Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 20th, 2009

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Thank you for coming.

The Conflict of Interest Act has now been in effect for roughly two years. Has it been a success?

[Mary Dawson]

I don't know. It depends on who is asking, I guess. It's too broad a question for me, I think. But I think it's working. I feel that we're now working with it, it's now in place, and we're under control.

I mention all the time things that are difficult to enforce, as I was just discussing about the requirement to notify us within 30 days of certain activities. There's no way to know if somebody doesn't notify us of it, and the only remedy we have or the only recourse.... And actually we don't know; maybe everybody is telling us about their gifts. I don't know how many gifts are being received.

Each year we progress a little bit further on advancing our enforcement of the act, or our administration of the act. As I mentioned, this past year we've proactively gone out to a number of ministers' offices and said that every three weeks or whatever you must give us a report on any gifts you have received, which has expedited our finding out about them immensely, but now we might look at some other groups. I don't know what groups get gifts, but we're beginning to look at what types of people get gifts, and then perhaps we'll approach people who are the same as them. We're trying to find methods like that.

We're also trying to find opportunities to just tell people about it. As I mentioned, we're doing a session at the end of the week for MPs, and of course some MPs are ministers, so there is an overlap in the two instruments. We send our advisers out sometimes to see specific groups to tell them what their responsibilities are. We have information on the website. We'll increasingly have material on our information notice spots.

So education and a little bit of proactive searching is about all we can do.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Which tools that you have observed around the world in different ethics or conflict of interest regimes would you like to import into our Conflict of Interest Act in Canada?

[Mary Dawson]

We're in early days in our capacity to do that kind of research. In fact, what I've been working on is building up that capacity. I am just in the process of interviewing and hiring our new assistant commissioner, communications and learning, and learning really encompasses research and policy sort of thinking.

I have with me here a very good gentleman in those matters who has been acting, and we're developing the section there. So I am hoping that over the next year or two we'll be able to gather together quite a bit more information in that area, but first things first. During the first year or two what we had to focus on was getting our administration up to speed and getting our processes there.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

How am I doing?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

You're doing just wonderfully, one more minute.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Thank you very much, because sometimes you just—

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I'm going to write that one down.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

—know how to make a guy feel small.

The final question, then, is this. As you've come to learn and master this Conflict of Interest Act, would you say that there is a major problem or an obvious omission that you would like to see rectified?

[Mary Dawson]

I think the only one I've mentioned to date is that post-employment issue, about the fact that there's no reporting requirement, and so there's no way to follow up. There's no way to keep in touch. Nothing else springs to my mind at the moment, but as I say, my time for making those kinds of suggestions is my annual report. I try to put them in there.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you kindly.

Mr. Siksay, please.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Chair, I wanted to come back to your suggestion or your information about the PCO guidelines for ministers and ministers of state, and I'm wondering if the clerk could distribute those guidelines to the members of the committee so we would all have them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Absolutely.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I'm also wondering, Chair, if it might not be a good idea for the committee to invite someone from the Privy Council Office to come and discuss or present to us about those guidelines so we might have a chance to appreciate them better, particularly for those of us who are just learning this field.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We'll allow members to think about that. We'll try to deal with that question before we adjourn today.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

It's just a suggestion on that, Chair.

Ms. Dawson, I believe you have issued one administrative monetary penalty to Minister MacKay. Is that the first one that's been decided?

[Mary Dawson]

Yes, it is.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Then that's the only one since the act came into force?

[Mary Dawson]

We're in process...Lyne.

[Lyne Robinson-Dalpé]

The only time a monetary penalty violation of the act is made public is when a penalty is issued. We have found another person in violation of the act, but unfortunately it's not public information because no monetary penalty was assigned to it.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Can you tell me how many investigations are under way now? I know you're waiting for these 50 possible interventions regarding that one particular issue, but are there others outside of that one?

[Mary Dawson]

Yes, another investigation is under way, and the 50 may be one investigation as well, I'm not sure.