Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 20th, 2025

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

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

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

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

I'd like to welcome our witness for today. From the United Kingdom House of Commons, we have Mr. Daniel Greenberg, who is the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

Mr. Greenberg, welcome to the committee.

You will be having questions asked of you in French, so I want to make sure that you are on the proper interpretation channel. I'm pretty sure the technicians helped you with that, sir.

Are you ready for that?

[Daniel Greenberg, Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, United Kingdom House of Commons]

Yes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, sir.

I now invite you to address the committee for up to five minutes, Mr. Greenberg. Go ahead, please.

[Daniel Greenberg]

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning. I am grateful to the committee for inviting me to vouchsafe some observations to you this morning. I am speaking as a standards regulator and not as a legislative drafter, although I have been a legislative drafter for a number of decades. My observations on the act are confined to observations in relation to the regulatory purpose that it serves and not to its legislative formation.

In principle, I am very much in favour of principles-based regulation in the area of standards, for two reasons. The first is that a reliance on principles forces members and officials who are bound by the provisions of a code to concentrate on its purpose and to ask themselves, all the time, not “Have I ticked a particular technical box?” but “Am I serving the purpose for which this regulation was enacted?” That is a very valuable discipline throughout. It is preferable to encouraging a kind of technical compliance mentality.

In the United Kingdom House of Commons, we rely on a non-statutory code. It is a relatively short code. The essential principles of the code itself are set out in three pages. The guide is not much longer, although it has to be a little bit longer because it deals with registration. There, you do need to have certainty and clarity.

In relation to conflict of interest, we rest on a general principle that members must base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest, and resolve any conflict at once and in favour of the public interest. Requiring members to concentrate on that very fundamental principle is salutary and largely effective.

The second reason I favour principles-based regulation in this area is that an attempt to rely on technical definitions both obscures the purpose and the principle and generally goes wrong. I'll give you three examples, if I may, from your own Conflict of Interest Act.

The act states, “common-law partner means a person who is cohabiting with a public office holder in a conjugal relationship, having so cohabited for a period of at least one year.” Well, clearly a relationship of 364 days is still capable of raising a significant conflict of interest of the kind that you would want a member or official to think about.

The act states, “gift or other advantage” means “an amount of money if there is no obligation to repay it”. Well, interest-free loans are one of the most controversial sources of corruption or avoidance in a number of different areas. Again, I want people to think about the principle, not about a technical definition that is likely to go wrong.

The act also states, “private interest does not include an interest in a decision or matter...that is of general application”. Well, I don't know; sometimes it will and sometimes it won't. Again, I don't want to lay that down as a fundamental definition. I want members to think about it: In this particular case, it is of general application; am I conflicted or am I not?

Chair, you said five minutes. I have a feeling that I might have used most of that, so I shall conclude with two other points, if I may.

One is that an objection to my hypothesis that principles-based regulation is always better is, “What about enforcement? Surely it means you get grey areas.” Well, of course you do. It means that enforcement is only possible in the clearest areas, in cases where a clear boundary has been crossed. That's as it should be in this particular area of law. This is not like tax law. This is not like housing benefits law. It is an area of law where the principle is all-important.

Finally, I would say that the necessity of principles-based regulation is partly around avoiding false certainty. Certainty and finality are important legal principles in regulatory codes, as in anything else, but certainty must be true certainty and not illusory certainty.

Mr. Chair, I think I've exceeded my five minutes, and I can't see you all very well, so I don't know if anybody is still listening or not.

I shall stop there.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I can assure you, Mr. Greenberg, that we are listening intently. You did exceed the five minutes, but you were on a roll, so I didn't want to stop you, sir. I'm sure you'll have lots of opportunity to expand on what you said in your opening statement as the questions come.

The first one will be coming from Mr. Barrett of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Mr. Barrett, you have six minutes. Go ahead, sir.

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

Thanks, Mr. Greenberg, for your opening remarks.

I want to share with you some context for my questions, if I could. It's from a Telegraph article from October 13, 2024, entitled, “Labour adviser Mark Carney 'lobbied Reeves for heat pump subsidies'”. Very quickly, it says:

Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney lobbied ministers to relax rules on heat pump subsidies to benefit the asset management business he chairs, it has been claimed.

Mr Carney, a Labour adviser who has helped Rachel Reeves with the creation of the National Wealth Fund, raised the idea of changing the cash for heat pump installations scheme with the Chancellor, according to Richard Harpin.

Mr Harpin is the founder and former chief executive of HomeServe, now its chairman.

From a principles-based perspective, using this example, do you believe it's ethically sound for someone in Mr. Carney's position, holding influence in both corporate and political spheres, to advocate for subsidies that would then directly benefit his company?

[Daniel Greenberg]

You'll not be surprised to hear that I have no intention of commenting on whether a particular activity of a particular person was or was not ethically sound or whether it did or did not breach a particular rule. I will focus on the principles that underlie the example that you gave and I will try to draw out some relevant principles.

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

Thank you.

[Daniel Greenberg]

I think the fundamental issue here is this. It's very important—and, as I said, this is genuinely a general point and in no way aimed at any particular incident—that we don't stop public officials who have acquired particular knowledge of particular things from deploying that in the public service. One of the requirements is for people to be able to understand that if I may have acquired knowledge in a private capacity, I should not hold back from deploying that knowledge for a public service.

What I have to remember all the time in terms of conflict of interest is that I must be using that in the public service and not using it to advance a private interest of mine or of somebody with whom I'm connected. If there's an example of a particular action that has troubled you, what you have to do is say to yourself, “What am I troubled about? Is it that I think a person was not serving the public and they were acting in a way that would serve themselves, or is it a bit more amorphous? Is it just that I think the boundaries may not be clear to observers?”

In chapter 2 of our code of conduct, we have a principle in relation to relevance that looks at whether a reasonable observer might perceive that you are actuated by a particular interest. Again, with the kind of example that you've raised, I would expect that to be a relevant principles-based factor: Maybe you don't have an interest, but might a reasonable observer be perturbed to think that you might have an interest?

Have I helped you at all, despite not answering exactly what you wanted me to?

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

I think so.

Which principles, then, should guide the use of private sector experience in shaping public policy, as you suggested, particularly when the individual stands to enjoy a financial benefit?

I think the hypothetical of having someone who has private sector experience and then moving past that, and with that, putting away the potential financial upside of deploying that experience in a way to shape public policy.... How do you reconcile a situation in which that person enters the public sphere but then continues to enjoy the potential financial upside of making decisions that benefit them personally?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have about one minute and 20 seconds to answer that, sir.

[Daniel Greenberg]

Thank you. That's fine.

I'll give you a specific example of the kind of thing that one can do, and it will be quite a technical example, having talked about a focus on principle. Let me give you an example of something fairly technical one can do to meet exactly the point that you raise.

If you look in our guide to the rules related to the conduct of members—and I say this for the benefit of research by clerks after the session—you will see there is footnote 43 on page 26 that talks about blind trusts. That is a specific way we ensure that continuing interests of members, ministers or officials can be hived away so that they don't fall but they do not influence their continuing behaviour. Blind trust is just one example of the kind of activity one can deploy to ensure there is a disconnect between having a financial interest and being motivated by it in one's public behaviour.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you for staying under time.

We're going to go next to Ms. Church. Ms. Church is from the Liberal Party of Canada, Mr. Greenberg.

Ms. Church, you have up to six minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Mr. Greenberg. It's a pleasure to have you before us today with your experience from overseas in what is a similar but, at times, different system. It's good to hear from you.

I want to understand a little bit more about the principles-based approach that you talk about. One of the areas I would like to hear from you on.... You mentioned, in relation to using a principles-based approach, that the field of ethics is not like tax law. It's an area of law where principle is more important to actually guide behaviour.

One of the areas we've been looking at is around the notion of apparent conflicts of interest. In the U.K., does your approach tackle apparent conflicts of interest? In some ways, this is one of those instances where some of the testimony we've heard is about being worried about how to legislate an apparent conflict of interest. This is where I think the principles-based approach that you're talking about might be useful.

Do you address apparent conflict of interest, or do you have views on that?

[Daniel Greenberg]

[Technical difficulty—Editor]. I adverted to this obliquely before, and it's very helpful to be invited to focus on it more, because I think it is likely to be helpful to you.

This is in chapter 2 of our code. Again, this is for the benefit of researchers later. Chapter 2 of our guide to the rules has a paragraph 6 called “The test of relevance”, which I will read to you, if I may. It's very short: “The test of relevance is whether those interests might reasonably be thought by others to influence his or her actions or words as a Member.” That is a very short, very concise test. What we're asking members to do is put themselves in the mind of somebody who's listening to their words or watching their actions and then ask themselves if they think they're being actuated by their financial interest.

I hope that one of the useful things in my coming here to speak to you today is that I can attest that this works in practice extremely well—but not in every case, as sometimes it doesn't go right. When members ask me for advice, I remind them that it is in the first instance their responsibility to apply this test. I'm not there to do it for them in the first instance. The whole point about a principles-based approach is to get them to acknowledge responsibility for their own behaviour and the efficacy, the soundness and the propriety of their own behaviour.

I can help them sometimes by putting myself in that objective position and saying, “Draw this line between dot A and dot B and ask yourself this: If you were watching somebody, would you be concerned that they might have this interest?” We deal with that by declaration, in part, because very often an interest ceases to be an inimical interest in terms of propriety and ethics if it's out in the open.

I won't expound on that more now, but maybe you or a colleague will invite me to in one of your future questions.

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Thank you.

The Nolan principles, as I understand them.... When they include integrity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership as some of the principles that underpin the system, you can see why that is beneficial to according a certain degree of responsibility, I suppose, to the public figures that this applies to.

You had an exchange with my colleague across the way here around blind trust. I'm curious to hear from you, Mr. Greenberg, about the tools that the United Kingdom's regime uses to address prior work, prior interests and prior assets for individuals who are taking on a public role. This is one of the founding purposes of our ethics legislation, and I'd like to know, from your point of view, what tools there are—including blind trust—and how effective you think they are.

[Daniel Greenberg]

Yes, a blind trust is one of the tools that we use, particularly in relation to ministers who have significant private interests and then go into a ministerial job and need to have some degree of separation from their private financial interests.

The mechanism that we use primarily in relation to ministers and public servants going on into private commercial roles.... There is a body that has just had its responsibilities transferred to our new ethics commission; that body, which will be familiar to some of you, is called ACOBA, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. One of the things it does is look at the appointment, and it very often imposes an advisory period of, say, a year or six months—sometimes I think it can be as long as three years—during which the former minister or the former official is advised not to engage in, for example, lobbying their immediately previous colleagues.

You ask how effective that is. Again, I think it's sensible to have these of rules of thumb, but they can only ever be rules of thumb aimed at the fundamental principle. The fundamental principle here is that you do not deploy your previous status in government—as a minister or as an official—as a private asset. You don't do that, whether it's three months later, six months later or six years later.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Greenberg.

Thank you, Ms. Church.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Thériault, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner Greenberg, thank you for being here. Your comments are fascinating.

The committee's job right now is to review the Conflict of Interest Act and determine whether the current provisions are sufficient. I like to say, and you seem to share my opinion, that ethics are more demanding than law. The fact is, just because something is legal, that doesn't make it moral. Personally, that's what concerns me in the context of this study.

How can we regulate the fact that morals are above the legal definition in order to ensure that behaviour is entirely above suspicion? The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner of Canada recommends introducing the concept of apparent conflict of interest in the act. I want to know what you think of this suggestion. When you conduct an investigation, I imagine it's because there's an apparent conflict of interest, otherwise you wouldn't be investigating. The public expects no apparent conflicts of interest when it comes to public office holders. It's essential.

In your opinion, how do we go about introducing this concept in the act?

[Daniel Greenberg]

As to the underlying points, of course I agree. In our code and our guide, as I've already said, we invite members to consider what is reasonably likely to be thought by others, and not merely the actuality of their interests, so I repeat that.

If I may, I think the beginning of your question makes me think that it's worth emphasizing the difference in form between legislation and quasi-legislation. Legislation does two things: It imposes duties and it confers rights. The reality is that it's one thing, because a duty is the corollary of the right. However, that's all it does. Legislation cannot change attitudes. It cannot change behaviour, and it cannot impose propriety.

Quasi-legislation—and our code of conduct is quasi-legislation— cannot impose duties and it cannot confer rights, but what it can do is influence behaviour. It can use soft letter terminology. It can use softer, more open terminology of the kind that is properly deployed in relation to morals and ethics and considerations that we want members and others to have in mind.

What I would invite the committee to think about very carefully is to get the legislative hierarchy right. As I said, I'm not here as a legislative drafter; I'm here as a regulator. I'm not going to make any comments on the specific technicalities of your legislation, but get that legislative hierarchy right. Get the rights and duties clearly ensconced in legislation, in clear, certain and firm language. Where it comes down to wanting not to control but to influence, you come down to a quasi-legislative environment that is susceptible to the use of the soft letter principles that you want people to be guided by in their behaviour.

Is that relevant to the question?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Yes, absolutely.

Actually, what you're telling us is that, in some respects, ethical standards may be more effective than a provision in the act to create a framework for the concern I expressed at the outset.

Mr. Chair, do I have time for one more quick question?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Yes.

You have one minute.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Okay.

Let's say we operate—

[Daniel Greenberg]

I'm sorry. I must interrupt. I didn't say they're better; I said they need to complement each other. You need to get the legislative hierarchy correct.