Information & Ethics Committee on Aug. 11th, 2008

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I take a slightly different view from that of my colleagues. It is not the witnesses' fault that they have been subpoenaed, nor is it the witnesses' fault that the Liberal Party has decided to use a parliamentary committee for their political gain. So I will be supporting that the witnesses be reimbursed. Perhaps we could put forward a motion later that this budget be reimbursed by the Liberal Party.

That said, I will be supporting this budget because it's not the witnesses' fault that they're being used in this game.

On a separate note, it's why I was going to suggest to you, when we were talking earlier, that you allow me to move the motion as to whether we'd revisit the list, because it might change the budget.

All of that said, I don't think it's the witnesses who should be punished because of this game, because of what's going on here. So I will be supporting the budget.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Martin, please.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

My only comment was going to be, in reference to what Mike is putting forward, which is that only people who were directly involved in some group advertising buy should be called as witnesses, the in-and-out idea or the claiming of national expenses as regional expenses or campaign expenses is not limited to advertising. The Ottawa bureau chief of the Winnipeg Free Press, Mia Rabson, identified some 50-odd ridings where the same modus operandi was used for polling. So we should not limit our investigation to just group advertising. We believe they exceeded the national spending limit by even more than the $1.3 million with another 50 ridings that did the same trick for polling expenses, national polling expenses, where there were examples of individual ridings spending $16,000 on polling in the middle of a campaign. I don't think you could spend $16,000 on a poll on an individual riding, a federal riding.

So by no means should we limit the witnesses by virtue of the fact of whether they were in the advertising buy or not. The point is, were they involved in claiming national expenses as if they were local campaign expenses?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to state my concerns. I understand the costs associated with bringing witnesses in front of the committee, but if they really have no relevance here, I think it's an unfair burden on the taxpayers in terms of paying their travel expenses and the very real cost of this committee operating. We have a lot of people on duty when this committee sits.

For example, this morning Louise O'Sullivan came and wasn't really here to answer questions. She just had a message to deliver: “I had nothing to do with this.” That was it, but we paid for that. We all sat here, time ticked on, and this cost Canadian taxpayers money.

As for Ann Julie Fortier, we're looking at 2006 and she was from 2004. What are you guys thinking? She was here and didn't have much to offer.

Then of course we had our witness Mr. Martelli just after lunch, who was not part of the regional ad buy at all. He's not even on the list Monsieur LeBlanc brought up, but we're paying for him to be here. We've sat here all afternoon talking to a witness who was not relevant to the mandate of the committee, and we're asking taxpayers to pay for this.

So I'm very much in favour of what Mr. Wallace said. If the witnesses are in fact relevant to the mandate of this committee, we should absolutely pay for them, as we do with every other witness. But if we're just hauling in every Tom, Dick, and Harry because that's what the majority over there want, I think Canadians should know they're paying for that. They're paying for this little vendetta of the opposition to pull in witnesses who are not relevant.

It's a democracy. It's the tyranny of the majority, and you are the majority. That was stated by the Speaker of the House. I have to go through the chair, of course, so please pass on to Monsieur Nadeau that it was stated by the Speaker of the House himself that there is a tyranny of the majority on committees and it's leading to anarchy. Now it's leading to taxpayers paying for witnesses who are not necessarily relevant to the mandate of this committee, to the investigation, or to the hearings we have under way right now.

Thank you for your patience, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Okay.

Madame Lavallée.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would imagine that together with the office of the clerk, you conducted a very rigorous analysis of the expenses to be committed and that you will be monitoring that closely. Among other things, be sure to ensure that Doug Finley is not paid twice. That would strike me as proper. I would imagine that all the committees are handled properly.

If we were to hear only the witnesses that the Conservative Party would like to hear, then clearly it would not cost us a cent. Because from the outset, the Conservatives have not even wanted us to carry out this analysis. So they cannot be expected to agree that we should be hearing witnesses. Even when witnesses are highly relevant, they say every time that they are people whose evidence is neither necessary nor useful. That is what we have been hearing from the very beginning. As I said earlier, they sow chaos and then complain about it.

In short, I fully agree. [Inaudible - Editor ].

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Okay. I have a number of things I'd really like to say, but as chair I'm not going to participate in this debate.

I don't have anyone else on the speakers list, so I'd like to put the question on the budget.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you, colleagues. That disposes of that item.

At the last meeting of the committee in July, the committee adjourned, but there was one item left. It was the motion of Mr. Scott Reid, member of Parliament, which reads as follows:

That pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and in reference to the current study under way by this committee, that the Committee request that the Chief Electoral Officer appoint an independent investigator to review the allegations of a leak of a planned search of Conservative Party headquarters, and that this investigation include all individuals who were privy to information about the search before the search occurred.

That is the motion before us, moved by Mr. Reid. We had planned to have the debate and vote on it at our last meeting. Unfortunately the committee chose to adjourn, so we are resuming debate on the motion from Mr. Scott Reid, as per the notice of meeting before you.

On debate we have Mr. Del Mastro, Mr. Tilson, and Madame Lavallée.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think, quite frankly, that all Canadians have an interest in knowing how that particular operation came into being, and I think it's only right to ask that an independent officer look into this. I think any reasonable person sitting at home understands that it was absolutely remarkable that the parties on hand were on hand at the precise time Elections Canada showed up to conduct a search of the Conservative Party office.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

The testimony was that it was two and a half hours after the search was executed.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I think that's contrary to what the motion reads. What the motion is requesting is that we have an independent investigator review the allegations of a leak. And I think that's entirely reasonable. I think Canadians at home would actually like to know how that occurred, because it was remarkable. It was a remarkable coincidence, quite frankly, that they were there when the door was knocked on. And I think it's only right that we have an independent officer look into this, if for no other reason than to allow people to have confidence that Elections Canada is truly an independent body that has absolutely no bias toward any party.

I think all parties should have an interest in ensuring that this is exactly the outcome an independent investigator might be able to affirm. Or heaven forbid, he might actually come up with findings that indicate that there was indeed a leak, and it was inappropriate. And those who caused that leak to occur would be held accountable, because I think, again, that's only right. That's what Canadians expect. And I think the committee should authorize that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We'll have Mr. Tilson, please.

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

Mr. Chairman, from listening to Mr. Mayrand's evidence, we're not too sure how officials from the Liberal Party arrived there. He didn't seem to know that. Why were they there at all? Whether it's instantaneous or whether it was two hours, why were they there at all? Why was the media there at all?

Naturally—and I'm thinking politically—I asked the question, which got quite a chuckle from the opposition, about Mr. Mayrand at Elections Canada having the Conservative Party's election plans for the next election. He says it's safe under lock and key. Why did they need to seize that material? Why did they need to seize everything? Why was at least one political party there at all? What did that have to do with it? How did they find out? Who told them? The same goes with the media.

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to quote an article from the Globe and Mail. I took this out quite a while ago and I don't have the date of it. It's written by Robin Sears, who, when Mr. Rae was the Premier of Ontario, was his chief of staff. He's a former NDP campaign director.

There's one paragraph in which he addressed this issue. He said:

Elections Canada's very un-Canadian behaviour is unacceptable in a democracy. Without a better argument and evidence, Elections Canada will lose the legal battle, and then we will all pay the cost politically. The bad blood caused by its storm-trooper tactics has infected the political system. Many Liberals and New Democrats are horrified by all this. They know it could be their turn next.

What caused all this? Why did unauthorized people know about it? What else did they know? Were there other things that they knew? I think the motion by Mr. Reid is appropriate.

Of course, Mr. Mayrand doesn't know the answers to these things; we're going to have to assume they're okay. Well, maybe they're okay, but maybe they're not okay. Quite frankly, I don't feel too comfortable that the Conservative Party's elections plans are under lock and key, particularly after what's been going on and particularly when he doesn't know how these people arrived at his office.

Mr. Chairman, on the proposal that there be an independent investigator, I don't really think Mr. Mayrand, when that question was posed to him—and someone could correct me, but I'm fairly certain one of the members of the committee posed it to him, though I can't recall—would have any strong objections to it. If we're going to do our job on this thing, that's an issue.

I would think this particular issue doesn't just affect what has happened to the Conservative Party. As Mr. Sears said, if we're going to allow Elections Canada to do this, it could happen to any one of you people in the near future. You should all be worried about that. Maybe Elections Canada didn't do anything wrong, but it surely is left up in the air: maybe they did. Given the very fact that it says we think maybe they did do something wrong, we should have some independent person to say that they did something wrong and let's fix it, or that they didn't do anything wrong.

All I can tell you is that if Mr. Sears is correct, then all of you in the opposition should be as worried as we are about how this happened.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Madame Lavallée, s'il vous plaît.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Generally speaking, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of independent inquiries. We also agree with the fact that an independent investigator should meet all of the witnesses concerned in a particular matter. We are also in favour of public reviews. Indeed, we are involved in such an exercise today.

While the Conservatives are playacting as offended virgins in this internal investigation being conducted by the Chief Electoral Officer of their own government, their own Prime Minister on the sly, with his left hand, double quick, conducted two internal investigations—not one, but two—that I would describe as idiotic.

The first had to do with the Maxime Bernier affair, at the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Minister of Foreign Affairs left documents at the home of his girlfriend. An internal investigation was carried out, and no one even met his girlfriend! Some internal investigation!

And I won't even talk about the statement made by Barack Obama's adviser, which was repeated by another of the Prime Minister's advisers, about Obama's intention to do away with NAFTA.

So two idiotic internal investigations yielded nothing because none of the right people were even met. Nothing was done.

At the moment, there are five Conservative Party representatives here with us to lecture us, to speak from on high to an important and respectable institution. Furthermore, everyone in opposition has reiterated its respect for Elections Canada and its Chief, except this party.

In short, they are in the process of playing the offended virgins to Elections Canada, which is investigating a matter, when all is said and done, which does not have a national, coast to coast, dimension, but which simply concerns the ego of a number of Conservatives. They're in the process of doing a number on us, emphasizing that it is absolutely essential for an independent investigator to conduct an investigation to determine who said what. In any event, the whole thing is nothing but gossip.

That said, it is clear for the time being that the Bloc Québécois will vote against the motion moved by Scott Reid. Furthermore, I'm surprised that it is even possible to discuss a motion moved by someone who is not present. However, if you feel that the rules are being followed, we can proceed to a vote. We will vote against it.

When this government, the Prime Minister, has appointed an independent investigator to conduct a sensible inquiry into the Maxime Bernier affair and the affair concerning the statement made by one of Barack Obama's advisers about NAFTA, we might perhaps be prepared to review our position and then we might be willing to look at what could be done with such a proposal.

[A voice]

There is also the Cadman affair.

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

Ah, I had forgotten to mention the Cadman affair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Mr. Goodyear, please.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I am going to support the motion, and I'll tell you why. It's been almost a month since we met with Monsieur Mayrand, and Madam Jennings asked at the July 16 meeting for copies of four days of testimony. We've not seen that. Mr. Hiebert—and you can find this request on page 8 of the July Hansard—asked for documentation of the five factors being applied to all parties. Monsieur Mayrand promised to do that. I've not seen that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I just want to check. Did members receive the box of documents from Mr. Mayrand? It arrived at my office last Wednesday; it's about a thousand pages. It includes the affidavits and includes his covering letter. I think we circulated the letter from Mr. Mayrand, did we not?

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

All I got, Mr. Chair, was a letter. I don't know why you're hiding this stuff from us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

It was sent actually to the clerk and also to the chair, but there is his letter and it addresses Mr. Hiebert's question. That twigged me when you mentioned Mr. Hiebert.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

That's good to hear, because obviously he's following through.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I can give you some assurance, I believe. I looked at them again last night.

I believe that all of the information, including some.... He was correct, and this is the letter. The letter is dated August 6 and it was cc-ed to Miriam Burke, acting clerk, and it is about a thousand pages long. Very quickly, there were questions by Mr. Reid, Mr. Poilievre, and Mr. Mulcair about the leak, and there was a response in here. I can tell you that's there. The questions and comments by Mr. Goodyear with regard to the Canada Elections Act and where in the act--they are answered here. The reports regarding section 407—