Evidence of meeting #13 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Just a minute, Mr. Easter.
Mr. Bezan, I've made a ruling, very clearly, and I've repeated it three times. I don't want to anticipate what you're going to go after, but if you want to discuss that any further, your recourse is not to again make the same argument. You must challenge the ruling of the chair, and that's the way it--
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
Mr. Chair, I'll just draw your attention to chapter 3 of O'Brien and Bosc as it applies to my rights and privileges as a member of Parliament. It says that “the Chair of a committee does not have the power to censure disorder...”.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
That is on page 150. I'll let Mr. Easter reference it.
You don't have the power to censure disorder. As the chair of a committee, you do have to manage it, and I appreciate that. I understand that. But you have to allow all the members here a right to debate points of order. You can organize that the way you see fit, but you can't just go out and start censuring people from speaking because that then is impugning our ability to have our freedom of speech, which is a right that we have here as members of Parliament.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Just a moment. Mr. Bezan. With due respect, all I did was remind you that I had made a decision on certain questions, that I would not entertain further discussion, and that your option would be to challenge the chair's ruling. You then advised me that you had a different point of order, and I recognized it. I don't think the censure allegation is appropriate, and I would ask you to withdraw it.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
Yes, I'm just trying to reference it here now.
Here's the concern I have. You're talking about the law clerk's letter, and I agree that as committees and as members we have the power to investigate things that are substantive, that we feel are important to standing committees, but as standing committees, we're still governed by the House.
We have decided that we are masters of our own domain under procedure, but essentially we are created by the House and we are responsible to the House, and we need to make sure that we respect the rulings from the House. So we want to make sure that when we are questioning a witness, we are making sure that the rights they are granted under O'Brien and Bosc, as I stated earlier, on page 1,068.... As a public servant, he doesn't have to answer all questions put to him, especially if they affect the study and the inquiry that's being conducted by the Information Commissioner.
I would just ask that as questions are being asked, you consider that in terms of what you call admissible and inadmissible. I'm just asking you to use your--
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
On a point of order, before I get to my question, Mr. Chair, I do have a question, because it seems to me what we are seeing here is--
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Mr. Easter, in fairness, although Mr. Bezan indicated that it was a different point of order, it wasn't. It was continued debate on the prior discussion. It was not a point of order and we're going to move on with your--
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
That's fine. I'm just making my point in my introduction to my question, Mr. Chair.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Because it seems to me what we're seeing from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and from Mr. Bezan are collusion and coaching from the government to a witness who's before this committee and who we're trying to find out information from relative to the Access to Information Act. That concerns me greatly.
We seem to be seeing more and more of deny, delay, and cover-up from the government, and the performance of government members in this committee just can't lead me to any other conclusion.
To go to my question, welcome, Mr. Togneri. It is kind of too bad that we had to basically present an order to bring you here, but in any event, thank you for coming.
I want to background the issue, where the issue really, to a certain extent, started, just so we all know what we're talking about. From a CP story by Dean Beeby of February 7, I quote:
A federal cabinet minister's aide killed the release of a sensitive report requested under freedom-of-information in a case eerily similar to a notorious incident in the sponsorship scandal. A bureaucrat had to make a mad dash to the department's mailroom last July to retrieve the report at the last minute under orders from a senior aide to then-Public Works minister Christian Paradis. The order was issued by Sebastien Togneri, Paradis' parliamentary affairs director, in a terse email after he had been told the file was already on its way to The Canadian Press, which had requested it. “Well unrelease it,” Togneri said in a July 27 email to a senior official in the department's Access to Information section.
That's basically the background to why, in part, we're here today.
So my question to you is, are you aware that your interference in the access to information process is an offence under the Access to Information Act?
11:30 a.m.
Former Parliamentary Affairs Director, Department of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.
I refer you to the order from the Information Commissioner that I tabled today, which says that “Mr. Sébastien Togneri shall not disclose the questions asked—
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Order.
Mr. Togneri, you've indicated that you would invoke the opinion of your lawyer, etc., and I'll take it that you do not want to answer with regard to that position. What I would say to you is that, in my view, the question asked to you has nothing to do with secrets or confidential information. This is a question to you personally and I'm going to instruct you to answer the question.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
