Information & Ethics Committee on May 4th, 2010

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Easter and then Mr. Rickford, and I'll take Mr. Siksay's last minute.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

The parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister went to some length to suggest how quickly after the ad campaign ended you got the information out. I would suggest to both the parliamentary secretary and to you, Minister, that's a substantial misnomer, because if you had an ad campaign that lasted a full year, from January to December, that would mean you wouldn't provide information till the end. I think it's quite appropriate for Canadians to ask for and receive ongoing costs for an advertising campaign that has a partisan slant to it from this government, in many cases.

The key point I think here is the sanitation of information that's coming out of the minister's office. I think Mr. Dewar suggested earlier you might even call it laundering. That's the real issue here. There's no question from everything I've seen from this government that there is a clamping down on the public service's ability to release information without it first being sanitized in one way or another. We do have an independent public service, or at least it's supposed to be.

Given that background, I would say that almost all communications products are reviewed by the PCO or PMO, and you can answer that. ATIP requests are interfered with by political staff, your staff being some. Media requests for information are interfered with by political staff. We know detainee documents are being withheld. The Information Commissioner says that “the right of access to information is at risk of being totally obliterated”. That list goes on and on.

Given what I've just stated, how does that jibe with the Prime Minister's promise to improve access to information, transparency, and accountability? I would say it's anything but. I don't think we've ever seen a government less transparent than this one.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Chair, if I may, I must disagree with the member's characterization of events of the campaign and also with his broad generalizations.

I think it's important to understand that within my department we follow the rules when it comes to access to information. We're trying to provide that information on a more rapid basis. I'm hoping we'll have the results to show for that.

When it comes to dealing with media replies, my staff, in the instances we're talking about here, very clearly followed all of the guidelines of the Government of Canada's protocols and policies on communication. They did provide information, once it was available, in a responsible and prudent way.

I used to work in the private sector, and I know that when I was trying to place ads and get information for my own purposes, because I was paying the bill, I could get estimates, but in the time between my request for an estimate and the end of the actual campaign, there could be significant differences that were unanticipated.

So when somebody asks our department, through a media request--not an ATIP--for actual numbers, we think it's the responsible thing to do to make sure that information, which is to be provided to Canadian taxpayers, be timely, be accurate, and reflect the question that was asked. That's why we made sure we waited until the campaign was over. Once it was all over, we did provide much more accurate numbers than what could have been available, and we were able to do so in a responsible way.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I think Canadians want the information without it being sanitized and without it having a certain partisan political slant, and they want all the information to be there.

You referred here to the government's communications strategy, and it was reported in The Hill Times that the staff and minister's office had been directed by the PMO's issues management team to involve themselves in the access to information process.

Have any directions, written or oral, been provided to your office by the PMO's issues management team? Have any directions been provided to you, instructing staff to participate in or monitor the access to information process?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Chair, I don't know to what the honourable member is referring, but the way we operate is according to the Access to Information Act, subsection 67.1(1), which says that:

No person shall, with intent to deny a right of access under this Act,

(a) destroy, mutilate or alter a record;

(b) falsify a record or make a false record;

(c) conceal a record; or

(d) direct, propose, counsel or cause any person in any manner to do anything mentioned in any of paragraphs (a) to (c).

Mr. Chair, that's the way we operate.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Am I out of time, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Yes, you are, and I want to respect the minister's time as well. She's been gracious.

Minister, I guess it's too bad that the media didn't say, “Can you tell me what you budgeted for the Olympics?” You'd have given it to them the same day, because you had a budget. We bounced around, though, between giving reasonably accurate numbers as opposed to actuals. The event is finished, but the actuals, as you said, could be as much as 90 days down the road. I don't think any media that wanted timely information would ask for actuals. I can't believe that, and I'm going to ask the Globe to provide me with a copy of whatever they sent to you, because they didn't do themselves a favour if they did, so it's their fault.

Finally, I asked you one question at the beginning. It was something that I've asked before of departmental ministers, about controlling your costs and having an understanding of where you are. You said during your testimony that you don't know how Public Works does its buys and all this other stuff. How can you possibly control your costs when somebody else is in control of millions of dollars that could have extraordinary swings in them, as you testified? That doesn't seem to be a good deal for you or any other minister who's trying to be fiscally responsible and to provide good information.

Is there anything we can do with Public Works to say, “Hey, let's work on ceilings and fixed-price contracts. I'm not going over this...and negotiate it”? We're the government. We can negotiate anything, can't we?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Each department has its own responsibilities. Public Works and Government Services is the administrator of our purchasing program. In many ways they're the purchasing department in a company. This just happens to be a very big organization.

As in the private sector, where you have a purchasing department, someone puts in a requisition, if you like; they specify what they need, the quantity, the quality. They may, depending on the product, give some indication of where that product may be available. They also provide the budget and say, “This is what I need and I need it within this financial range.” Public Works and Government Services' responsibility is to provide that product within the price range and within the quality and time parameters that have been outlined.

It's like a ginormous purchasing department. I worked in one many years ago for a very large Ontario corporation, and that's what we did. Public Works works in the same way. They are held accountable for the contracting they do, and if they go way over the budget that we provide to them—that's our money that they're spending, not their own—then there can be consequences, no question. That's not their job. Their job is to provide us with what we ask for, the way we ask for it, when we ask for it, and for the price we ask.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

I was the parliamentary secretary to three ministers in Public Works and Government Services, and I know exactly what you're talking about.

Minister, thank you kindly. I really appreciate it very much. I hope we get an opportunity to see you back again. If you can be of assistance to the committee, I'll certainly let you know and invite you. I understand you're busy. There are no further questions for you, so I know you have to be excused now.

We have other business to do, so—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I'd like to ask more questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I made an undertaking to the minister and I'm going to keep it.

Minister, thank you kindly.

We have a couple of items I'd like to take up with the committee on witness matters.

Thank you again.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I do hope that I've been of some help to this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

I'm going to suspend for five minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We'll resume our meeting.

The clerk is circulating a letter that I believe was sent to your offices, but I want to make sure you have it. It is from the law firm of Beauvais Truchon, the lawyer for Mr. Sébastien Togneri. It has to do with his appearance pursuant to an investigation being done by the Information Commissioner of Canada and a directive by the Information Commissioner of Canada that he shall not communicate either the questions put to him or the answers to those questions, etc., as you know.

I have taken the opportunity to consult with the law clerk of the House, because as you know, the investigations done by all of our commissioners take a very long time. In my view, we have bumped up against conflicting interests. Mr. Togneri was named in the motion of the committee, and he is a principal player in the issue that we passed this motion to deal with. I was advised by the clerk of the House that the issue here is that they don't want Mr. Togneri to be coaching other witnesses going before the Information Commissioner. So it's not so much who he talks to, but it's actually sharing the questions, etc.

I asked the direct question whether or not the committee was precluded from having him appear, and his answer was unequivocally no. The Information Commissioner cannot trump the committee.

So notwithstanding that the lawyer has indicated that his reading of this is one thing, the law clerk tends to agree with my assessment that we have to do our work and that an investigation done by an officer of Parliament is their business, but they cannot tie up one of our witnesses for what could be a year or two.

As a consequence, I'm here asking for the position of the committee. Given that we are now at a position where a lawyer says he can't come, the committee has to respond in definitive terms. My recommendation is that the committee issue a subpoena for Mr. Togneri to appear on May 6, the date we scheduled for him, and we're preparing for it.

I'm open to input from the committee if the committee would like to address that.

Madame Freeman.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

I think that your proposal is perfectly appropriate. But we take precedence, and we wish Mr. Togneri to appear before this committee of Parliament. That is my response to your proposal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

It is the same thing I want to ask the committee. Shall I issue a subpoena for Mr. Togneri for May 6?

[An hon. member]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

No.

[An hon. member]

Sure.

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

Mr. Chair, are you going to allow discussion or just have a validation?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I'm asking for input. Did you want to have some input, Mr. Poilievre?

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

I think we all expressed confidence in the Information Commissioner by approving estimates for the said commissioner. As such, we should have no problem allowing that office to carry out an investigation and to do so unobstructed by this committee.

I understand the process by which these investigations take place is extremely rigorous and detailed and that their findings will be made public. When those findings are released, we should immediately commence a study of them, have the commissioner here and any parties to that investigation who we think would add something to the discussion.

We lose nothing by waiting for the commissioner to do that work and proceeding with our examination immediately afterwards. In fact, our discussion here would probably be quite enriched by hearing the commissioner's findings before the pursuit by the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Mr. Easter, then Mr. Siksay.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I agree entirely with the remarks you made. I do disagree substantially with what the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister has said.

When the Information Commissioner was before this committee on March 30 and we asked her about it at that time, her testimony revealed that investigations usually take between 18 months and three years to complete, with the latter sometimes the more usual, and that's unacceptable. This is a critical issue.

We just had a hearing with Minister Finley over some concerns on the release of information to the media. Mr. Togneri's testimony is extremely important to us.

When I read that letter, it is more of the same, trying to subvert Parliament from doing its job. I'm glad you talked to the law clerk and I'm glad he suggested it was within our bounds to subpoena him here. The bottom line is simply that's what must be done. Parliament and committees have to be allowed to do their work.