Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 16th, 2023

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Commissioners, I'd like to thank both of you for your work. We've had the opportunity to work together over the past few years and I know you work very hard.

I'd like to come back to foreign entities, a topic addressed by my colleague Ms. Khalid.

You stated that it might be a good idea to regularize them. Right now, is that covered in the Lobbying Act? If not, do you have any ideas on how we might go about bringing foreign entities under the act?

[Nancy Bélanger]

Right now, if foreign entities are represented by people who are in contact with public office holders, registration is mandatory. Some foreign organizations register with us themselves, insofar as they are the ones in contact with public office holders and they reach the threshold of 30 hours of lobbying per month. This applies to those who do a lot of lobbying. Organizations that do no lobbying or do less than the threshold permitted and don't have consultants are not required to register. However, technically speaking, foreign organizations that do lobby are required to register.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I don't have much time left.

You have a little over a year left in your term. If you had three priorities to work on, would this be one of them?

[Nancy Bélanger]

I have only one priority to put forward: that the Lobbying Act be reviewed. That's all I ask, please.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Therefore, strengthening the act with respect to foreign entities could be part of the review, particularly when it comes to sponsored travel. That would be one concrete example.

[Nancy Bélanger]

It would be, yes.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Would you like to take the few seconds remaining to say anything else to the committee members about your priorities?

[Nancy Bélanger]

We are certainly going to continue to work very hard to improve the clarity of our documents. We're going to make this a commitment to try to push it forward.

Now that the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct is up to date, all I have to do is explain to you how we can improve the federal lobbying regime so that we continue to lead the way. The world is watching us. Right now we're losing our primacy; we're not as good as we used to be.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Fortier.

Just before we conclude with this hour's panel, Ms. Bélanger, we've seen a marked increase, as you've noted, in the lobbying registry.

One of the concerns I've heard from some members is that their name appears on the lobbying registry without their actually having met with the lobbyist. How can we avoid that situation? Is it incumbent upon members to notify your office at that point and say, “Look, we didn't meet with these guys”? Are there any penalties for those who do that within the lobbying community?

[Nancy Bélanger]

Please, if you do notice that, inform my office. We have a fantastic client service group, and they will communicate with the lobbyist. If I see a pattern.... Obviously, sometimes it's a misunderstanding. They sent you a letter and they thought they had to do a monthly communication report.

Please let us know. If it's someone who repeats it as a way of amplifying their profile, I can investigate. If it's inaccurate, I could send that to the RCMP.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Bélanger.

Thank you, too, Ms. Maynard.

That concludes our first panel.

We're going to take some time to switch up. I'm going to suspend the meeting for a couple of minutes, and then we should get started in probably another five minutes.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Welcome back, everyone.

I would like to welcome our witnesses for the second panel today.

First, we have Mr. Mario Dion as an individual. He is the former conflict of interest and ethics commissioner. From the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, we have Mr. Konrad von Finckenstein, Interim Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

Mr. Dion, I understand you have a brief statement that you would like to make to the committee, so we will start with you, sir. Thank you. We appreciate your coming back in order to be before the committee.

For the sake of the committee...the annual report is split between the former and current commissioners. That's why, in the absence of Mr. Dufresne today, I thought it was appropriate to have Mr. Dion speak to the committee as well.

Welcome, sir. Go ahead, please.

[Mario Dion, Former Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, As an Individual]

It's actually a rather unusual situation, Mr. Chair. Thank you for inviting me.

I left my position in February 2023, so I've been retired for eight months now. When I was contacted late last week, I was pleased to accept the invitation, because I've always believed in the importance of the role that the House of Commons and parliamentary committees play in our democracy.

I'm here because I was still the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner during the preparation of the annual report currently being studied, as well as certain investigation reports that you may wish to discuss. That's why I'm here.

What's more, I worked with Mr. von Finckenstein at the Department of Justice a very long time ago. I thought it was a little unfair to expect him to be able to study the annual report and assimilate the investigation reports, so I gladly agreed to be here this afternoon to try to help him answer any questions you might have for him.

I'm all yours for any questions and any discussion you wish to have about my time as commissioner—five years altogether.

Thank you again for inviting me.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Dion.

Mr. Interim Commissioner, the floor is yours for five minutes, sir.

Go ahead, please.

[Konrad von Finckenstein, Interim Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner]

Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I have a few opening remarks.

I acknowledge that we are meeting today on the traditional territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin people.

The annual report for 2022‑23, which I submitted to your committee, covers a period when Mr. Dion was in office, so no comment from me is necessary.

As you know, our office has three mandates.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Excuse me, Mr. Commissioner.

We had a similar problem last time, with the interpreters not understanding. Could you speak up and clearly into the microphone? That would be appreciated. Thank you.

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

Yes. Pardon me. I'm sorry. I will try to speak right into the microphone.

As you know, our office has three key activities: giving advice to public office holders, educating them so they know when to recognize a public conflict of interest, and addressing non-compliance issues.

Transparency is the key issue for us.

As I mentioned in my appearance on September 18, my approach is to be as transparent as possible about everything the office does. I would therefore like to bring to your attention four small changes to the administration of the act that have been made under my tenure.

These changes reflect a common-sense approach to the application of the act. They are effective immediately and only apply prospectively.

The first change is the definition of “entity”. When you take post employment with another entity, you need to have a cooling-off period, or you need to ask me for a shortening of the period later.

I don't think this makes any sense when you go into the government. If you work for another department or as a consultant for another government department, there's no conflict of interest or confidential information you take with you. In future, anybody who leaves one government post and goes to another in whatever function doesn't have to ask for our permission.

Secondly, it involves gifts. Under the act, public office holders and their families are not allowed to accept any gifts or benefits that could influence them. However, we also have the Commissioner of Lobbying, from whom we just heard, who makes rules regarding lobbyists and what they are allowed to give, or the hospitality that can be accepted. The lobbyists, under their code, established a value of $50 for each instance and not more than $200 cumulatively.

It makes no sense to have different numbers and regimes for both, so we will adopt the lobbyists' approach: Anything under $40 is fine. Cumulatively up to $200 is fine, too. If it's over $200, you have to notify us.

The third change is with respect to what we call the minimal value exemption. It is the value of controlled assets that reporting public office holders who are not ministers or parliamentary secretaries do not have to sell after their appointment. The act requires that the commissioner believe the assets do not pose any risk of conflict of interest, given their minimal value.

What is considered minimal value? Ten years ago, we set the value at $30,000. Today, things have changed, partly because of inflation, so we've doubled that amount. This means that if you're not a minister or a parliamentary secretary, you can have controlled assets worth less than $60,000.

The fourth change applies only to a dozen individuals who are appointed under the Canadian Energy Regulator Act. It affects how they can deal with open-ended mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

Now, legal opinion suggests they can hold neither, and they must sell them. I just don't understand how anybody who has open-ended mutual funds can in any way be influenced by that, and why they should not own them. I know the wording of the Canadian Energy Regulator Act is somewhat vague, and you can read it two ways, but I read it the way it was meant to be. We want to make sure that good people come and serve, etc. Whether they own mutual funds or not is irrelevant.

If it's ETFs, they can either sell them or put them in a blind trust, but they don't have to sell them, which was a previous ruling. Hopefully, as a result of that, we will be able to attract capable people to the top of the energy regulator.

All these changes are made with the same goal, which is to be practical, be effective and make sure we have a good exchange of people between the public and private sector, but to avoid any conflict of interest.

Thank you. I'll be glad to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, sir.

We are going to start our first round of six minutes with Mr. Barrett.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thank you both very much for being here.

Mr. Dion, after five years in the position, is it your belief that the Liberal government takes the ethics rules seriously?

[Mario Dion]

Mr. Chair, the government does take it seriously, although not as seriously as I wish it did. It's a spectrum of seriousness, if you will. There were several ministers and parliamentary secretaries who were taking their obligations very seriously. There were others who were not as serious about it. As a whole, there was a good degree of effort to ensure that they would act within the Conflict of Interest Act.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Based on your observations after five years, you made a recommendation that government members should take remedial ethics training. That implies a lack of understanding of the basics at the remedial level. Is that correct?

[Mario Dion]

The word “remedial” was affixed to it by somebody else. I did not conceive of it as remedial. I conceived of it in the sense that I believe in education; I believe in continuous education, and I believe anybody can always learn more about a subject matter. In the very busy world we live in, people sometimes choose not to take the time to properly understand their obligations, so that's why I made the recommendation a few months before I left that they should take the time to learn how to, essentially, better understand how to avoid trouble.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Do you recall in which publication, or in which report, that came out as a recommendation?

[Mario Dion]

I think it was the Ng report. Almost certainly, it was the Ng report.