Government Operations Committee on May 16th, 2006

[Gwyn Morgan]

Well, I'm answering the question in the context of the speech, which is the way in which you asked it.

They had put immigrants in places in such a way that they weren't being integrated into society. They called that multiculturalism. What it really was, in the eyes of a lot of people in Australia, was isolationism.

What I was calling for in Canada was for us to do a better job of integrating all our immigrants and all our ethnic groups together, in accordance with what Canadians believe. That was a very strong call, and one I believe very strongly in. It had nothing to do with racism; it had everything to do with doing a better job of how we integrate and treat and support our immigrants.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Perhaps that's why the Conservative government has cancelled the ministry of multiculturalism.

My question to you is how many misstatements do you think the Canadian public...? What is the threshold it can absorb and still feel comfortable with your appointment to the appointments commission?

[Gwyn Morgan]

Let me put it this way. My speeches have been widely circulated, and I have had a lot of support for a lot of things, including the issue you just mentioned. What it amounts to is that I believe you need to be totally honest with each other in the country, and one of my main points was that we aren't going to solve the root causes by always looking at political correctness rather than by being honest with one another. Unfortunately, I guess I'm an example of being so honest in terms of some of the issues we have to deal with that it's interpreted as being negative towards certain groups of people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

But you understand, again, that Canadians need to make sure the individual who is in charge of this commission does not have too many controversial views, especially ones that might be directed against them, so there is a concern here about the pattern of statements and what you refer to as honesty.

I agree with you--your candour has been helpful to us, at least to evaluate your views and your principles. Thank you.

[Gwyn Morgan]

All I can say, Madam Chair, is that I urge the full context of that speech at the Empire Club be read by the members. Sure, I was partisan. I didn't expect to be called by the Prime Minister, and I was partisan about certain things. The point was that I was calling for a way in which we could unite all Canadians from all backgrounds around a set of Canadian values, and to integrate people better together around Canadian values. I stand by that absolutely, and I do not believe, if you read the speech, that you will find it at all offensive.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Mr. Kramp.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Morgan, welcome to life in this fish bowl here.

The one thing that concerns me a little bit is the direction of some of the questions here today. Of course we understand it's important to delve into the type of individual we are interviewing, the character, the capacity, the intelligence, the relative experience. Might I suggest that we could possibly even take some guidance from a past member of this committee who, in our last government operations meeting--Mr. Szabo, a member of the opposition right across from us--said that when we interview Mr. Gwyn Morgan we should understand that what's really, really important is sticking to the facts, the capability, the competence, and the ability to do the job. I thought he hit it right on the money. That really is what really matters to me. With a non-partisan approach to this, this is our job, ladies and gentlemen, to ensure, sir, that you have the capacity, you have the capability, you have the intelligence, you have the experience, you have the dedication, you have the commitment to Canada.

I was very fortunate a short while ago to sit on the review committee for Chief Justice Rothstein, in which we had a similar process. Quite frankly, I see some striking parallels here with good questions, but considerate, fair and honest. The similarity I find, of course, is in the response, sir, with the greatest respect--honest, maybe even to a fault, but what a wonderful, wonderful asset to have. I think that clearly has been almost a mantra for your success in private life in the corporate world, because with that honesty you earn the respect of so many other people.

As you carry forward with this appointment process, I'm really pleased that you separated the responsibilities, the fact that you are responsible for process, not on actually picking people.

If I were to ask you the three most important assets that you bring to this process, so that we could judge your capacity and capability, what would those three most important assets be?

[Gwyn Morgan]

Madam Chair, I believe they start with an ethical value base that is well established and well known across the country, and certainly well known not only to the business community but elsewhere. So honesty and ethics in the foundation discussed earlier would be number one.

Number two would be the things I've learned about governance, about trying to put in place processes that will result in meritocracy. I understand that it's only a question of improvement from where it's been, but I think everything can be improved, and I will work strongly toward that. The skills I have and what I've learned in business and elsewhere will hopefully help that.

The third thing is that I have learned some of the skills of leadership, so I hope to be able to work with the committee members in an effective way. We will be oriented toward the bottom line--that's what I've learned, of course, in business--and the bottom line is to create a process that works for Canadians. I continue to reiterate that I call for honesty in everyone here in terms of how we actually portray the commission, because one of the biggest challenges of the commission--and we've already seen this in the media and elsewhere--will be to help to understand that this commission will not be selecting people. This commission will not even see the names of people. The commission will not even comment on the names of people, before or after--of course, we'll not know them before and we won't comment after. What we will do, though, is set up a governance process that is intended to scrutinize the process, then to go back and ask, did they follow it? If they didn't, that will be reported to members of Parliament. I think that's it, that's all we do. But I think it's important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

Madame Thibault.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You stated that what you may have said in the past would have no effect on the commission's work. Earlier on, my colleague stated that we are to assess the abilities, skills and experience of possible candidates. But regardless of the commission to which a person is appointed, and its mandate, we have to assess whether the candidate has all of the values expected of him or her. When I refer to values, I'm referring to human values, be they held by Canadians, Quebeckers or persons of another origin.

In your December speech, you also addressed the issue of equalization. You said that the welfare state was creating dependency. I noticed that in this speech you decided to share some of your fundamental convictions. Allow me to say that that might lead people to wonder what your real motivation is, and in fact, you may be asking yourself the same question.

You say that you will not know the names of possible appointees, that you will not take part in anything at all, that you will establish a process and that, further to that, you will report to the Prime Minister, and therefore to the House. Is this very different from what existed previously? I imagine that before you accepted this nomination you looked into the current system. How can we know that this process is going to be better? What will the commission's status be? Will it really report to the Prime Minister's Office? How much do you need in terms of human and financial resources? Will you need three executive directors, a secretary, an assistant, three or four employees, a half a million dollars or $3 million?

[Gwyn Morgan]

Thank you for that question.

I think it's an important question, Madam Chair. I know it's a little hard to imagine in one's mind exactly how all of this is going to work, but the key point is this. Placed on the desks of ministers and all people who are involved in the public appointment process—crown corporation boards, etc.—will be a code of conduct and guidelines that they're expected to follow before they bring any names forward. Then once their appointments are made, the commission will review....

Well, first of all, even during the process they have to bring forward something saying, here are no names, but here's the process we intend to follow. The commission approves the process as being consistent with the guidelines, and then they can go ahead and proceed.

Again, we'll have no names. We won't know who's being appointed until they're announced. But then at the end of the day, on a regular basis, we'll come back through the secretariat of the commission to review and see that they followed the guidelines they said they were going to follow. The extent to which they did will be reported to the Prime Minister and tabled in the House on an annual basis.

The reason this thing has some effectiveness, in my opinion, is that I don't think anyone will want that report to show that the guidelines and the code we put forward were not followed. That's all the influence we will have, but I think it will be a rather significant influence on the process—and not the names of those who are actually appointed.

The cost of the commission? I'm a bottom-line guy from the business sector. I'm very worried about cost. We start with the fact that the commissioners are going to be paid $1 a year. That's a good start. We will not incur a lot of expenses for travel, because today's electronic conferencing and other ways of messaging will allow us to put things like a code of conduct together and have meetings through conferencing.

The secretariat in Ottawa will be small—I would guess no more than 20 people, perhaps a little smaller. They are going to be carefully selected, as career public servants and people who have expertise in what we're trying to achieve. I think there will be very good value for money from this commission.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Ms. Nash.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To summarize again, this morning's discussion is not about what you're being paid, and it's not about the qualifications of the other members of the commission. This is about your suitability, Mr. Morgan, to head up this proposed commission. This commission will oversee a process for political appointments—everything from the refugee board to the Canadian Race Relations Foundation—thousands and thousands of government appointments.

We have already heard about statements you made in a Fraser Institute speech—statements you've not retracted—and thanks to my colleague, we know about other statements you made in a speech to the Empire Club, in which you linked multiculturalism with riots in France and Australia. Although you do talk about the Australian example and say that multiculturalism has been a failure, you also say this is a view that many residents in Canadian cities will agree with.

Frankly, I think many people find these comments deeply offensive and in many ways really un-Canadian. So my question to you is, given that this appointment process won't even be in place until sometime this fall, what do you think qualifies you for this thinly defined position heading up this commission?

[Gwyn Morgan]

First of all, Madam Chair, again it saddens me terribly that these kinds of comments are taken out of context and not in the fullness of the speech. But I would say that I also had another quote in that speech, also from the Australians, that “multiracialism in Australia was a success”. What they define as multiculturalism in Australia was basically isolationism. So they said they had succeeded in their multiracialism but failed in how they integrated. That's what it was all about, and that's exactly what the speech was all about. I was only quoting from their experience and not from anything with regard to my own.

My own personal belief is that we have failed in Canada, too, in how well we integrate people who come to this country, expecting a better life. And so—

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Morgan, thank you for that.

On this point, let me ask you, given that you'll be setting up the process for how these appointments are made, how do you intend to ensure there is a process for sifting through all these thousands of job descriptions for all these appointments for very varied boards and commissions? How do you intend to ensure that minorities are better represented on these boards, commissions, etc.? How do you intend to ensure that women and gays and lesbians are more represented? What would be the process that you're intending to set up for this?

[Gwyn Morgan]

First, Madam Chair, let me make it very clear once again that the commission will not be sifting through any resumés. There will not be any appointments—

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Not resumés, but you will be sifting through job descriptions to set up the process.

[Gwyn Morgan]

We will not see job descriptions either.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Tell us how you're going to do this, then.

[Gwyn Morgan]

We'll place onus on those who are putting job descriptions together to set up a process to ensure that they have the right criteria for the job. In retrospect, once the appointments are made, we'll go back and make sure they did that. But it's very important that the commission members not know the names of people who are being considered, and that they stick to process and governance.

What I bring to this commission is all about process, ethics, and governance, and in no way will what I believe—or for that matter what any other member of the commission, who is going to have an equal say on this, believes—have anything to do with that. So that's the process—

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

So, Mr. Morgan, does this mean there will be nothing in place in terms of the process that would reach out to women, minorities, gays, lesbians to ensure that there is representation in these appointments?

[Gwyn Morgan]

Because we will not have direct control of that, all we can do—and I expect we will do, as I said earlier—is our best in recommending to the government that in their overall global process of making appointments, they try to strike balances between ethnic groups, inclusion—really within the mosaic of Canada: regionally, in an ethnic sense, and also of course in a gender sense.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Would that be through job descriptions?

[Gwyn Morgan]

It's very difficult on an individual job description to say this job should be for a female, an immigrant, or whomever. But one of the things that we will encourage the government to measure is how well it's doing overall--what's the balance?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

So it would be after the fact, taking a snapshot then.