued a warning that due diligence and access requests “should be done by public servants, not political staff”.

This is an extremely serious and urgent issue. The only way we can really get to the bottom of it is if we go with the list as established in the original motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I'll put the question on Mr. Poilievre's third amendment, which is basically to have as witnesses the Hon. Diane Finley, the Hon. Rona Ambrose, and Mr. Guy Giorno, chief of staff of the Prime Minister's Office.

Does everyone understand the amendment proposed by Mr. Poilievre?

Are you ready for the question?

(Amendment negatived)

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We are back to the motion as presented. Is there any further debate on that?