Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 15th, 2011

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Thank you.

Your resumé also states that you assisted in the creation of multi-million dollar marketing campaigns and national-level marketing campaigns to increase active donors and increase donations per household. Who did you do this for?

[Russell Ullyatt]

I volunteered on a campaign for the Conservative Party of Canada, but I've also done work with other provincial organizations, etc.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

And who paid you for those services?

[Russell Ullyatt]

Most of the services were volunteered.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Ms. Foote.

Again, I'll counsel the members. We're here looking at the leaked document. I want us not to go too far afield here.

Next is Mr. Lukiwski.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Ullyatt, for being here.

Quite frankly, I don't have a whole bunch of questions. I believe the chair is right. Our task as a committee is to try to determine exactly what happened and beyond that to try to find remedies to ensure that these types of things don't happen again. But outside of that fact, I won't be particularly digging for more information; I'm not sure there is any more new information.

I'd like to perhaps, if we can, go over some old ground and just get you to reiterate some of the things you had said in your previous testimony when you appeared before this committee, and in fact if you have any new information or anything you want to expand upon from your last testimony, this would be an opportunity for you to do it as well.

Let me just give you what I believe you said in your testimony, and please correct me if I'm wrong.

You stated that you and you alone were the one who submitted this confidential draft report to a number of lobbyists. Is that correct?

[Russell Ullyatt]

That is correct.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

You freely admit, and you've freely admitted in the past, that you knew at the time, and of course you know now, that this was behaviour that was unbecoming, to say the least, and shouldn't have happened. And you knew at the time you were submitting this information that that was breaking...it was a very serious breach of confidentiality.

[Russell Ullyatt]

Yes. I think I also described in the past that I didn't fully comprehend the concept of parliamentary privilege as I do, as to its seriousness, now.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you.

You also testified, I believe, that Ms. Block had no knowledge whatsoever that you were submitting this information.

[Russell Ullyatt]

Unequivocally, no--no knowledge whatsoever of my actions.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I believe you also testified previously that this was the first and only time you had done something like this, where you had breached confidentiality, submitted a draft report, or given confidential information to anyone outside of your employers.

[Russell Ullyatt]

That is correct.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

It may sound like a bit of a strange question, but I think I want to ask you this. We have also been tasked, as I mentioned, with the responsibility of trying to find ways to prevent this from happening again.

We've had IT experts from the House of Commons talk to us about some of the safeguards we might be able to put into place. You've obviously had a great deal of time to think about your actions. Is there anything you might suggest or you have thought of that, from a safeguard security standpoint, could have prevented you or prohibited you from submitting this information?

[Russell Ullyatt]

I think it's a very good question, and it's something I have thought about. I believe I would like to leave the remedies up to the committee, because I don't believe I'm qualified to make any suggestions.

I might say one thing, and that is in an electronic world, where a simple click of the mouse can constitute such a gross error, I do believe that is something that needs to be considered.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Yes, and we talked with IT specialists who had indicated—and I think we had testimony from some of them and comments from some of our members here—that because of the electronic age we're working in, it's very difficult to have anything that's truly secure, and perhaps a way to approach this would be to go back to some of the olden days where there were hard copies, numbered and signed and those type of things.

Do you have any comments?

[Russell Ullyatt]

I think that's an astute observation on behalf of the IT people. Committees meet in camera quite regularly, and those minutes, I believe, are held by clerks and they have to be signed out if members wish to see them.

I believe that system works for other confidential pieces of information, and I leave it up to the committee to consider remedies. Again, I don't feel I'm qualified to necessarily say what should be done.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I appreciate that, and I'm not asking you to give expert testimony. Because you've been in the situation and you've had plenty of time to analyze what went wrong and to reflect upon your own actions, you may have had thoughts in that regard, so I do appreciate the observations you've made.

I'd also like to give you an opportunity, since this is your second appearance at this committee, to reflect on some of the comments you made originally. Is there anything during your testimony that you would like to expand upon or clarify?

Are you satisfied with the testimony that you delivered to this committee, or is there other information that you think is germane to our considerations? Or is there anything in your testimony that you gave originally that you would like to change, clarify, amend, or simply just expand?

[Russell Ullyatt]

Forgive me, because my first appearance in front of the committee was my first time as a witness, and obviously it's very difficult, and it's not a fun position to be in.

I was going through the testimony, and I believe one question that was asked of me was that Ms. Hamilton gave me a thumbs up or a thank you for sending her confidential material and was that correct. I believe I answered yes, “That's correct.” However, in fairness, I don't think I could speak to Ms. Hamilton's state of mind when she wrote the statement back to me. I believe I perhaps answered that question too quickly, without understanding that I cannot speak for somebody else's state of mind when they're sending me something back.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Again, I'm not asking you to speak on Ms. Hamilton's behalf. That would be unfair, and frankly, you're not a mind reader. One of the questions many of us at this committee had for Ms. Hamilton was about her contention that she didn't read the e-mail when it was first submitted to her by you until much later. When she found out that it was confidential draft information, she basically destroyed it.

Had Ms. Hamilton ever given you any indication, either prior to your testimony at this committee the first time or subsequent to that testimony, that she might have actually read the document, as opposed to what her testimony was before us?

Have you had any conversations with Ms. Hamilton since your first testimony?

[Russell Ullyatt]

No, I have not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski. You were right on seven minutes.

We'll go to Madame DeBellefeuille.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Ullyatt, thank you for being here today for a second time. I know it must not be easy for you to be here, before us once again.

First I want to help you understand something about the questions I'm going to ask you. We think it's important to understand the reasons why the confidential document was leaked so that we can prepare a report containing good recommendations to avoid or prevent other leaks.

To my mind, we must determine whether this is an isolated incident or whether it is the act of an ambitious assistant who made a mistake and got caught. I believe the issue at today's meeting is to understand what happened, that is to understand your reasons. That takes us back to Ms. Block's testimony. In her testimony, she told us that she explained your position description to you in detail when you were hired.

In your CV, which we received last week, we see the scope of your duties. You had a lot of normal duties for a parliamentary assistant on Parliament Hill, since Ms. Block told us that you mainly worked in Ottawa. She also assigned you duties to maintain permanent positive relations with members of the community, representatives and donors; to supervise volunteers responsible for updating the constituency data base, which contains 105,000 entries. So in addition to your parliamentary work, she assigned you what seemed to me to be partisan duties.

Mr. Ullyatt, at your meeting with Ms. Block, did the position description she showed you match what appears in your curriculum vitae?

[Russell Ullyatt]

So the question, if I may ask, is whether my duties in her office match the duties that are in my CV.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Yes.

Will the witness's thinking time be deducted from my time, Mr. Chairman?

Can you answer my question, Mr. Ullyatt?