Information & Ethics committee  Thanks. I don't recall saying that explicitly, but it's an idea I very much like, so if I did, I heartily endorse it.

Information & Ethics committee  I do think it is important for the public to have a means of seeking redress about the behaviour of public office holders. I don't know why it wouldn't be. The public has the greatest interest in what our representatives do and what our public service does. I can't think of a goo

Information & Ethics committee  I have just a quick thought on that. Sorry, I can't find it, but at the time of the Oliphant commission, there was concern that there was a disjuncture between the Conflict of Interest Act and the post-employment requirements under the Lobbying Act. All I can do is highlight that

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I can see a concern there. It depends on the level they're moving into, I think, but even so, if they are a public office holder in a senior position or a partisan position and they move into a non-partisan office, and they do it without a significant cooling-off period, you

Information & Ethics committee  If you want just a myriad of examples of different ethics commissions, every state, every city, and the federal government in the U.S. has a commission. So there are a lot of models out there. I have a concern about them, though, which I tried to raise before. It seems to me that

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I think so. I agree with....

Information & Ethics committee  I do have a sense that you could be dealing with a fair number of people. While I think the person-to-person meeting makes sense, it makes a lot of sense from an educational point of view. It may be that it's more efficient—not likely more effective, but more efficient—to have tr

Information & Ethics committee  Right. That's a good point. Probably the only way you can deal with post-employment is by fine—or imprisonment, I guess, but the act prohibits criminal offences being created, so you couldn't really assume—

Information & Ethics committee  Maybe, yes; I can—

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. It is a problem if any of these codes or any of this conflict of interest legislation across the country are used for partisan purposes. I think the commissioner has to have the ability to refuse to investigate things. In most statutes across the country there are sect

Information & Ethics committee  Yes—on both, if I may. On the speaking out, yes, I agree with that last point that Ian Greene made. I mean, part of this goes with the territory, doesn't it? She's not a debating club, she's an investigator who will provide a report at a certain point in time and speak her mind

Information & Ethics committee  Sorry, I was probably unclear. I think there are actually two categories. One is a set of misbehaviours: misuse of information, inappropriate acceptance of gifts, and so on. These are actual misbehaviours. If you do them, you've done something wrong. You're not merely in a confli

Information & Ethics committee  My concern is that you've essentially set up a system in which somebody monitors and investigates and then reports to somebody else, either to the House, the Prime Minister, the public, or somebody, and also has an advisory role. That is essentially what I would call a specialty

Information & Ethics committee  I don't have a lot to add on apparent conflicts of interest. The way Justice Oliphant defined it was that apparent conflicts of interest are understood to exist if there is a reasonable perception, which a reasonably well-informed person could properly have, that a public office

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I do, actually. I think that's a good point. I think you need to look at the range of potential influences and not accept certain gifts as acceptable. And on the whole idea of...I understand that there's a fact-finding element to accepting trips and so on, but I find that tr