Evidence of meeting #6 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was office-holders.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Louis Plamondon Bloc Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC
I would like to welcome you to the committee, Ms. Dawson.
What is the overall budget of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's Office? The reason I ask is that you said you hired two consultants, then two more. You seem to have an unlimited budget. Was this hiring done under your initial budget?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
The budget is $7.1 million. Of this amount, $4.5 million is for employees' salaries.
Bloc
Louis Plamondon Bloc Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC
I found one of your decisions quite surprising. When Democracy Watch asked you to look into possible violations of the act by the Prime Minister or his office, the Attorney General or a number of cabinet ministers, you said that because there was insufficient credible evidence, you would not conduct an investigation.
Why did you not start by investigating to see whether there was any basis to the allegations before rejecting the request made by Democracy Watch? You rejected this request by Democracy Watch out of hand, even though your role should have been to investigate and subsequently respond.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
The difficulty is that in order to get the facts I have to institute an investigation, so it's a bit circular. I require at least some evidence to satisfy me that there's probably something there to investigate.
The difficulty I had with the Democracy Watch requests was that they were all over the place. They were very imprecise, and it was very unclear exactly what he was asking for. He was asking me to find that the Prime Minister, every single cabinet minister, and every single senior public servant who was appointed by either Mr. Harper or Mr. Mulroney had done something wrong. There wasn't enough precision in what he was requesting to justify going into a huge investigation like that--and I do have discretion. He had no particular standing to request an investigation—only an MP or a senator has standing to do that. So it would have been a personally initiated investigation if I had decided to do it, and I just didn't have enough to go on.
Bloc
Louis Plamondon Bloc Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC
When you referred to the Mr. Soudas affair, you said that he had been exonerated and that if he had been covered by the new act, you were of the view that he would have been exonerated by it as well.
I am quite surprised that in your view there is not automatically interference when the Prime Minister's chief of staff raises questions about a particular matter. It is not difficult to figure out that this individual is trying to influence someone or some decision. I think that there is an automatic possibility of an investigation.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
I did a very complete investigation. I interviewed 16 individuals, including the Prime Minister, to see exactly what had happened. I found that Mr. Soudas had only attended two meetings. Nobody had any sense that he'd applied any pressure at all. He was asking why this case had been running for 10 years, and why people weren't able to move forward with it. I found that he had not involved himself in the decision at all. So my observation was that if a Prime Minister or a minister can't ask what the heck is going on in a department, I'm not sure what they can do.
Bloc
Louis Plamondon Bloc Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC
Yes, but this can be done in a letter, through correspondence, not by going to a committee at which the chief of staff is present. There is a much more direct possibility of interference in that case than if information is requested in a letter.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Yes, but I don't think the fact that you attend and talk to somebody in person automatically makes you guilty of interference.
Anyway, the report is there, quite fulsomely written out, and my rationale is set out there. I feel quite comfortable with that decision.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Ms. Dawson, one of the other things you mention where it's been difficult to follow all of the obligations is post-employment advice. The act requires you to advise people before their last day on the job; there are obligations, yet you often don't know when that last day is. Can you talk a little bit about that and how you see that issue being solved?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Actually, the act doesn't require me to advise anybody about anything. It's interesting. We take a lot of measures that aren't required under the act just because we're trying to inform people about their obligations. There is no requirement, for example, for us to tell people they ought to put their disclosure statements in, but we do it. To avoid penalties, we actually give a series of warnings that they're coming up to their deadlines.
Similarly with the post-employment, it's really our initiative that has us send out post-employment letters as soon as we hear that somebody has retired or has left the public service as a public office-holder.
What I would comment on is that after they have gone, there are no further requirements that they submit any reports, although there are some rules that go on for a year or two, and in fact for life, as I say, for some of the rules. There is no reporting requirement. I'm not saying there necessarily ought to be, but there aren't many tools to follow up with a post-employment person as to what's going on there.
Most things would come to our attention through press reports.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Your annual report states, under timing of post-employment advice, that the act requires that the commissioner advise public office-holders.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Yes, that's a technical problem with the act, because we very frequently don't hear about people who have left their positions until after they've left. There's not much we can do about that except continue to work with the people who should be telling us.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
One other question, which we were discussing before the meeting started, is about what happens to gifts that are forfeited. You were mentioning that there isn't a consistent policy. Are there problems associated with not having a consistent policy on the disposal of forfeited gifts?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
I actually don't think so. I've had the archivist say he falls heir to an awful lot of gifts left over, but there is in fact a Treasury Board policy. The policy is that it's left up to the individual departments to decide what to do with forfeited gifts. Most departments, I believe, have rules and several options as to what will happen to those gifts. Sometimes they're sold, sometimes they're in surplus, and sometimes they're auctioned off for charity. They do a variety of different things, all of which is okay under the general rules.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Is there not a concern about auctioning and donating them to charity, for instance, that some benefit would come back to the person who had received that gift? You know, at least goodwill for providing....
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Actually, it belongs to the crown if it's forfeited, so it comes from the crown.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I have just a couple of points.
I was initially concerned about the number of delinquents on the reporting requirements under the act. The number that I think Mr. Wrzesnewskyj raised was that only 52% of the 416 new reporting public office-holders during 2007-08 actually met the deadline. How many of those still have not? This is from March 31, 2008, and the 60 days thereafter, but have they not yet met the deadline?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
I think they're all cleaned up. I put a real effort in to clean up all the backlog when I came in, and I understand it's finished. So we're now dealing with the current cases.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Okay.
With regard to 2008-09, the 60-day reporting requirement has already passed.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Yes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
So we have about.... Well, it doesn't matter how much time we have in the current fiscal year remaining, but we have people, I assume, who as of today still have not complied with the requirements for fiscal 2008-09.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
What makes you say that? As far as I know, they've all complied.
Liberal