Information & Ethics Committee on April 26th, 2007

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I suppose the national crisis that this has generated may in fact warrant that. It's shining a light on what happened here. It speaks to the very heart and soul of everything that we do and stand for here in Parliament.

I saw my colleague Dawn Black stand up and ask directly. The first question she asked, when this Parliament convened after the election in 2006, was about the detainees. The cover-up was already in full flight at that time, and it has continued to this day. One of the government responses to an access to information request said that “no such report on human rights performance in other countries exists”. That was the response to Jeff Esau, a journalist with the Globe and Mail.

Is there any enforcement possible by your office for that kind of complete fabrication or denial of access to information with a blanket statement like “there is no such report”, never mind blacking out, but denying the report exists?

[J. Alan Leadbeater]

Hiding the existence of a document requested under the Access to Information Act is an offence under the statute.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Who would press charges--you?

[J. Alan Leadbeater]

If in the course of an investigation we determine there's reasonable basis to believe that an offence has been committed, our obligation is to refer that matter to the Attorney General. But it is a matter that any individual can refer to policing authorities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you.

Mr. Martin also asked a question, which I don't think was answered, about prioritizing investigations and reports. Given the backlog, how does it work in your office? Is everything a first-in, first-out kind of thing, or does the commissioner decide whether one case is more important to investigate more quickly than another, for example?

[J. Alan Leadbeater]

We try to be blind to the motives or identities of our complainants, for obvious reasons. We will not speed up an investigation because of partisan political pressure; we will not slow down an investigation because of partisan political pressure. I think this Parliament would expect nothing less of us. We just go about being as professional, thorough, and diligent as we can with every investigation we have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you.

Mr. Peterson is next, for five minutes.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

We have a situation where there's denial by the government that it had been informed of abuses of human rights in Afghanistan. There's an access to information application, and lo and behold, a report is issued showing that the government had been informed of abuses, but the report is blacked out.

What possible justification could there be for denial of access? You have indicated that there are 13 different headings under which denial of access can be granted. Could you just tell us as many of them as you can remember?

[J. Alan Leadbeater]

The most-used exemption is the protection of personal privacy. It's a mandatory exemption. Another mandatory exemption is information provided in confidence by other governments. Then there are injury test exemptions such as injury to federal-provincial relations, injury to international relations or the defence of Canada, injury to the commercial interests of corporations that provide information to the Government of Canada. There are exemptions for cabinet confidences, to maintain cabinet secrecy, to protect solicitor-client privilege, and on the internal deliberative process of government--that is the advice giving, the recommendation making, the negotiation of contracts, and all the negotiation process.

I don't know if I've hit all of them. The investigative process is another one.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I'm going to put it to you that not one of those cited reasons justifying denial of access could possibly apply to the blackout of this report on egregious human rights abuses, including sending people to death. If you have any disagreement with what I've just said, I would welcome it.

[J. Alan Leadbeater]

There is no way that the office either agrees or disagrees with a proposition put forward by a complainant until we've investigated. Every complainant that comes to us says there is no possible reason there should be secrecy, and the government institution says there's every reason for secrecy. Our job is to try to get to what is an objective, neutral view of the matter.

So if before investigating you're going to work to try to get the commissioner to agree with you that the secrecy is terrible, that's a fool's errand. It's not going to happen.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

How could a report on committing egregious human rights abuses possibly hurt personal privacy? How could it hurt our international relationships? How could it deal with solicitor-client privilege? It's beyond me.

I can understand that you want to hear the other side, but I'm going to put it to you that you will be listening long and hard to try to find one iota or scintilla of justification. It will be like searching all day for two grains of wheat in a barrel of chaff; ere you search all day and find them, they be not worth it. I put that to you.

[Robert Marleau]

Let's make a parallel, sir. And I don't want to minimize the issue that you're raising--that is, the content of the document or the content of what's been blacked out. But if I go back to another life, as a table officer in the House of Commons, my duty was to help every single member, regardless of political stripe or the content of his draft bill or his motion. If a member wanted advice on how to put forward a motion on abortion, regardless of my views or anyone else's views, I gave them best draft I could.

We approach our investigations the same way. It is a process by which we are bound. The content is fundamental to the parties, but it is not ours, and not ours to judge--only that it is a fair and thorough investigation ultimately ending in a recommendation, maybe by the commissioner, that the courts would decide upon.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Marleau, first of all I commend the great service that you provided to parliamentarians of all stripes for so many years. And secondly, I agree with your approach. I just put it to you...good luck. This is an issue where it's going to be very difficult for you to find any justification, I'm sure, for the blackouts that were so blatant.

[Robert Marleau]

I welcome your good wishes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you, Mr. Peterson. That was five minutes, again right on the button.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

I appreciate your coming. I have a few more questions left, but they are budget questions.

I appreciate your not getting sucked into the political debate that's happening on the other side of the table.

I have a question with regard to page 9. It's just an understanding issue, again, for me. Table 3 concerns services received without charge.

First of all, I need to clarify that statement. I'm assuming that means that you're using the money but it's actually applied to somebody else's budget and not your own. Is that correct? Or do you put that in your budget? I don't understand what that means, services “without charge”.

[Robert Marleau]

I forget when this was introduced in part III of the estimates; it was some years ago.

We don't get that money. We don't see it. That is the cost of third-party services in support of our program.

So Public Works spends roughly half a million dollars on leases--

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

You don't have to allocate it in your actual spending budget.

[Robert Marleau]

We have no control over it.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'm going to ask you a few things about that, because I want to be clear.

Accommodation provided by Public Works and Government Services I guess is $498,000. Is that correct? Yes.

Is that for rent?

[Robert Marleau]

Yes, that would be essentially lease and what they call tenant services on our office space.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

And does that include the money that was not spent on rent last year?

[Robert Marleau]

No.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

So this is actual space you actually have used, then.