Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on May 16th, 2006

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Again, maybe you can be of some help. We're planning on putting in an amendment under this section of the bill to deal with floor crossing. We view it as an irritant that a lot of Canadians are concerned about. We're finding your rulings helpful on a couple of complaints that have been made, actually, in that your rulings pretty much cited that if the floor crossing could have been tied to some personal gain or tied directly to an actual vote in the House of Commons, then not only could it be viewed that it was an ethical breach, but it could also even be viewed that the person may have been induced with some monetary or....

I have two questions. Could you expand on that one a little bit? Also, do you see that personal interest could be something other than monetary gain, such as status or career laddering? Do you see other ways of taking a more generous interpretation of personal interest?

[Bernard Shapiro]

Relative to the last point, the issue--at least, the issue as it appeared to me--was whether anything special that isn't offered to any other person who has been in cabinet is being offered in this case. When a person gets an opportunity to be a minister, something special has happened to the person's life and career in every case, but we don't consider it a conflict of interest, simply because it's part of the package that is offered to everyone and therefore is not any kind of special inducement. It's only if the inducement is unusual in a particularly egregious way that you would want to say it was therefore a breach of the code.

Relative to the first part of that question, I think it's important to understand that when you're dealing with ethical issues in which conflict of interest is a subset--ethics is a much bigger question than conflict of interest--values almost always collide. Otherwise we wouldn't be discussing this year after year after year. Therefore, it becomes very context dependent. It depends a lot on the particular circumstances of a particular case; making general rules about this is very difficult.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I can understand that.

If we could go back to another point I asked, if that floor crossing were perhaps tied to a specific vote, would that cross the line, in your view? In other words, to co-opt a person into your camp to help win a specific vote with an offer of reward...? I understand that everything you deal with is in varying shades of grey, but I still see this as soft--

[Bernard Shapiro]

I'm not going to comment on a specific case, which leads me back...because that's the one that comes to mind, so I won't comment on that. I do think it makes it much more problematic than the question of status, the salary that goes to a cabinet minister, or things of that sort.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Do you foresee any problems or confusion with this one new officer's having to enforce two, or perhaps even three, separate conflict of interest codes? There's the Senate and the House of Commons at the very least, and, I suppose, the act.

[Bernard Shapiro]

As the current commissioner, I administer two, one for public office-holders and one for members of the House of Commons. I don't see anything conceptually difficult about expanding to three. It does mean you have to be careful when you're asked for advice, because it means you have to differentiate, for example, between whether the person is a public office-holder, a member of the House, or a senator. That is not, however, enormously difficult to do. It's one of the reasons behind a decision we recently made operationally to try to assign each file that we get to the same adviser, in a sense, for life, so that they focus on that particular relationship and whether that person is a public office-holder, a member of the House, or a member of the Senate.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Okay. Thank you.

[Bernard Shapiro]

You're welcome.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Lukiwski.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Shapiro, it's good to see you again. I have a couple of questions, but first I want to focus on your suggestion that ministers should perhaps recuse themselves from projects where funding goes to their home riding, even though the project does not benefit the minister personally or his personal interest, because you're suggesting there would be difficulties with the public perception of that. And perception is reality in politics.

I agree with what you're getting at and the spirit of it, because you want the public to be confident that the minister is not trying to feather his or her own nest, but I have difficulty in how you would administer that. I'm going to give you a couple of examples, because I really can't get my head around how you would deal with this.

In a general sense, any time there is a project that would go to a minister's home riding, regardless of whether that minister had anything to do with that file or with approval of that funding, when the announcement comes, the minister is going to be there for the photo ops and to make the announcement and perhaps to hand out the cheque, and everything else. So even though that minister had absolutely nothing to do with the funding of that, the perception may be, well, he certainly had some influence, and behind the cabinet's closed doors he did whatever he could to make sure the project went to his riding.

So how do you propose that a minister recuse himself, or are you suggesting that a minister should recuse himself?

I'll give you a second example, because it happened in Saskatchewan. Mr. Chair, I'm not doing this to get into personal examples here, but in my province of Saskatchewan, prior to the last election, we only had one government member representing the province, and he happened to be a cabinet minister. So realistically, whatever projects came to Saskatchewan, that minister was on hand to hand out the cheque. It could be argued that the entire province was that minister's home riding.

So are you suggesting that in any case where any funding or project happens, and a minister happens to be involved because it happens to be in his or her home riding, or home province, they should recuse themselves and not be available to participate even in a cheque-signing ceremony? I just can't get my head around how that—

[Bernard Shapiro]

It's certainly flies in the face of ongoing experience. But in any case, I think it's never a serious issue when the project is one of a large number of projects that arise out of a particular government program. Let's say that if it's in support of small business and a whole series of grants are going to be made on various criteria, it doesn't matter that one of those grants happens to go to the minister's riding, and there's no need to recuse him or her in that respect. But when something is specific to that riding and not, for example, generally available elsewhere, you get into problems of apparent conflict of interest.

I don't think any Canadian objects to the fact that the minister shows up to hand out the cheque; it's understood as part of the culture of political life in the country, and I think that's reasonable. It's not unreasonable. But I think the minister has to be very careful in dealing with projects that relate only to their riding, as opposed to relating to a series of ridings of which theirs might be one.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

All right, I'll give you another example from my own province. The minister was the Minister of Finance, the only Saskatchewan minister in the previous Liberal government. There was a project that was very well received in Regina called “The Big Dig”. It was for deepening Wascana Lake, and it was a Canada-provincial infrastructure program, so there was a program in place.

Would you suggest in that particular case—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

There's a point of order.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I was wondering why some members are not allowed to make reference to specific cases, yet the Conservatives are. Surely Saskatchewan is a specific example of a specific province?

At times, I get the feeling that we have two chairmen for this committee. Mr. Poilievre sometimes takes on the role of chairman. My question was, however, for the committee's real chairman.

Could you please clarify this for me, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Your point is well taken. We're going to be consistent; we should not give specific examples. You're absolutely right.

Mr. Lukiwski, please.

[Bernard Shapiro]

Perhaps I could add a general comment that's not related to the specific examples. In general, when we try to administer these guidelines, we try to focus on decision-making; it's who made the decision that's really crucial, not who gave out the cheque or who appeared to shake hands, or whatever. So if you keep those two principles in mind—who participated in the decision-making, and is it a program that is one of a large class of other beneficiaries, or is it specific—they usually give sufficient guidelines to move ahead.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Would it not be fair to say, though, that a cabinet decision was made and a minister in question was involved with the decision even though it may not have been his or her particular file?

[Bernard Shapiro]

I would say that in some of those cases the minister should recuse himself or herself from the decision made at cabinet.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Then you would have a situation where ministers would be recusing themselves for any decision that would be going back to their own riding, under any circumstances.

[Bernard Shapiro]

Going back to their own riding only. It makes a big difference.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I have two other quick points. How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Two minutes.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

One is with respect to a comment, and it was a comment made by one of my honourable colleagues, about the conflict of interest. If there was an opposition executive assistant or an executive assistant to a member of the opposition or its leader, should they not follow the same standards as a ministerial aid? I think that's an excellent suggestion, frankly, and I would certainly hope that we get an amendment coming from my honourable colleagues opposite to that effect.

I have another question for you, sir, on what I think is a decent suggestion. On the current wording of the section with respect to the activities of ministers and parliamentary secretaries and their activities vis-à-vis parliamentarians as opposed to a public office-holder, you say the wording may create some confusion. Under what circumstances should a minister wear his or her hat as an ordinary MP and serve the constituent? This confusion would be especially acute when a minister is asked by a constituent to deal with a quasi judicial body or a crown corporation on their behalf.

What wording would you suggest would clarify that situation?

[Bernard Shapiro]

I haven't got a wording right now to suggest, but I'd be glad to provide one.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

You're going to be providing some information, some proposed amendments to this committee, and if you could provide some wording on that particular case as well, that would be helpful.

I think that's all I have, Mr. Chair.