Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 27th, 2025

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Good morning, everyone. I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 11 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, the committee is resuming its study of the Conflict of Interest Act.

I would like to welcome our first witness for the first hour today. As an individual, Mr. Michael Wernick is here. He is the Jarislowsky chair in public sector management at the University of Ottawa.

Mr. Wernick, do you have an opening statement? The clerk just advised that you may or may not want to say something to committee to start. If you do, I invite you to address the committee for up to five minutes, sir.

Go ahead.

[Michael Wernick, Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, I have no long opening statement. You invited me, and I think the best thing would be to get into the questions and answers. I just extend a word of congratulations to the new members of the committee and the new members of Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Wernick. That will give us more time for questioning, if the committee desires.

Mr. Barrett, I'm going to start with you for six minutes, sir. Go ahead, please.

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

Mr. Wernick, when you were clerk of the Privy Council, you oversaw compliance with the Conflict of Interest Act. Would you say that the existing divestiture provisions, including the use of blind trusts, actually prevent conflicts of interest, or in practice do they or can they fall short?

[Michael Wernick]

I think this is probably one of the central questions the committee will want to come to a view on. If you'd just permit me, I saw the conflict of interest regime as one tool in a broader tool box about democratic governance, and there are a number of tools designed to detect and deter inappropriate points of leverage on our decision-makers and keep the trust of Canadians. Very briefly, the Lobbying Act, the rules around campaign donations, the foreign agent registry, security clearances and Criminal Code provisions are all helped by a beneficial ownership registry, a lobbyist registry and transparency around government contracting and contribution agreements.

Parliament created the commissioner model, and it provided for a range of remedies at the discretion of the commissioner. One of them is a trust arrangement. I think it's up to you to judge whether it falls short or not. I would keep it in the tool box.

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

Would you say it's effective for people who report to the Prime Minister to be the ones ensuring that the prime minister they report to is not in violation of the act?

[Michael Wernick]

It's ultimately up to the commissioner to make rulings on that.

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

Do you mean to make rulings on whether or not the people who report to the Prime Minister should, for example, administer a blind trust?

[Michael Wernick]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the arrangements that any prime minister or minister or office-holder make are discussed with the commissioner, then the commissioner can exercise an opinion on whether they're adequate or not, can request changes and has remedies available to him or her.

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

Based on your experience, do you think that works?

[Michael Wernick]

I think it's going to be tricky when people come into Parliament with an extensive background in the private sector. They come into Parliament, as you know, from many different backgrounds. I think one of the other purposes is to ensure broad and inclusive participation in public office.

I would be very careful considering mandatory divestitures, because they may end up as a deterrent to people with a private sector background coming into politics. My view is that we need more people with private sector backgrounds in politics, not fewer.

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

I guess the issue is that it's a question of public confidence, of Canadians being able to trust that the system that's in place is adequately ensuring that there is no conflict of interest.

In the case of an individual entering office, being elected, serving as Prime Minister, having significant investments and having those investments go into the blind trust, when the Ethics Commissioner tells us that there is not really a lot of churn of those investments, they know what's in there. The conflict of interest screen, then, is administered by direct reports to the Prime Minister, and the perception can be, and is, that there is a conflict and that a prime minister is continuing to take decisions that further their own financial interest. There is no reporting to the public on when a conflict of interest screen has been triggered or if it has ever been triggered.

The higher imperative, I would say, or the leading imperative, is that we ensure that Canadians have confidence in public office holders in public institutions, and they don't seem to have that.

Would you care to reflect on your time as clerk of the Privy Council? You served a prime minister who was found to have broken the act that we're studying and who was twice found guilty of breaking that law in 10 different instances. That's based on the regime as it currently exists. You must have some suggestions on improvements, so that we can avoid a situation where we find a prime minister who is repeatedly breaking this law.

[Michael Wernick]

I think we should discuss this further, because the law is built on language that includes “perceived conflict of interest”. I think that's always going to be a challenge, because perceived conflict of interest can be very subjective, and somebody is going to have to exercise judgment about what a “perceived” conflict is and what the appropriate remedies are.

Certainly, you can change the act to add other provisions, more sanctions and so on, but I think the problematic part of enforcing the act is that somebody has to exercise judgment and discretion about perceived conflicts of interest.

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

In the case of Mr. Trudeau, though, it wasn't a perception. It was that he actually broke the law, and it would seem that—

[Michael Wernick]

I'm sorry, but you're conflating “broke the law” with an infraction on a perceived conflict of interest. There are many ways you could break the law—

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

Is the Conflict of Interest Act not a law?

[Michael Wernick]

Yes, of course, but there are different remedies—

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

He broke it.

[Michael Wernick]

Sure, but there are different remedies and sanctions available to you, and I think the committee might want to review the array and the ladder of sanctions available.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Wernick.

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

Ms. Lapointe, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wernick, thank you for being with us and for accepting our invitation to appear. I'd also like to thank you for the work you did as Clerk of the Privy Council.

You just said that there was an advantage to having people from the private sector. I believe that's what you just said to Mr. Barrett.

Is that correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Wernick, are you hearing us, sir?

[Michael Wernick]

Yes, but that question was for Mr. Barrett.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

No, I was talking about what you said to Mr. Barrett.

[Michael Wernick]

Okay.

One of the objectives is to incite and encourage people from all workplaces to enter public life, be it partisan politics or the public service. Great care must be taken not to put up barriers in that regard.

There's a practical side to it. You never know which party leader is likely to become prime minister. In elections, there are 15 parties and you never know for how long. Prime ministers and ministers are in office for a few months, often for a year or two.

If we want to encourage people to enter partisan politics, we mustn't introduce a rule that is too strict, where a person must absolutely abandon all of their economic and financial gains. It's not all black and white. Instead of trusting them, in the long term, we're going to lose people with experience working in the private sector. We're going to go back to the days when most members were lawyers.