Evidence of meeting #6 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 c-2.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Jim Peterson Liberal Willowdale, ON
What is the rationale for requiring a parliamentarian to come to you? Why can't a member of the public do it directly?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
Since I am not the author of the code, I can't pretend to know exactly what the rationale is. When it was explained to me, I understood it to be a way of making sure that the office in a sense wasn't inundated by a number of requests that hadn't perhaps been examined carefully, that hadn't had some other kind of filtering system to limit the number that came forward. I may be wrong about that, but that's how it was explained to me at the time.
Liberal
Jim Peterson Liberal Willowdale, ON
In the past, a member of the public could make a request directly of the commissioner, could they not? No? It's always had to come through a member of Parliament?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
That's correct. It's always been that way.
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
I actually think it's helpful, in the sense that I don't think the office as it's currently organized could in fact organize to cope with what I think would be a flood of requests for investigation, and even deciding which of those were trivial or not appropriate would take an enormous resource. I think it does make it somewhat simpler if an MP or a member of the Senate has in fact taken a look at the material and decided that there seems to be something substantial there. But obviously it limits access. Clearly that's the case.
Liberal
Jim Peterson Liberal Willowdale, ON
Thank you.
Secondly, in terms of post-employment restrictions, it's now a five-year ban. Do you know of any other jurisdictions that have a five-year ban?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
No, I do not, but it may be a question of my own ignorance, as I haven't done a survey. The ones I'm familiar with do not, but that's all I can say.
Liberal
Jim Peterson Liberal Willowdale, ON
Apart from the five-year ban, what is the highest that you know of?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
The highest I know of is two years. But I don't want to pretend I've done a survey. That would be inappropriate.
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
I can only assume the rationale is to impress upon both public office holders and the public that there will be no toleration for this kind of activity. Presumably, that is what was intended. It was a way of indicating that we are serious about this and that you should take this into account before agreeing to become a public office holder.
Liberal
Jim Peterson Liberal Willowdale, ON
Do you agree with some who say this will preclude a lot of people from wanting to become public office holders, including public servants?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
I don't know the answer to that question. I imagine it would be something they would take into account much more frequently now than they may have previously, but I don't know.
Liberal
Jim Peterson Liberal Willowdale, ON
Have you seen examples, in the course of your work, where you thought a five-year ban was really necessary, as opposed to a two-year ban?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
I've seen some. “Quite a few” may be overstating it, but I have certainly seen some.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you, Mr. Peterson.
There's one minute left. Mr. Dhaliwal, did you want to ask a question?
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Thank you, Chair.
My question is, again, to Dr. Shapiro. In the act we are bringing in we say there should be a five-year clause. But there is also a clause whereby if an employee works for the minister and the minister states in a letter that this employee did not have duties that were at a high level or where he or she was providing advice to the minister, that employee does not fall into that category. So what is the advantage of bringing in that clause? It's all on the onus of the minister then.
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
The only point I want to make is that a great deal of this entire regime depends on the goodwill and honesty of the people involved in it. The whole review system of the confidential document depends on what people are telling us being actually the truth. We don't audit the documents; we review them and try to make the appropriate arrangements. So the whole structure depends a very great deal on the goodwill and integrity of the people involved.
My experience thus far is not that there has been no difficulty, but by and large, people in fact illustrate the integrity that was intended. There are exceptions, clearly, and if the clause you mentioned is misused, it's like any other clause that's misused; it will weaken the effect.
September 20th, 2006 / 4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you.
Mr. Stanton, please.
Mr. Tilson, could I ask you to take the chair for a couple of minutes? Thank you.
Go ahead, Mr. Stanton.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Through the chair to our presenter today, Dr. Shapiro, in your last report to this committee in the 38th Parliament in November 2005, you raised some issues with respect to some ambiguities, as you referenced them, with the Parliament of Canada Act that you indicated would be the subject of a review, and you were working with House of Commons counsel to come up with a report on that, presumably, I think, to quote, “to the end of the calendar year or early in 2006”.
I may have missed it in your presentation, but would you be prepared to report on the status of that review, and would any of those issues identified with those ambiguities be addressed by the current legislation in Bill C-2?