Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 5th, 2007

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

What did you do?

[Daphne Meredith]

We had our special investigative unit track down the chapters, ensure that we could restore the copies, and actually check the text of the report in the newspaper against facts in the chapter. We had our expert team on it.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Did you talk to anybody? It doesn't yet sound like you did much investigation.

[Daphne Meredith]

They did actually interview those who had received copies of the chapter.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Did they talk to everybody who had received a copy?

[Daphne Meredith]

That's my understanding, yes.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Is that all they did?

[Daphne Meredith]

We also had a complete review of our administrative practices regarding the—

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

That's for the next time.

[Daphne Meredith]

Mr. Chairman, is the member's question about the quality of the investigation that we do in the department?

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I wasn't asking about how you're going to stop it for the next time. I want to know what kind of investigation you conducted into the leak that had happened. You talked to all the people who were given a copy. Was there anything else?

[Daphne Meredith]

We did that, we restored the chapters, and we checked, as these investigators do.

I should add that the investigator on the case is a retired RCMP officer who has certification in fraud investigation. He took the measures he thought necessary to check the leak.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Did you call the RCMP officially or did you rely on the expertise of this particular member of your staff?

[Daphne Meredith]

We relied on our staff. As I mentioned, he is qualified in this area, and he is certainly qualified to do a good investigation.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

What was his recommendation? Was it that leaks happen?

[Daphne Meredith]

He could find no evidence of a leak coming from our department.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Chairman, we've had a former RCMP officer check into this. The Auditor General checked into this. The Treasury Board checked into this. I don't think we are going to find the culprit here. But I would make a couple of recommendations for our consideration at a later date.

In the Auditor General's opening response, she said it may be a breach of our parliamentary privilege. I think we should report to the House that we consider leaks of this kind to be breaches of our parliamentary privilege.

I think we should commend the Auditor General for not releasing the chapters until she has a written acknowledgment by the department of their responsibilities.

We may as a committee take steps to say that if it appears that departments are leaking this information, the Auditor General can confirm the facts but cannot share conclusions and other information with departments until the reports are tabled here. The departments can table responses here within three weeks or so after the report's tabled so that they don't see what the Auditor General's saying and only the facts are confirmed. I agree that it's important. But let the government be on notice that they can't leak information that they think will help defer some of the wrath of the public by letting it out in little bits and pieces ahead of time.

Therefore, we do have some things at our disposal, Mr. Chairman. The Auditor General is an officer of Parliament and reports to us and not to the government. We could therefore instruct her to perhaps wait until she's tabled her report in the House before the government is aware of what she's actually saying.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Yes, Mr. Williams is quite right. At this hearing today, I don't think we're actually going to find out who leaked the document. But I think it's important that we set in motion the parameters as to how seriously we consider it, and that the government takes it seriously also.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all, again.

Through you, Chair, in answer to Mr. Williams' suggestion, will that work?

[Sheila Fraser]

I would obviously have to study it in more detail. I am concerned that we try very hard to actually change our procedures around recommendations that we spend more time earlier with government departments to make sure the recommendations are feasible, can be done, and will be implemented. It's hard to have a discussion around recommendations if you don't know what the conclusions are.

I worry that it might not be the best solution, but I am quite willing, Chair. If the committee has any suggestions on how we can improve this, we're open to them.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you. I expected that was probably the answer, because I hadn't seen a procedural change being the answer up until now, although if you're willing to, you could undertake some “blue skying” to just think about how we could do this from the beginning to the end.

But I have to tell you, at the end of the day--and this is my personal opinion--we're dealing with politics, not corruption, and not people who are corrupt. Quite frankly, why would anybody in the Auditor General's department leak anything unless they had some really personal reason or they were being blackmailed, unless there's some particular reason? Who would be stupid enough to work in the Auditor General's department and leak anything? It just doesn't make any sense. It's the same with the department staff, quite frankly. And the only one who could authorize that, if it was going to be planned, would be the deputy. I can't imagine that anybody would hire a deputy that stupid. The same applies to anybody below who thinks that somehow they're doing the deputy or others a big favour. Again, you're either into total incompetence or just outright corruption. You're somebody who shouldn't be working for the public at all.

What does that leave? It leaves us with the politics of the situation. And much as when you're dealing with a lot of other matters, who benefits? That's the first question you ask. In this case, let's just say that there were enough political dynamics to answer that question. It seems to me that the only way we're ever going to resolve this in any way, shape, or form is if there are greater consequences. Most criminologists will tell you that people commit crimes primarily because they believe they can get away with them. If they don't believe they can get away with it, they won't commit the crime, for the most part. That's the way most people think. In this case, 100% of the time, they get off. So where's the deterrence?

I'll pose a thought and then put a question. The question would be, what do other jurisdictions do, and how do we stack up in terms of our percentage? Are there any measures in comparable systems? In Ontario we had the same system--and you've probably faced it too, Ms. Sgro--and it's fair all around. I know when I was on the other side, I appreciated the chance to see that my department got to respond. We took our hits in the political arena, but the process was fair.

It seems that we need a process that says--and it's probably political people--if you do this, here's the grief it's going to cause for you and your colleagues. Then we have a system in place. I would suggest that we try once, while this is still hot...because we're not going to pursue this any further. Let's not kid ourselves. We're up against a dead-end alley here. We put in place a procedure for next time that's very draconian but very clear, and it says that the next time there's a leak, here is what we're going to do, and we've already decided it ahead of time. And we line up all those people we're going to call in, with heavy emphasis on the political side. I don't think it's unfair to suspect that your prime suspects are going to be on the political side. It just makes the most sense. We make it clear that everybody who saw that document in any minister's office is coming in here, even if we agree to meet extraordinarily, during weekends or in the evening. We try it once, and that says to the next person, you may not get caught, but here's the grief that you're going to cause everybody around you, and you had better weigh that into your consideration too, because this is not just a freebie where you get to set the headline and the political agenda the next day.

Barring that, we're going to be here over and over. There have to be consequences. That's the only thing I can think of: to make it clear and do it ahead of time. We publish it and say, here's what we are going to do and here's who we're going to call in and put on the hot spot and in the public domain; here are all the people who are going to have to come in and start talking to us. For the most part, people like to avoid coming here, I think. That would at least be something. Barring that, we're going to be back here again in a couple of months, or a few months, or a couple of years. But it's coming again.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Does anyone have a brief comment? Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

During the last round I posed a question, and I don't believe I received an answer.

There was an investigation done by your department of itself. The government has investigated itself. Do you not believe it would reinforce people's confidence about the integrity of the system to have an arm's-length body investigate—an arm's-length body that has expertise, such as the RCMP?

I'd also like Mr. Smith to answer. Just a yes or no would do.

[Sheila Fraser]

No.

[Alister Smith]

I don't think so either, but my colleagues may want to address the issue as well.