Information & Ethics Committee on June 12th, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I come from a big family; there were ten of us. As happens with most cases when we sit around the table at night, we'd go to conversation and as kids we'd talk about this kid, that kid, start running this one down. I had a very interesting mother. My mother would always look at the good side of people and say “Now, you know, look at this, let's consider this”.

[An hon. member]

We didn't talk about him at all. There's no need to filibuster this morning.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I'm not filibustering; I'm frustrated, I'm really frustrated.

The reason I say this is because I really think, when I read this letter, that what we have here is a situation where you have an overprotective parent, possibly, and frustrated witnesses coming back saying “We got grilled, they asked us this, and you know I can't say that”, so he's just absolutely frustrated and he answered probably incorrectly. I think what the guy is telling us is that he can clear up a lot of this stuff.

I think that as a result of this letter we're going off in the wrong direction. I really feel that. If we decide we're going to do this and pull in all these witnesses, we can do that. But I think what this letter is saying—I just want to repeat that—is that these people we first subpoenaed, and the ones we want to subpoena, really are not in a position to say what they have to say. I think this guy can say it.

It's a classic example of being slighted and just taking off in a certain direction. I think we were on a good footing the last time. I think Mr. Dewar said last week too that we need to focus on access to information. That's an objective that can give us good results, something we can actually give to the Canadian public rather than just going after this witch hunt. I really don't think it's what we're interpreting. I really feel that this guy might have made a mistake. It's somewhat of an arrogant response, and maybe we have to just sit him down and explain that to him. But listen to his story, because I think most of what we're asking is going to come from that.

I am not in favour of dragging all these witnesses in and going off in this direction. I think we're just wasting our time and we're going off in the wrong direction. That's my two cents' worth. I want you just to think about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you, Mr. Van Kesteren.

Just to remind you, you used the words “witch hunt”. We had already agreed that with respect to the lesser officials, if I can put it that way, we would hear from them in camera so that there would be no damage to their reputation or embarrassment to them. Then we would decide later, depending on the evidence and a whole host of things, whether we would agree that the evidence would be released. That was to protect the lesser officials, if I can put it that way.

I'm not talking about the head of GHH or Madame Sabourin or the deputy minister, but Madame Archambault, Ms. Nixon, etc. You asked, what could they tell us? If the committee wanted to ask Madame Archambault to walk us through what she did as an ATIP officer from the moment she received the request, if we ask that question of Mr. Edwards, he cannot answer that except by going to Madame Archambault. So why can't Madame Archambault take us through it? We're not asking her about redactions, let's say, we're not asking her about what Madame Sabourin did; we would ask her what she did. What's her understanding as an ATIP officer of what she's supposed to do when she gets a request?

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Just to respond, I agree with that. When I said we're on a witch hunt, I didn't mean we want to persecute somebody, tie them to the stake, and burn them. I just think we're reacting to a negative reaction, and we're reacting angrily.

I think, if we get this guy, grill him. Like, you can do to him whatever you want to do. I think we're going to get most of the answers. He may even say okay, all right, they can answer those questions.

I think what has happened behind the scenes is that these people are going to him, throwing their hands up, and asking him how they're supposed to answer this stuff. And he, as a parent, is saying that he'll go, that he'll take the heat.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

I have Mr. Tilson, Mr. Vincent, and Mr. Dewar. However, since Mr. Tilson and Mr. Dewar have spoken before, I'll go to Monsieur Vincent first, and then Mr. Tilson.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Van Kesteren's remarks are a little surprising, I find. In law, we call this obstruction. If we do a quick count of the people around the table, Mr. Wappel, you would agree that 33 people are expecting witnesses today. One person has decided to defy a committee's authority and nothing is going to be said, not a word? We must take some concrete steps because it is just not right that a deputy minister can disregard the will of a committee.

He is inconveniencing 33 people who have come here and are now present. We have MPs, political aides, interpreters and others around the table. What gives him the right to decide that he was not going to send anyone this morning, and that if we wanted to hear from anyone, it had to be him? We cannot ignore something like that; it is an affront not just to this committee but to all the other Commons committees. It is not right for a deputy minister, or anyone else for that matter, to make a decision like that about a request from a committee that wants to shed light on a matter before it, or on any report or study.

We must go even further. We are saying that they must come. etc. No, we must pass a motion of censure—or some other specific measure—against this deputy minister. If we do nothing, it means that any other deputy minister or anyone else could decide not to send such and such a person, because it is no big deal, because there will be no consequences, because the committee can do nothing, and neither can the House of Commons. We must check what recourse we have at our disposal and set an example. I cannot believe that a deputy minister is going to decide...

Today, maybe it is in the Conservatives' interests that no one is coming to testify, but as soon as they are on the other side of the table, more sparks will likely fly. It is just not right that a person like that should decide...We must condemn this situation. It cannot remain an internal matter. We must say that our committee's work has been obstructed. Something must be done, because this is leaving the door wide open to anyone else who might be tempted to do the same thing and to waste the time of 33 people who came to hear witnesses this morning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Merci.

Mr. Tilson.

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

Mr. Chairman, this whole inquiry or process started off as whether or not there was political interference. It is quite clear there hasn't been.

The types of questions I'm interested in are on the issues of why there was delay and how we can improve that. There has already been some evidence that has dealt with that.

I'm still not clear on the process of blacking things out. They say there are guidelines, but I'm still not clear. I'd like some more clarification on how much discretion is given to officials to do that sort of thing. Someone said the guidelines are thick. I don't know if I want to go through all those or not, but I'm interested in that process. Do we just let some bureaucrat decide that it's going to be blacked out, or what is the process? Should they have discretion? Should they not have discretion? These are all useful questions.

There was an admission by someone—I can't remember which witness it was from the government—who said the guidelines haven't been updated for a while and we need to have a process for updating them. I don't know if that was for guidelines or recommendations. How do we approve that process? How do we review the guidelines?

All of these witnesses can add to that in some little way, even the officials who the deputy doesn't want to come here. I believe they can make a contribution and make suggestions to the committee.

The only area I talked about was whether it goes on and on or whether you divide them into blocks. I don't know how many times we've seen senior officials say “I'll answer the question”. You direct it toward one witness and they say....

Whatever we do, I'd like to see the deputy separately from the others. I'm not saying he'd do that, but I don't want him saying “I'll answer those questions” and then someone gets into a brouhaha and says “No, I want that witness to answer these questions”. That would be my recommendation, whether you'd put them all on one morning and you'd have the deputy and then you'd recess for a couple of seconds and then you'd have a different block....

I think you are getting some sort of consensus here, Mr. Chairman. It varies slightly from speaker to speaker, but there is a consensus, I believe, that we want to see these people. The question is how we see them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

You are right, Mr. Tilson. There is reasonable consensus that we should hear the deputy minister. I think we should hear him first. That makes sense. He has offered to appear.

The issue then is, just for an example, if we agree that we're going to hear the deputy minister on Tuesday and on Monday night he tells us he can't make it until Thursday. This is what I'm getting at.

Mr. Dewar, then Mr. Peterson.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I would just like to clarify a couple of things. Mr. Van Kesteren mentioned that I had in a previous meeting talked about needing to improve access to information. We should be focused on that. I also mentioned, though, that this case is really important to help us with advising the government on how they can do that. But I also have to underline the promise—and I remember Mr. Tilson was the chair of the committee when we had the Bill C-2 deliberations, for the Accountability Act—from the government that they'd bring forward ATI reforms. That's just to clarify the record.

Now, on the issue of witnesses, I'm hoping that the list of witnesses we have—and I'm not clear on this—will satisfy the request that I think we all have, which is to have the person who's the originator of the document in front of us. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm hoping that's what Ms. Gwen Kutz is going to be able to do. If it's not, then I guess the deputy minister is the person to answer that.

In other words, this whole case is about who was aware of the document, to start with, because we heard different versions. We heard initially that the document didn't exist because of nomenclature--that we don't produce human rights assessments, etc. And then there was follow-up, and then eventually we got to the point of “Well, yes, we do, but it's not called that”.

What we need to know is that the witnesses that we're going to have will be able to answer the question of who the originator of the document itself was. I'm concerned, when I look at the process of how security classification is assigned, according to Treasury Board, that if we don't have the right person here, we won't be able to find out who originally developed this document and therefore find out or follow the track, if you will, of how this document was classified, and then ask questions about redaction or blacking out that follow from that.

We have a list of witnesses here we can all agree to, and I think Tuesday makes sense, if everyone's agreed. I'm agreed to that. Notwithstanding that, are we also assured—and I guess I'm looking to perhaps the clerks on this—that the person who is the originator of the document itself will be known or that the deputy minister, I guess, or Ms. Kutz, will be able to satisfy us with that? In other words, will they be able to say “Yes, here's the person who originally did the document”? If we don't have that, then we'll have a nice discussion, but we won't be able to source the originator of the document and then find out how it was classified.

Chair, one of the issues here is not only the redaction issue and what's been blacked out. It's how these documents are classified at source. That's critical. And if they were improperly classified, we need to know that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Just to remind you of the evidence, I specifically asked for the names of the three people who are at the end of the document that we're discussing. In a subsequent letter, we were advised of who they were, and they're all based in Afghanistan.

I guess that's why the foreign affairs committee, Madame Lavallée is telling us, is having a meeting today on video conference, presumably talking with these people. I believe one of them was Bloodworth. I guess we would find this out when we asked Madame Kutz, but it's my understanding that, as head of the division, she would have signed off on it. She would have given the advice to Madame Sabourin.

If it turns out that our questioning leads us in a direction that we didn't know or names are mentioned that we didn't know, well, we simply will have to deal with that at that time.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

A point of order, Mr. Chair. As an important clarification for the rest of the group, the video conference that Madame Lavallée had been referring to I do not believe is happening today. The committee meeting is actually going on right now in camera.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Okay. We'll find out, because I will talk to the chair.

Mr. Pearson, you are our final person.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just wanted to agree with Mr. Tilson. We've looked at this pretty hard, and I don't think we have found evidence. The witnesses coming to us have not given us evidence of political interference. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but we've done what we could.

On the other hand, Mr. Van Kesteren, I'm kind of like your mother. I don't have her hair, but I tend to look for the best in people as well. But I'm not naive, sir. I think there's something wrong with this process. I think they behaved one way last year and they've behaved differently this year with the things they're blacking out. We can't get to the answer to it, and the process is very important.

So if there is no political interference in this at all, then fine; but people are affected by how this case was handled. And I'm not content now, having seen some of these things, that we're actually getting the answers to know if it was handled properly. If it was not, we have a responsibility, as a committee, to tighten that up and make sure it's done properly, because it is about information, and that falls within our bailiwick.

I want to see the best of what is happening, but I just think that we need to know why this happened in the way it did, and I'm not sure that from the deputy minister we're going to get that. I would like to speak to the people directly who were involved with making that. They might not come, but that's why I'm wanting to do that. I believe the process needs to be tightened up.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you.

Allow me to summarize. There are really two issues. First, it's who's going to come, and the next issue is when.

One of the problems is that we simply do not know if Parliament is going to adjourn this week. If it doesn't, we have a regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday. We know the deputy minister can't attend, since he's out of town. I think we have a consensus that we should hear from him first. Given that, there's not much point in having a meeting on Thursday.

If Parliament adjourns, then we don't have a meeting on Tuesday. But Madame Lavallée suggested that we have a meeting anyway. If necessary, we would simply use the day to go through all of the witnesses.

I think we should deal with the first issue, which is to agree that we're going to call these people and that we're going to summons them. Then we can decide, as a committee, if we're going to meet on Tuesday of next week, whether or not the House is in session.

I think we all agreed that we will accept the deputy minister's offer to attend. We will ask him to attend at our next scheduled meeting; I'll explain why I say that in a moment. I also think we should summons the other people for the same meeting. The reason I'm suggesting that is because if they are summonsed to appear and they're here, that will be a huge impetus for the deputy minister to appear so he can protect his children before they give evidence.

I'm not suggesting that we summons the deputy minister. He has already agreed to appear and there's no point to insulting a person. I am suggesting that if something should happen that he considers more important than appearing before this committee, then we're stalled again for another day and we lose more time.

The motion that I'm suggesting is that Gwyn Kutz, Francine Archambault, Gary Switzer, and Jennifer Nixon be summoned and required to appear at Ottawa, bring all relevant papers and documents, and give evidence before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics of the House of Commons of Canada on matters relating to its study of access to information requests for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade's internal report entitled “Afghanistan 2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights”, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), at its next sitting, at a time and place to be determined, and to remain in attendance until duly discharged.

That would be the formal motion. That covers off the people and the fact that we're not sure when the meeting might be. If we decide later that it's Tuesday, we don't have to amend the motion; we simply advise them that's our next meeting. We will invite the deputy minister to attend our next meeting, whenever our next meeting will be. That's why his name is not mentioned here.

If this passes, the witnesses would be advised that they have been summoned.

Members may not know that the ramification of ignoring a summons is that we could move that they're in contempt of this committee. If we find they are in contempt of this committee, we then report to the House of Commons and ask the House to find them in contempt of Parliament. If they're found to be in contempt of Parliament, then there are a variety of actions the Speaker could take to enforce the integrity of members of Parliament and committees.

That's a long way down the road, so I'm not going to bore you with the history of that. We can all check Marleau and Montpetit. There are consequences to ignoring a summons of a committee, unlike not showing up when a committee asks you to come.

Okay. Based on what I just said, I see two people's hands up.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Yes, thank you.

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but have we officially invited the deputy minister yet?

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Yes.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Oh, he has been invited.

The motion just deals with those who are being summoned. Could there be an additional motion, not in a summons format, that we invite the DM to the next available meeting so it's clear that we want him here?

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Yes, we can do that.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I understand your issue about using the words “next available meeting”, but does that give them flexibility to say they can't make it on Tuesday?

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

I don't believe so, because they're commanded to appear, in effect, before our committee at its next meeting.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you.

Madame Lavallée.