Information & Ethics Committee on May 17th, 2007

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

So it's normal practice to meet in public. I could be wrong, but I have to confess I've only ever dealt with committees where it's done in camera. I'd prefer to go in camera, and so I'm wondering if it's possible if we can have a vote on doing this in camera as opposed to in public.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

The only way you could do that, Mr. Reid, is if you appeal my ruling, as I have found that we are going to deal with this. I found Mr. Tilson's point not well taken. If you appeal my ruling, and if the committee does not sustain my ruling, then we'll go in camera.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Okay, as long as we understand that it's not meant to be disrespectful to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

I do not take anything that happens in this committee as disrespectful.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

In that case, Mr. Chair, as long as I'm not being disrespectful to the chair, it would be my preference, and therefore I guess I am appealing. I guess it's not debatable anyway.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

That's right, it's not debatable.

The ruling of the chair has been appealed. Is it the will of the committee to sustain the chair?

(Ruling of the chair sustained)

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

We are now proceeding to the fourth report of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure.

Your Subcommittee met on Monday, May 14, 2007 to consider future business of the Committee. It was the consensus of Members present, but not unanimous: —That, the Committee begin its study of the Department of Foreign Affairs internal report “Afghanistan 2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights” in relation to Access to Information requests for the document by inviting the following people to appear at its Thursday, May 17, 2007 meeting - Jeff Esau, Professor Amir Attaran, and Jocelyne Sabourin, Department of Foreign Affairs, and further, that the Clerk of the Committee request from the Department of Foreign Affairs a copy of the censored version of the report.

It's respectfully submitted by me.

Will someone move the fourth report?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I so move.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Mr. Martin so moves.

To the debate. Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Obviously I was not at the subcommittee, and from a procedural point of view I have two issues. I have no issue with seeing the individuals who are listed on today's agenda. That's certainly appropriate.

There are two things. One, I want to see—and I want to know if they're on the list, since we're talking about what we're doing on this Afghanistan report—the Information Commissioner and the person from the Department of Foreign Affairs who's mentioned here. I would like to see them separately, not with other panellists, and I'd like to see them first. I think it's appropriate, from a procedural point of view, that we get the rules and the regulations and the process piece and then we invite the other individuals who've been involved in the issue to come. That way, as a committee, we would understand the legal ramifications, the process piece. From a process point of view, I think we should hear from our government officials first, as we do in all the other committees I've been on. The government comes first on whatever the topic happens to be, if they're involved, and they are definitely involved on this one.

So the government officials, the parliamentary officials first. Then we ask the other folks to come. That's one.

Then second, Mr. Chair, to be fair to the government officials, whether it's the Information Commissioner or Ms. Sabourin, is that they be on a separate panel from the other people who've been involved in the issue, from a newspaper point of view or whatever. I'm sorry we're doing this in public, but I want to know what the discussion was at the committee, if that's possible—and that is possible from a procedural point of view—and whether that was discussed. Since we're dealing with a report, I don't know from a committee point of view what I need to do to at least put that on the table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Fair enough.

I am not going to give you a reading of the transcript of the subcommittee report, because you had a representative of your party there who can brief you.

However—I'll also answer your question—I will tell you that the subcommittee considered this from the access to information point of view. We thought it would be best to begin at the beginning, and therefore we thought we would ask the two people who made the access to information requests of the Department of Foreign Affairs to appear first so they could tell us what they did, when they did it, what response they got, how they got it. We thought it would then be appropriate to call the official from the Department of Foreign Affairs who is responsible for answering access to information requests. That's Madame Sabourin.

So that, we thought, would be the logical way of proceeding, to start with the people who made the access to information requests, find out what they asked for and what they were told, and then find out from the departmental official who was responsible, what the department's response was, how, etc.

With due respect, I don't consider the Information Commissioner to be a government official. He is a person who reports to Parliament. And we did discuss the Information Commissioner. I believe he's on the list to be a witness. We also discussed what we thought he might or might not say. We invited suggested witnesses from all parties, and there were people at the steering committee who made some suggestions, but that does not preclude other people from making other suggestions.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has advised the committee that Madame Sabourin will be available to the committee the week after the break. So she will be here on Tuesday, assuming we proceed with this report in whatever fashion we have to proceed with it.

If you want to proceed in a different way from what this motion sets out, then you have to suggest an amendment to the motion.

I'm going to recognize Madame Lavallée.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Do I still have the floor, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

No, you don't, because you concluded your remarks and you asked me some questions. So now I turn to Madame Lavallée.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Put me back on the list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Yes, of course.

Pardon me, Mr. Martin?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Do we have a speakers list?

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Yes, we do, and Madame Lavallée is on it and she's next.

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

Mr. Chair, the majority of committee members voted in favour of the motion to immediately begin an inquiry into the way that the rights of various individuals were treated under the Access to Information Act with regard to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade's internal report. The motion was passed, and it is our duty to begin this inquiry in all haste.

Is it not true that this motion is good for us? If it is good for the Bloc Québécois, the Liberal Party and the NDP, it is also good for the Conservative Party.

I want to remind our Conservative friends of an editorial that appeared on Saturday in the Globe and Mail. It is not the Bloc Québécois, the Liberals or the NDP saying so, but rather the Globe and Mail. The article refers to the speech that Mr. Wallace made in the committee during his apparent filibuster. It also states that, as soon as a journalist arrived in the room, Mr. Tilson called for the vote.

You may laugh, Mr. Wallace, but it is not funny. It is not funny for democracy.

I want to quote from the article:

Mr. Wallace, and any who encouraged him in his filibuster, could use a refresher course on the realities of minority government.

I am not the one saying this, it is the Globe and Mail, and it also gives a little lesson on the nature of a minority government. The editorial concludes as follows:

The concern is that the Conservatives have got into the habit of using procedural tricks to block vexing hearings. The Conservative government has embraced the notion of accountability in principle. It should encourage its MPs to respect it in practice.

I would remind the Conservatives that this motion was passed by the majority. I would officially and solemnly ask them to quit resorting to procedural tricks so that we may immediately proceed with the inquiry on the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade's internal report, which was subject to a request under the Access to Information Act.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

I have Mr. Martin, Mr. Tilson, and Mr. Wallace.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I would only say, Mr. Speaker, that we don't owe Mr. Wallace.... We have no obligation to go through everything we went through in the planning committee for his behalf. He was represented there. Mr. Tilson was there at the committee. I don't think that's telling stories out of school, even though it was an in camera meeting. Mr. Tilson participated fully and made their points very well as to why he didn't want this particular meeting to go ahead.

Not all committees have planning subcommittees, and in those that don't choose to have a planning subcommittee, then the planning is done in camera in the committee as a whole. For those that do, for streamlining and efficient use of our time, the planning committee is done in camera. The debate on the motion coming out of that planning committee is open to the public, and that's what we're doing today.

But we're going to cry foul if we sense that the Conservatives are throwing obstacles in the way of this investigation. We have the witnesses here. The public wants to know. Public opinion is seized of this issue, and if there's anything more than a simple summary comment from Mr. Wallace, we should publicly state in this public meeting that the Conservatives are deliberately blocking this important investigation and this important study. The shame will be on them, and the public will be well aware of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Mr. Tilson, please.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to correct something Mr. Martin said. It's unfair of him to say I didn't want this meeting to go ahead, this particular investigation. That's completely unfair.

If I gave him that impression, he's mistaken, because it's quite the contrary. The majority has ruled this process will proceed, and we'll proceed. We abide by the majority of this committee.

The point I made at the subcommittee, since it appears that everything at the subcommittee is now going to be revealed, my position then and my position now—if you read the motion: “That, if possible, the Committee begin on Thursday, May 17, 2007, its study of the Department of Foreign Affairs internal report “Afghanistan 2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights” in relation to Access to Information requests for the document.”

As far as the witnesses who are here today are concerned, I'm pleased they're here and I look forward to hearing what they have to say. Other witnesses were suggested by the committee, and I know other names will be suggested to the committee. We expect a full investigation of this matter, a complete investigation. If there were any violations of the legislation, I think, according to the motion, this committee will try to find out.

The first thing we have to do, though, is this. We're studying a report. I've never seen it. We've seen page one in The Globe and Mail--“one” blacked out, and I don't know whether that was the report or whether that wasn't the report. The Globe and Mail said it was the report. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Witnesses may come and say they have the report. That's not good enough for me either. I want to see some representative from the government come forward, or at least the clerk report to us that the clerk has the report. This was given to him by a government official, and he presents it to us.

The subcommittee did give the clerk instructions to do that. I assume he's gone off. I think it was made quite clear to us that it's going to be very difficult to get a clean copy of the report. I suppose anything's possible, but without a great brouhaha it's unlikely we'll get the clean copy of the report.

The committee then gave the clerk instructions to get the report where portions aren't blacked out. I accept that. I don't imagine he's got it today, because part of the reason is that it has to be translated. I accept that too.

Quite frankly, I think that calling witnesses before we see even the blacked-out portion of the report is preposterous. Witnesses are—

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

A point of order.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Chair, I am prepared to listen to Mr. Tilson, however, I think that, last week, we heard in great detail all the recriminations that he is repeating this morning. I don't think that we need to listen to them again.

I think that we should move on to the second item on the agenda and hear the witnesses. Even if he told us everything that happened last week and went into great detail, nothing would change. We will still go on to the second item. If we were to adopt the fourth report, which is the first item on the agenda, we could move on to hearing from our witnesses.

We are going around in circles and we went around in circles for five and a half hours last week. I don't think we need to go around in circles, again today. Today, we need to adopt the fourth report. We have talked about it, we voted to consider the report and to talk about it over the next few days. So, the member was aware of this.

Mr. Wallace says he wants to call upon new witnesses. He knows the procedure: he need only send the list of witnesses to the clerk. He doesn't need to tell the committee that he would like such and such an individual to appear; he can do it in writing, as per the procedure.

I move that we vote on the fourth report and that we get done with it, because they will drag it out until tomorrow morning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Well, Monsieur Vincent, it's not a point of order that I ruled. Well taken.

This is the opportunity for members to debate this motion. Each member is entitled to his comments on this motion. If they are repetitive at this meeting, I will call them to order.

Mr. Tilson is now making the points he wishes to make not about whether or not we should proceed, as I hear it, but how we should proceed. That's part and parcel of the debate about the fourth report.

It may very well be that things may go on. It may very well be that we'll be annoyed about that, but that's life in the committee system. Unfortunately, in this chair I'm not about to abridge people's rights to address a motion if they wish to do so. How they do so and for how long will be up to them and it will be on them.

Mr. Tilson, you have the floor.