Information & Ethics committee  In that particular situation, it's possible that Minister Morneau thought he paid for that entire trip, for those two trips by his family, and that his family paid the entire amount, because they did pay $52,000. But I will not believe that claim until I see the entire communication record between WE Charity and every member of the family.

Information & Ethics committee  Given the amount of money.... One of the sole-source loopholes is if a contract is less than $25,000. You can see why. It's a small amount of money and some of the safeguards may not need to be in place. Although, again, I think you should just essentially ban and put in place high penalties if contracts are split to try to fit under that $25,000.

Information & Ethics committee  No, I have not seen that since 1993 when Democracy Watch started up.

Information & Ethics committee  Are you talking about the “Trudeau II Report” with regard to SNC-Lavalin scandal or “The Trudeau Report” with regard to the Aga Khan?

Information & Ethics committee  Well, the main one is that there's a loophole in the gifts rule for cabinet ministers: if it's a gift from a friend or family member, the gift is legal. Former ethics commissioner Mary Dawson interpreted that rule...in a way, you could say, taking into account the purpose of the act, which unfortunately she didn't do in a lot of other cases of preventing conflicts of interest.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for your question. As I mentioned in my testimony, there are loopholes in the Financial Administration Act and the related regulations that allow for sole-source contracting. I think this process was a failure also of the public service. As many experts have pointed out, several other organizations, if they had been given a full chance, could have put forward a proposal that would have certainly matched WE Charity's proposal to administer this program.

Information & Ethics committee  I mentioned in my testimony that I think the key thing to do is to require everyone to check with the Auditor General in advance when starting any significant spending process. The Auditor General could then do a quick check and say, wait a second, you've decided to do this as a sole-source, can you really prove that one of these huge loopholes, which should be closed, applies?

Information & Ethics committee  I'd say, unfortunately, not very much at all is working, although there was one improvement made by the new Ethics Commissioner, Mario Dion. The old Ethics Commissioner, whom you will be hearing from later today, Mary Dawson, had ruled, although it doesn't say this in the Conflict of Interest Act, that private interests are only financial interests, that they do not include political interests or social interests.

Information & Ethics committee  Parliament is sovereign and this is the ethics committee. I think a partisan committee, made up of MPs who are partisan, is not the best forum, because the questions tend to be driven by partisan motives as opposed to the rules and the evidence, but Parliament has a right to all the information from the government that it has requested.

Information & Ethics committee  It would have to be a decision made entirely by the public service without any participation at all by any ministers' staff, because first of all, according to Treasury Board's own policy and the federal government's own statement, ministerial staff act on behalf of ministers. You can't use your staff person as a front and have them do the things you're not allowed to do and then claim that you didn't know.

Information & Ethics committee  On ethics laws and also in terms of breaking open government promises, the Liberals rate an F in both cases, for sure. It's been a complete failure. He sent a great letter to ministers with great talk in terms of saying that they have to meet the highest ethical standards that will bear the “closest public scrutiny”.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, to answer the second part first, there are two sets of rules, one for hired-gun consultant lobbyists and the other for organization lobbyists, which is anything that is incorporated in any way, including any charity. The loopholes have to be closed for everyone and every type of organization.

Information & Ethics committee  My position is.... This is my position as a co-founder of Democracy Watch, but I'm also doing my Ph.D. in law on this specific topic of preventing conflicts of interest, so with my legal training, my position is that the Prime Minister and finance minister already admitted they violated the Conflict of Interest Act when they said they were at the final cabinet meeting that approved the contract.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much. Democracy Watch is calling on the members of the committee today not only to recommend many changes to prevent conflicts of interest in government decisions with regard to spending but also to work together and actually draft and propose a bill, and to introduce it in the House of Commons this fall.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, that is fine.