Evidence of meeting #55 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Your question—
Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Your question has to do with more than whether or not there's a single report or a number of reports. I went back to determine whether or not the allegation was true in the report, that they had been denied access to a report. That's what I went back to check.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Maybe things change, sir. You took over in the last four months.
Even though the Information Commissioner might have said it, because there's no concealment under subsection 67(1), clearly, the way I see it, when the previous government left office and the Conservative government took over, all this blacking out of torture and human rights situations came in. So it seems like it's a clear concealment of the records.
If a criminal investigation comes into play...the committee wanted those employees to appear, but instead you felt you should be the one who should be answering, even though you do not have the full information because you are so new to the office in this particular department. Would you cooperate in future? How would you handle that situation?
Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Well, as I said in my opening comments, the reason I wrote the letter was to make sure you had the delegated authority here, and people with delegated authority, rather than those who didn't have it, and those who are familiar with responding to questions like this. The fact is that as a deputy minister of my department I carry on the responsibilities of my predecessor. It's a bit like a minister of the Crown whose responsibility for his predecessor's actions continues. So I'm here, not only in my personal capacity but in my institutional capacity as the deputy minister of the department.
Liberal
Glen Pearson Liberal London North Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Once again, Mr. Edwards, I have the last question. Thank you for coming, on behalf of all of us.
Liberal
Liberal
Glen Pearson Liberal London North Centre, ON
Okay, sorry.
It has been stated here earlier that in spite of the difficulties we've had, overall the thing seems to be working. I would like to say that depends on who you ask. If you were to ask a detainee, I don't think the system is working. If you were to ask a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan, many of whom I have talked to who have come back home, who worry that some of the people they turned over might have had the kind of treatment we as a country would not have wanted them to receive, I would suggest to you, sir, that this system might not be working as well as we think.
The access to information, it seems to me, is for us as a committee...our responsibility is to make sure that sometimes when government moves along and it does its thing, people get information they need to help keep us accountable.
I totally agree with what you said. I look at them all here. There are public servants in this room, many of them, who 100% want to serve the Canadian interest. I understand that and I accept that. But I think it's also true that sometimes the human element gets lost in the process of this.
I would like to suggest, sir, that being here—and I'm the most recent member of this committee—I don't have a lot of confidence in what has resulted from the last number of interviews we have had. I'm not talking about political interference; I'm not talking about any of that stuff. I simply think that obviously a request was made and somebody was told—it started that way—that no such document existed, and from that point on it got worse.
My question, sir, because I don't have much time, is that for the sake of these other people, including the soldiers and the detainees as well as people who are trying to advocate for them, all of you, as public servants, need to come forward with these recommendations as to how we can help you to do better. But you also have to be conscious of the fact that we can't screw around with this. There are lives at stake here and serious issues.
So I would ask you, sir, to come forward as fast as you can, through working with your department and all the people who are here--and I mean this--with these recommendations so that we as a committee can help you get the stuff you need to move this process along further. I would also ask that you and your people do due diligence about this, sir, because it's really important; it does involve the lives of others.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
All I'll say, Mr. Chairman, is that I completely share the sentiments that our processes in this area have to be top-notch. We have to be able to respond to the requirements of the act, and so forth. We must continuously be on our toes to ensure that our systems are up to handling the volume and dealing with the issues he referred to, which do have important implications for a lot of people.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you.
In conclusion, I would like to ask a proper question so that everything is quite clear. According to the report that was issued, the Geneva Convention was violated. In such instances, do you inform your minister? Do you tell him there is a problem and that, according to the report, the terms of the Geneva Convention were violated? Do you tell him that if the report is made public, questions will be raised? Do you ask him which portions of the report you can delete, how you should go about doing that and what parts should or should not be made public? Is that something you are supposed to do?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Mr. Vincent, I don't think it's a proper question to ask the witness what advice he specifically gave to the minister.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Mr. Chairman, may I point out that the question was put to the witness. I have nothing against your interjecting, but I think the witness was about to respond and it is not for you, Mr. Chairman, to make any assumptions or to direct the debate in an arbitrary fashion.
I feel that my question was legitimate. The witness is the Deputy Minister and he advises the minister. Therefore, he is the one who decides whether or not to inform the minister, and he decides whether or not to censor the report, or what portions to delete. That being the case, he is the right person to answer this question. I would like to know what this person—and we already know that she had the report in hand— did with the report and how far she went with it. Did Ms. Sabourin comply with the act's provisions? When the minister received the report, had it been formally censored? Did the Deputy Minister play a role in all of this? According to the Globe and Mail, other parts of the report were censored as well. Was this done in the Minister's office or in the deputy minister's office? Who decided to give the client more than he bargained for when this document was censored? I think this is a legitimate question, one that deserves an answer. Was there any political interference in this matter? That is why we are here, that is what we want to know, and I think that if we do not ask these questions, we will skirt some of the issues that the committee has with the minister or deputy minister. Who made these decisions and who overstepped his mandate?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you, Mr. Vincent.
As chair of the committee, it's my responsibility, to the extent I can, to keep order and to determine what questions are relevant and whether there's repetition.
In my judgment, the question of asking the deputy minister what advice he gave to the minister is not an appropriate question. In any event, he's already indicated that he would not give such testimony. You asked a series of other questions, most of which, I believe, have been answered, including a statement, both in writing and orally, by the deputy minister that there was no political interference. That question was asked subsequently by at least two members. Again, the deputy minister specifically stated there was no political interference in this matter.
You then went on, in your address to me, to talk a little bit about Madame Sabourin, and that's a different question. So in the remaining time that you have, if you have a specific question with respect to Madame Sabourin and her authority, or anything of that nature, please direct it to the witness.
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
You leave me no choice, Mr. Chairman. You are setting the tone of this debate, and from what I can see, you are also deciding which questions are relevant. We have here in our midst a deputy minister, Mr. Chairman. We do not ask a deputy minister just any old question. We have called him here to give testimony and to ask him questions about his job as deputy minister. If the deputy minister advises the minister, then I think it is legitimate to ask what kind of discussions he had with the minister over the report. He is here, so we need to put the question to him. Nothing happens at the lower echelons because no one knows anything. The decision was made higher up, in that...
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Mr. Vincent, excuse me. You can disagree with me as much as you want; that's your right. But you're eating up the time of the committee to discuss legitimate questions of the witness and/or other witnesses we have to deal with.
I've already made my ruling. If you have another question, I'll give you an opportunity to ask a specific question that hasn't been asked already. You had raised one about Madame Sabourin, if you want to ask that now. But please don't argue with me, because it's just taking up the time of the committee and you're not going to win the argument.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Did you discuss with Ms. Sabourin the possibility of deleting additional material from the already censored document she initially submitted to you? She gave you this censored document so you could check to see if everything was in order or whether other parts needed to be censored. Did you in fact read the report twice: a first time, before it was censored, and a second time, after the fact? Did you read both versions of the report?
Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
I can answer those questions; they don't involve advice to the minister.
I was a little confused by how you worded your initial question, because Madame Sabourin didn't deliver documents to me at any point in the process. Because she is the delegated authority under the act to approve the redactions and the release of the document, she did so without checking with me. It is her delegated authority to do so.
Subsequently, I did request and saw the two documents, the original document—which I said earlier I did see—and the redacted version, because I wanted to understand what the concern was.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you, colleagues.
Deputy Minister, thank you very much for appearing. Thank you for staying beyond the allotted time. We appreciate that.
Committee members, we have the four witnesses we have summoned, but I would like to take a five-minute suspension, first of all, for our staff. Second, I would then like to come back in camera to discuss which of those witnesses—if any or all—we wish to hear, and in what manner, that is to say, in public or in camera. Then we can proceed. I don't want to take a lot of time doing that, but I want to be fair to the discussions we had last week.
So I would ask those witnesses who have been summoned to appear to remain here. No one else has to remain here, but you're welcome to, as it's a public meeting at this point until I declare it in camera. Actually, I'll hold it in camera as soon as we come back. So why don't you come back here after we're in public again, once the adjournment is over. But Ms. Kutz, Ms. Nixon, Madame Archambault, and Mr. Switzer have to remain within the confines of this room—not outside this room, basically—until we're ready for them.
Once again, Deputy Minister, thank you very much.
The meeting is suspended for five minutes.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
[Public proceedings resume]
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
We're ready to go. Let us resume the meeting.
We have with us four individuals who we've summoned to appear. I understand that none of them have any opening statements, but they're going to introduce themselves and, I hope, indicate what they do insofar as access to information is concerned within the foreign affairs department.
We will then go to questions, ladies and gentlemen. What I'm going to ask each member to do is to be very specific as to who they want to answer their particular question, because we do have four people here and we have a limited amount of time. The other thing I'd like to do, to the extent that I can do so, is urge that questions be asked as opposed to statements be made—but all I can do is urge.
In no particular order, but I know that Ms. Kutz is the head of GHH, or I believe her to be so, and I presume therefore that she would be the senior person of the four up there, so I'll ask her to first of all let me know if I'm correct and secondly to introduce herself and her position.