Evidence of meeting #21 for Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Okay, perfect.
I haven't developed an opinion on whether this is a subamendment or an amendment, and I'd like to get some advice from our technical experts on how substantive the change actually is.
9:50 a.m.
Bloc
Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC
Are you the chairman of the committee's procedures, and are they experts in the interpretation of the act and our clauses? I find it very hard to understand why Mr. Poilievre is asking these people if you're right. Explain that to me. I'm here to learn.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
You may proceed.
In answer, yes, I am the chair, and we're into debate, and I've made a ruling. The question is whether there's unanimous consent or not. I suppose we can have debate on that, and that's what we're in the midst of.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I just want to inform Mr. Sauvageau that he does not give unanimous consent. We, as members, give unanimous consent, and we have the right to seek all the information we want to seek when we decide whether we're giving unanimous consent. So I will decide what information I need in order to give that agreement.
Thank you.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Maybe it wasn't understood, but I thought I understood, Mr. Chairman, what Mr. Sauvageau said. To make it clearer, you have ruled that this is not a subamendment; it is an amendment. It is totally inappropriate for a member of this committee to ask the experts whether you're wrong about whether it's an amendment or a subamendment, and that's what the question was.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Excuse me. Mr. Chairman, please rule on my point of order. Thank you.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
What I do up here is make rulings on my own. I ask for counsel from the clerk and the other staff up here, and I can assure you that the ruling I made was based on their advice. So it's not just me pulling this out of the air, and I don't want to have this end of the table being challenged by that end of the table.
Mr. Murphy is correct.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
No. Mr. Chair, are we not debating whether we're going to give Mr. Martin his unanimous consent?
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
We are indeed. What I don't want to happen here is to have that end of the table saying that the other end of the table is wrong, and that's what you're trying to do.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I understand that. But no, it's not. What I am trying to do is ascertain the nature of his amendment before we can determine whether we will give unanimous consent to include it. That's exactly what I'm trying to do.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
I'll allow that. But I don't want that end of the table saying that this end of the table is wrong. If you want clarification, you can ask the legal people.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Right. Obviously there are some people who want to delay this process. I'm going to go straight to my question.
What would be the actual effect of the amendment that's being proposed?
9:50 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Legal Services, Treasury Board Portfolio, Department of Justice
I guess there are a couple of different aspects to the proposed language.
The first thing is the issue of what's meant by “former judge” and so on. Just to be clear, it is not meant to imply that the person has to be a former judge before going through the selection process. It's meant to state that you can't hold two jobs. You can't be sitting on the bench and at the same time be the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner; it's meant to be one job.
With respect to splitting out what is really, I guess, proposed paragraph 81(2)(b) into two statements, to say “a former member of a federal or a provincial board, commission or tribunal or a person who has demonstrated expertise”, in the way paragraph (b) was crafted, it was intended that those criteria be used to help determine whether or not a member of a particular federal or provincial board, commission, or tribunal is sufficiently qualified.
The proposed amendment would change that by basically allowing any member of a federal or provincial board or commission, without any further qualification, whereas the intent in the bill was that the member would still have to demonstrate having met one of those following criteria.
I'm not sure what the intention is in the amendment. It certainly could be fixed to make sure those criteria apply to both former members of federal or provincial boards, commissions, or tribunals as well as to the proposed any “person who has demonstrated expertise” in those areas.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
What would be the effect of the amendment? That's what I'm trying to get at.
9:55 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Legal Services, Treasury Board Portfolio, Department of Justice
The effect of the amendment would be that it would open up the potential of candidates.... There are two steps, I guess.
First, if you said “current”, then the effect of the amendment would be that someone would in essence be holding two jobs that are both supposed to be full-time. That creates a bit of a technical problem, certainly.
But for the other part of it, to say “or a person who has demonstrated expertise in any of the following”, Mr. Chair, would certainly be broadening the scope of candidates. You could in essence be looking at, in addition to the former judges, any Canadian who has any expertise in conflict of interest, financial arrangements, professional regulation and discipline, or ethics. So it would broaden substantially the number of candidates.
Just to go back to the point about the “current” and “former” and only holding one job, proposed subsection 83(2) of the Conflict of Interest Act specifically states that the commissioner has to engage exclusively in the functions of the commissioner. That's again the reason why you're seeing “former”, because once you're in the job of commissioner you are going to be in effect a former judge; you can't be holding both positions.
The only other aspect to this, which I guess is a bit of a wrinkle, is that when you open to other persons who are not judges or former members performing quasi-judicial functions, it has the impact I mentioned earlier about the review level. Having a person without a quasi-judicial background, if you will—who doesn't have the background of being a judge or the background of participating in a board, commission, or tribunal—would raise that issue of the level of judicial review. Currently under the proposed act it's the Federal Court of Appeal. For that particular type of person, it would be inappropriate that the Federal Court of Appeal be the level of review. The level of review for that particular type of a person should be the trial division of the Federal Court, because they don't have that quasi-judicial background.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I want to make the observation that everyone seems to support in principle all of the criteria laid out in the existing Accountability Act. I haven't seen anyone particularly disagree with the requirement that someone have judicial experience or experience on a tribunal or a commission. Everybody agrees in theory; they just don't agree in practice. They don't want this one individual, with whom they have some particular attachment, to have to live up to those requirements.
If we agree that the job must be held by someone who has this experience, then presumably that means that any person who holds the job must have that experience. It should not be that everybody except one guy has to meet the requirements. So I do find that contradictory. Either the members agree that the person who occupies this post should have that experience, or they don't agree. They have to decide which it is. It can't be that everybody in the country who applies for the job has to have all the qualifications except for one guy, who we prefer to believe can go around those obligations.
In the interests of consistency, we stand in favour of the existing wording of the bill.
10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
I want to be clear about what you have said. We're in the process of debating unanimous consent. Are you saying you will not give unanimous consent?
10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
On the amendment, you want to speak on BQ-8.
Mr. Owen on BQ-8 and Mr. Sauvageau... Sorry, I have Mr. Hawn. We have lists, Mr. Sauvageau.
Mr. Owen, then Mr. Hawn.