Public Accounts Committee on March 8th, 2011

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Let me thank all of you on behalf of all committee members for your resilience in answering questions, and your willingness to come forward and answer questions, always of a technical nature. May I compliment you on everybody's behalf, not only for your patience in addressing issues that might not normally pertain to you, but in understanding the difference as well. I thank you on behalf of everybody. I know we'll see each other again.

We're going to suspend the meeting for a couple of minutes, and then we're going to go on to business.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Before we suspend the meeting, can I please give a document to the witnesses and ask them to answer us in writing?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Give it to the clerk, who will give it to them and ask them to respond in writing.

The witnesses are okay with this, right?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Actually, it's a thing called WR100 that we all received at our offices. It's a meteorological sensor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

They already said that they were willing to answer in writing. So give the document to the clerk, who will give it to the witnesses, who will give us an answer as soon as possible.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

We'll suspend for two minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you for your patience, and thank you for helping out. I didn't want to do the business, in the event that we got into a protracted discussion, and be discourteous to the witnesses. As it was, they had to put up with us anyway.

We received a notice of motion from Mr. Navdeep Bains. That's the only item of business I have. If Mr. Bains wants to deal with that motion, he has to move it. Otherwise, we'll just go on about the end of the day.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

I would like to move the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Go ahead, Mr. Bains.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I hope everyone received a copy of the motion. It's a fairly straightforward motion that we've dealt with in a similar context, except there's a change to the dates. It reads:

That pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), with regard to the report by the Auditor General on the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada, the Committee asks the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and the Privy Council Office to produce all correspondence between their offices and the Office of Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada for the period from April 15, 2007 to April 30, 2009; and that these documents and files be submitted to the Committee in both official languages in time for its meeting of March 22, 2011.

This is done keeping in mind that we're trying to determine when and how this office was set up.

The second question I have is with respect to the independence of the Integrity Commissioner and any relationship that existed between her and any of the departments I've alluded to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Mr. Bains, I don't mean to interrupt your train of thought. It's just that we're trying to make sure that everything we have in the motion reflects what you've said, and we lost track for a moment there.

In line 3 where you said “and the Privy Council Office”, did you add something after that?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

This is the copy that everyone has received.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Is what we have what you...?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

What do you have? I would double check. Yes, that's correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

So there is no change?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

There is no change.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you. It's just that you said there was an addition or a change.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

No, nothing like that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

So we got confused.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

It's consistent with the copy everyone has. I just wanted to read it into the record. That's all it was.

The request for this motion is straightforward. It is meant to help us address the original set-up of the Integrity Commissioner's office, and to try to examine the independence of that office. That's why I've requested this information. It's consistent with what we've asked for in the past, except I was changing the dates of the starting of her mandate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

I see we have comments already.

Mr. Young.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Before we move forward on this motion, I wanted to ask you about something. We've just had a colossal leak. I won't go into how it happened. Let me just ask you this. How do you intend, as chair, to direct this information to be handled so as to protect any confidentiality in respect of the people involved?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Let me answer your question, Mr. Young.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Let me finish the question.

How would you handle it differently from the way you handled the last one?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

I don't accept what you just said. I'm going to remind you of what we agreed to as a committee last week. We agreed that all documents in the clerk's office that have not yet left would remain there. We're going to talk about that with the steering committee and then determine how we will deal with them. This is a motion that, if accepted, would produce documents that would go to the clerk's office. They would fall into what this committee decided last week would be the process.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.