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Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, of course I can't comment on what may or may not have been the motivation of the minister or anyone else involved in this matter in whatever they did or did not say, but I take Mr. Martin's point about it being of interest to Canadians generally, the basis on which funding is or is not provided.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That did pass through my mind, but I thought I wouldn't say that.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The committee has to weigh how important that is in a situation where we are talking about deliberately misleading. It is a serious offence. It's a hanging offence. It's a capital offence, and we reserve capital punishment--when we had it, anyway--for serious offences, and there was a very long and elaborate process for determining whether in fact the offence was committed.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. It is up to you to decide whether these other matters are relevant to your finding. It is up to you to determine whether these other incidents, such as what happened at Statistics Canada, are merely versions of the same thing. That is up to the committee to decide.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I cannot say that here, as a law clerk and parliamentary counsel. Mr. Franks is a private citizen and a former professor who is highly respected. He is entitled to have his point of view. I, however, am restricted in that it is not my place to make decisions that are up to the committee.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  —whether she did or not. Mr. Franks has a different take on the situation, but that is for him to say.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You used the word “sufficient“. You asked if the amount of time that elapsed was sufficient reason to find that the minister was in contempt. That is up to you to decide. Are we convinced that the minister really had the opportunity to explain the situation, but chose to say nothing?

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Not quite. Showing the intent might be conclusive of the question. Not being able to show the intent may not be conclusive insofar as we are all responsible for the normal conclusions or the natural, reasonable conclusions one may draw from our actions or statements or omissions from statements.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In my view, the critical consideration here, going to your point, is not just reading the document, but asking yourself what use was made of the document. This is not unlike the element of the Afghan detainee controversy, where one of the points of privilege was the legal opinion letter put out by the Department of Justice, which the mover of the motion argued was itself a breach of the privilege of the House.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's an observation you might well make as a member of this committee, but it wouldn't be my place to make that same observation, except to bring your attention to the evidence, which includes question 106. I think you're saying the answer to that by the minister was incomplete, and it was an occasion, like other occasions you might suppose, when she could have indicated more fully that the decision was not one that included the concurrence of the CIDA officials.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, I would agree with Mr. McKay to the effect, as I said earlier, that if you show a pattern of incomplete answers or even partially mistaken or false answers, after a while you've got to say that this is not an accident; the person must have done this by design. In the case here, I haven't traced the question period occasions when this question or something like it may have been asked.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Forgive me if I don't answer the question in its own terms. Whether it's contempt is for the committee to decide. But in looking to the witness's position, 24 hours later, as you say, the witness learned what she could have said, didn't say, and might have said, perhaps because she didn't know the facts at the time she was before the committee.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. McKay, speaking now as legal counsel in the context I earlier suggested I would be doing this, I have to stay within the confines of what we're here about, which is an allegation of misleading the House. There may have been a whole host of comments about that document and the insertion of “not”, in a variety of places, particularly in the media.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have an opening presentation to make. I encourage you to stop my presentation when you've had enough or if you think members may want to ask some questions rather than listen to me any longer. Lawyers, as you know—hopefully you don't know from direct experience—when they have clients who are faced with an action brought against them in the courts, have to advise the clients as to what the case is that might be brought against the clients for the clients to consider whether they want to go forward on a guilty plea or a not-guilty plea.

March 18th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There is another principle in the parliamentary domain which you are well acquainted with, I believe, and that is the freedom to say things in debate, according to what is necessary and as one sees fit. I am not in a position to comment on the words used in parliamentary debate.

March 16th, 2011Committee meeting

Rob Walsh