Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 26th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We will move to a public meeting.

Our committee clerk, Jacques Lahaie, will be leaving us to take on the responsibilities of the international trade committee. Catherine will be our new clerk.

Jacques has been with the heritage committee for four years and has been involved with major studies of this committee: the feature film industry study in Canada, with cross-country public hearings. I remember so many of them. I can remember being in Montreal and there were two of us sitting around the table at that particular time. There could have been an election called any day, so we had to be ready for votes. He handled those situations quite well.

We had major hearings on the Canadian Television Fund crisis, the court challenges program hearings, and the extensive hearings on the role of the public broadcaster in the 21st century--also hearings across the land.

Jacques and the people who were looking after our trip to the Northwest Territories.... When everyone was in Calgary and I was in Edmonton, they had to find me; they did, and they picked me up and took me to Yellowknife for what I thought was a tremendous round table and a great meeting.

There was one thing that happened that night. After we let everyone have their say--we were about half an hour late getting things started because of our flight changes and so on, and I think we went until close to 11:30--and we left, we went out and I can still see those northern lights happening right in front of us. It was a tremendous night.

Jacques, it's been a tremendous honour for me to have you as clerk. Thank you very much.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Jacques Lahaie]

The honour is mine.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Perhaps it would be appropriate for me, on behalf of myself and my colleagues, to propose a motion of congratulations to Mr. Lahaie, and of thanks for all the work he has done.

(Motion agreed to. [SeeMinutes of Proceedings.])

[The Clerk]

This is very kind. Thank you very much. I have enjoyed working with this committee a great deal. It studies very important matters and the spirit of collegiality is excellent. It is fascinating, and one of the most interesting committees.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

It is a model committee.

[The Clerk]

Yes, indeed.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Do we have motions, or are we going to put off that business? You have motions in front of you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

It's up to the will of the committee. Do we want to work on the motions that are before us, or will we put them off until Thursday?

Could we put our motions off until Thursday?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

We can get through them quickly.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I don't think so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Do we want to make them our first item of business on Thursday? Could we do that?

Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Chair, we're scheduled to go to 1 o'clock. I'm prepared to keep working until 1 o'clock.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay.

It's just that I knew there were a couple of people who had a couple of other things to do.

All those in favour of putting off the tabling of the motions that are before us until Thursday?

(Motion negatived)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Our next order of business is a notice of motion from Maria Mourani:

That the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage call the President of CBC/Radio-Canada to appear as soon as possible to explain the policy regarding the right of CBC/Radio-Canada employees to communicate with Members of the House of Commons and specifically with members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

Would you like to speak to the motion, please, Ms. Mourani?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As the motion says, we would like the president of CBC/Radio-Canada to come and explain his internal policy regarding the right of employees to communicate with members of Parliament.

I think that a number of you, perhaps everyone who is an official member of this committee, must have received several e-mails, including a letter suspending an employee for three days. I do not want to get into the administrative details of CBC/Radio-Canada and I do not think that anyone does. But what concerns me greatly is the perception of interference in the committee's work. I am a very down-to-earth person and I like knowing the facts: I do not go by hearsay and gossip. So I want to have my questions answered.

I have a version of the facts that leads me to make certain assumptions. But I do not want to deal in assumptions. I do not want to get into the details of any particular matter, but I want to understand. Can a CBC employee speak to members of Parliament? Can he talk to us on a matter we are working on? Is there an internal directive or policy that specifies whether a person can do that, and under which circumstances? I especially do not want to get into rhetoric or make assumptions about the e-mails I have received.

I think that we are perfectly justified in asking the CBC to come and explain, so that all sides can be heard. Furthermore, I believe that the corporation has held a news conference with the person in question. So it is in the public domain.

I would like to hear what the president of the CBC has to say about his policy, not necessarily about this particular matter.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Fast, and then Mr. Bélanger.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Chair, before we get into the merits of the motion, I want to raise with the committee the whole issue of sub judice, which is a principle at law that has been adopted by the House and certainly by committees, that if in fact a matter is already under consideration by a judicial or a quasi-judicial body, the committee will not consider it until those proceedings are complete.

It's my understanding that an appeal of the decision by CBC on this suspension has been made. If that is the case, clearly that is a quasi-judicial proceeding that should play itself out before we intervene, because this is a public meeting.

Frankly, Mr. Chair, I would request that we have a ruling from you and perhaps the clerk determining whether that principle of law applies to this situation and also to determine whether in fact an appeal has been launched by the employee in question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Bélanger.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Chair, the sub judice rule exists, but it does not apply here because the matter is not before the courts. Even if it were, the rule is very clear: it does not prevent the government from looking into a matter. It must simply be careful in the way it proceeds.

I am very familiar with the sub judice rule. In this case, I am absolutely convinced that it does not apply. A procedural clerk or some other authority on procedure could quickly confirm that for us. That is the first point.

The second point is that the motion as worded causes me some difficulty. First, if we want to speak to an institution, we do not need to speak to the president of that institution; we could speak to its representatives. Second, we have to tread carefully. I cannot support a motion whose object is to investigate a particular case. But I feel that it is legitimate to seek an understanding of policies that deal with how people employed by the CBC can interact with members of Parliament.

I have a compromise suggestion. For the moment, we would ask our research staff to gather information on the CBC and to prepare a quite detailed report on the rules that apply to the present problem. When we receive that report, we will be able to decide if we want to call the CBC to clear up any matters.

At this stage, I do not have enough information. The information can be gathered. I suggest that we seriously consider this approach. It would not prevent us from calling the CBC later, but we would do so with more information than we presently have.

That is my suggestion and I hope that it will be given due consideration.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I agree with Mauril on this. I don't think we need to call the president of Radio-Canada/CBC to explain to us the policy of the corporation with respect to employees contacting members of Parliament.

The second thing I'd say is that I don't think we should get into the specifics of this particular case that you're alluding to, in the interest of that person, because if they are under discipline and that discipline beyond the appeal continues, you're putting them in a very awkward position too.

And finally I'd say we have to realize that if there's wrongdoing within a crown corporation or a department, clearly employees of the crown corporation or the federal government have an obligation to report that either to the authorities or to members of Parliament or the like. But if somebody has a disagreement with government policy or with the corporation's policy and they go through backdoor channels, improper channels, and relay those concerns to the public or to the media or to individual members of Parliament, they're violating crown corporation or departmental guidelines. They may disagree with those guidelines, but those are the guidelines, and they do so at their own risk. That's the modus operandi for any organization.

So in the cases where there's illicit activity or wrongdoing, clearly they have the right and the obligation to report that to the authorities or to us, but in the case where it's a disagreement over policy or a disagreement over direction and they come to a member of Parliament or they go to the media, they are assuming the risk that comes along with that decision, which is that if they're caught out they're subject to discipline.

I think we have to be aware of the difference in the two cases. I think if it was somebody who was in the corporation or a department who witnessed wrongdoing, reported it, and then got reprimanded, clearly that person needs to be defended and the person doing the reprimanding should be called on the carpet to explain themselves. However, if it's a case where the person didn't go through the public relations or government relations department but instead went through back-door channels because they disagreed with a policy of the corporation, well, they do so at their own risk, and I'm not sure that we want to waste a lot of time hashing out the details of that policy.

If we are going to go ahead with it at all, I agree with Mauril. Let's get some lower-level person to explain the policy and let's stay away from the specifics, because if the appeal fails that this person has launched, we put that person in a very awkward position: they're still an employee of the corporation and yet we're holding parliamentary hearings on their specific case. They may just at that point want to drop the whole thing and move on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Ms. Mourani, and then Mr. Siksay.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I agree with Mauril. We are not here to look into any particular case. However, it is true that a particular case has raised questions. Of course this committee is not going to discuss this particular case, and certainly not with the person in question in attendance.

Should we call the president or the vice-presidents? If we are responsible for the policy of a crown corporation, we are not going to call “some lower-level person”. I do not know if that is the right translation of what I heard. In a crown corporation, policies are managed higher up. We make the policies, of course, but they apply them, and a president runs a corporation, not the other employees. So if we have questions for the corporation, it seems to me that it is the president who should come to answer them.

We talk about transparency a lot. We talked about a proposed report on transparency that could fit well. The motion does not mention any case in particular, it simply asks the president of Radio-Canada/CBC to explain his policy regarding the right of employees to communicate with members of Parliament. The motion makes no mention of any specific case. We are not discussing internal administration. If something is happening internally, regarding whistleblowing for example, it is not our problem. The problem is when we cannot speak to people in a crown corporation in the course of our work without them being punished for it. There is some kind of code of silence.

I cannot say that Radio-Canada/CBC has such a code, because I have no evidence of one. There is only one party who claims to be aggrieved and we are not here to talk about that. I would like to know if we can communicate with the employees of a crown corporation. Can they send us information that deals with our work on Radio Canada/CBC officially, not under the table, if they are in a position to do so? The person who is best placed to talk to us about it is the president of the CBC, not a lower-level person, as you said.