Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 9th, 2006

[Bernard Shapiro]

That is correct.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

You've made a real distinction, and I certainly can understand it, and give examples of why members of Parliament need to be treated in one way and public office holders handled in another way. Keeping with that theme, if I were in negotiations maybe as a finance minister, I can understand why it might be interesting or that it may be pertinent or worth the public knowing that I had a mortgage with bank X. However, I don't see that members of Parliament would be in that position, so I guess I scratch my head as to why that level of detail is necessary in these disclosures for ordinary members of Parliament.

[Bernard Shapiro]

Well, to really answer that question you would have to ask the people who created the legislation and the code in the first place. From my point of view, it's required by the code itself, so we do it.

I think that's all I can say.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Do you use it in any way?

Mr. Reid is sort of pointing a finger in this direction, but I would assume that as we go forward we're trying to refine this. So I guess I raise this as something we might want to look at. I would ask you, is it useful from your position to know this mortgage information about members of Parliament? Is it in any way pertinent to how you do your job--and credit card balances?

[Bernard Shapiro]

I could imagine if it were pertinent, but it often isn't. It's often such a small factor in a much larger picture that it often isn't really terribly relevant, but from time to time it might be. It's partly a question of how far you want to go in differentiating between real conflicts of interest and apparent conflicts of interest.

There is an argument, as I've said in one of my annual reports, of whether or not the Ethics Commissioner should deal altogether with apparent conflicts of interest or whether that's more of a political issue, which needs to be dealt with in another arena. I haven't satisfied myself about the appropriate answer to that question, but I do know that if you give me any particular individual, I will find an apparent conflict of interest with any particular policy matter if I look hard enough. But it will be apparent; it won't be real. So the issue is not unimportant, but very difficult to get hold of.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Do you track these public disclosures in your office, or does any other department of the government who accesses this information? Do you track who accesses them or how they're used?

[Bernard Shapiro]

The disclosure summaries you're talking about. We do not track that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mrs. Redman.

Mr. Preston.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you very much for coming.

I'm going to follow up just a little bit further on where we just were. On apparent conflict versus real conflict, there is a great deal of information in these disclosure documents that I have trouble determining could ever be considered to be a conflict of interest, whether it's a credit card balance or a mortgage or where my son works.

In your answer to Mrs. Redman you suggested that you could come up with cases where that might be a conflict, but I still have trouble digging for that.

[Bernard Shapiro]

I think there are two things. First of all, the code requires certain kinds of information, so it's not a question of whether it's a conflict of interest or not; it just requires that we have to have it, simply because the code requires it.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'll get back to that one, but go ahead and answer the first one.

[Bernard Shapiro]

It seems to me the issue of what information we ask for is an issue worth discussing. That's how the discussion went in revising the form, so the form is much smaller than it used to be and requires less information, etc. That's an ongoing matter of discussion. I'm certainly willing to discuss it with the committee and adjust the form accordingly.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I guess that's my point. Are you putting forward recommendations to remove more and more of what I would consider non-conflict data?

[Bernard Shapiro]

Well, the only recommendation I put forward so far is in fact the form that you have with you. That came from us. We worked with the subcommittee and then we developed it and are bringing it forward. It remains to the committee to discuss and decide what they like about it and what they don't and what they'd like to change and things of that sort.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mrs. Redmond suggested that other than perhaps the finance minister, dealing with a bank would be the only case you could possibly think of where a conflict would arise over who my mortgage is held with or the size of it. Could you give me an idea through history where you've come across another?

[Bernard Shapiro]

Mr. Benson.

[Robert Benson]

Although we haven't had any situation of this up to this point in time, through the existence of the office we have had disclosures from individuals where they come to us and they have interests in a private corporation. As a consequence of having interests in a private corporation, they may be a guarantor on a significant amount of loans, and that significant amount of loan may be with a particular financial institution.

As I say, we haven't had this case so far, but I'm trying to use an example--say, before a parliamentary committee doing a bank merger or something to do with the banking industry. If that bank or that financial institution appears personally, the member may be in a position, because they have this substantial private interest, that they should not be--

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I understand that from a business point of view--if it's a business or a direct commercial involvement--but I'm talking about who my mortgage lender is and the outstanding balance of my personal mortgage on my residence. I understand when you take it to business.

[Robert Benson]

But the code requires a liability. It doesn't make a distinction between a mortgage, a loan, a guarantee, and so on.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

It's the same with balance of assets of personal goods. Whether I have artwork or posters on the wall does not seem to me to be a way of determining whether I may have a conflict.

[Robert Benson]

I explained this in the previous Parliament. Through the experience of a conflict of interest adviser, the overall initial disclosure gives the adviser a position on the overall net worth of the individual. It's not necessarily that the case will occur, but there are annual reviews that occur. You have a snapshot at the beginning of the life of the individual complying with a conflict of interest code. What may happen, on annual review, is that snapshot or that value may differ. And through the life of the office, we've had situations where there's been an increase in, say, the net worth of the individual, which is unexplained. It just comes up within the personal assets, so we'll go back and ask a question--what's this attributable to--just to close the loop on it.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

In your question about sponsored travel, you've discussed about partially sponsored travel. You've released a report. How have you been handling it to date, and what are you recommending happens to partially sponsored and not wholly paid travel?

[Bernard Shapiro]

We certainly recommend that anything that you, yourself, haven't paid for before or hasn't been paid for by the federal government is part of sponsored travel. It may be half a trip, a quarter of a trip, a trip--whatever.

What we're not sure about is how the committee would like us to treat what I call indirect sponsorship by the federal government. The federal government, let's say, supports some NGO. The NGO sponsors your travel. How should we treat that? I think there are arguments for treating that as if it were federally funded in the first instance. We need to discuss how to make sure we're on the same wavelength.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

All right. We'll wait until that day and we'll do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We will go to Mr. Ménard for five minutes, then to Mr. Hill. If other members want to get on the list, please signal me.