Information & Ethics Committee on July 15th, 2008

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

So the idea, therefore, that somehow Conservative Party official agents were caught out because in the middle of the 2005-06 general election an interpretative manual changed is not accurate.

[Marc Mayrand]

Again, this is a matter before the Federal Court, and I want to refrain from arguing a case here today. I hope you will understand. These matters have been raised before the Federal Court, and I'm sure counsel for both parties will argue strongly about these points before the judge.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I appreciate that.

I have a very quick last question. I understand my time is running out.

Around the time of the commissioner's decision to apply for a search warrant--and I appreciate that's a decision taken by the commissioner and the court--some people claimed that Elections Canada, the institution that was in fact identified, had somehow given advance warning to a political party or somehow was in cahoots with the media to make sure this particular action would be noticed. I'm sure that after those allegations were made you would have done an internal review or you would have tried to determine if in fact there was a leak from your organization. I'm wondering if in fact you did that, and if in fact you uncovered any efforts from Elections Canada to give a political party some advantage in that proceeding.

[Marc Mayrand]

I must say that any allegation of this nature is very troubling for an institution like Elections Canada, which is anchored on the whole notion of impartiality.

I did ask for a review within the organization as to what events took place, who had the information, and whether there was any reason to believe there had been what has been referred to as a tip or a leak. My conclusion is that I have no reason to believe there was any release of information prior to the procedure taking place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Reid, on a point of order.

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

I believe our witness has just referred to a document, and I would ask that it be tabled before this committee. It is the report he just referred to for his internal investigation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Yes, the commissioner did refer to doing a review of due diligence on the allegation.

Mr. Mayrand, could you be as straightforward and specific as possible as to what actually exists in terms of a report?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes. It's not truly a report, but barely a sheet indicating how we went about it and why we believed there was.... There's no reason to believe there was a leak from Elections Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

There is not a document? You wouldn't require a report?

[Marc Mayrand]

You mean a formal report or a written report? No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Okay.

Mr. Reid.

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

But you said “barely a sheet”, which means there is some documentation. As you know, our rules require that if something is referred to, it be tabled before the committee. So I'd ask that that document be tabled before the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Mr. Mayrand, could you please provide the committee with any material, whether it be a report or a sheet of paper or an internal...which indicates, presumably, the question at issue and the conclusion?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, I will.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you, sir.

We now move to Madame Lavallée.

Madam, go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Congratulations on the quality of your presentation, Mr. Mayrand. It was really clear. The Elections Act, as you presented it, with the various requirements for candidates and parties, is really clear.

There is something that is a little less clear to me. I want to be quite clear about your criticism of the Conservative Party's financial return. I simply want to be sure that I've correctly understood. You said that the financial transfers between parties, candidates and associations were all right. You also talked about group transactions. I found that quite troubling and disturbing.

When you talk about groups of transactions, I get the impression that the words you're not using could be "a scheme by Conservative Party leaders to spend more money than what is allowed under the Elections Act by exceeding the limit in order to take advantage of an advertising campaign of millions of dollars more."

Do I understand correctly?

[Marc Mayrand]

I didn't make any statement to that effect. As I mentioned earlier, I made two decisions with respect to those transactions. Here's the first. Seeing that the information in support of the transactions was inadequate to show that they had actually been incurred by the candidates or agents, I refused to reimburse the expenses claimed. The second decision that I made was to refer the matter to the Commissioner so that he could determine whether there were grounds for an investigation. I did not make any decision regarding the allocation of expenses.

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

I get the impression that you're saying there is an animal here, that it has black fur, whiskers and meows, but that you're not saying it's a cat.

[Marc Mayrand]

I am bound by the rigours and requirements of the act. I must be sure, before drawing any conclusion, that I have all the evidence enabling me to draw that conclusion.

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

When you say that the Conservative Party passed on its expenses to certain candidates in certain ridings, and we see in the return that it reported it had reached the limit of $18 million, that means that all the expenses incurred by the 67 ridings are additional expenses. The party thus freely exceeded its limit. That's what that means.

[Marc Mayrand]

At that point, in my mind, that's purely hypothetical for the purposes of my responsibility under the act. I'm not in a position to draw that conclusion. I don't think that Elections Canada has ever stated that it had found that invoices had been offloaded to candidates. Moreover, that's why certain decisions were not made in the matter.

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

You're saying you haven't yet found that expenses were offloaded to candidates? Is that what you said?

[Marc Mayrand]

Based on the information I have before me, I can't know to whom to attribute those expenses. I'm talking about the information that was available in April 2007, at the time I made that decision.

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

However, you're convinced that these aren't expenses that come under the regional media buy program.

[Marc Mayrand]

I concluded that the expenses claimed had not been incurred by the candidates. For me, the regional, local and national issue is not a consideration in this matter.