Information & Ethics Committee on May 6th, 2010

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

You do not have to admit that....

The Access to Information Act says that no person shall hinder, block, destroy or alter a document. The fact that you blocked the release of a document as you did contravenes the act, more specifically, section 67.1 of the Access to Information Act, a contravention that has consequences of a criminal nature.

Did you or did you not contravene the act or block the information in question? If you did, did you receive a directive to do so? There are two possibilities: either you did it on your own initiative, directly contravening the act, and you are responsible, or you received a directive to do so.

What I want to know is whether you received a directive. Is there a procedure that was not part of your mandate but that you were subject to, or did you do it on your own initiative? That is what I want to know.

[Sébastien Togneri]

I think I already answered the question about directives. I did not receive any directives.

As for the other question, once again, I think it gives rise to hasty conclusions. I never admitted to contravening the act.

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

Very well. You answered the question again. I will ask you something else.

Did you receive or did you have knowledge of people receiving access to information requests at the minister's office?

[Sébastien Togneri]

If I received...?

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

Did you receive access to information requests in which you intervened, at the minister's office? Were access to information requests submitted to you at the minister's office?

[Sébastien Togneri]

Thank you for your question. If I understand correctly, you would like to know whether we see access to information files, for information purposes. Yes, we see them.

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

So access to information requests are submitted to the minister's office.

[Sébastien Togneri]

Yes, they are, for information purposes.

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

Is it done on a regular basis? I will ask the question another way. Are all requests submitted or just some?

[Sébastien Togneri]

In which period?

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

I am asking whether it happened before, whether you had knowledge of it. I am not talking about a period but your entire mandate.

[Sébastien Togneri]

At the time, yes, I received a number of access to information files.

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

What type of files were they? Did the files you received have to do with the identity of the applicant, the type of request or the scope of the request?

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

On a point of order, Mr. Poilievre. Please state the specific--

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

My point of order deals with relevance. I refer you to page 32, chapter 1, under “Parliamentary Institutions”. The title is “Responsible Government and Ministerial Responsibility”:

Responsible government has long been considered an essential element of government based on the Westminster model. Despite its wide acceptance as being a cornerstone of the Canadian system of government, there are different meanings attached to the term “responsible government”. In a general sense, responsible government means that a government must be responsive to its citizens, that it must operate responsibly (that is, be well organized in developing and implementing policy) and that its Ministers--

I repeat: “its Ministers”.

--must be accountable or responsible to Parliament. Whereas the first two meanings may be regarded as the ends of responsible government, the latter meaning—the accountability of Ministers—may be regarded as the device for achieving it.

The reason this relates directly to the relevance of the questioning is that, for the questioning to be relevant, it has to be posed to the relevant authority, and the relevant authority in this case is a minister of the crown.

We have in this country something called ministerial responsibility. We didn't invent it; it was handed to us from the birthplace of the parliamentary system. It goes back hundreds of years. Neither you, nor this committee, nor anyone else can rewrite that history. As such, it is appropriate that ministers respond on behalf of their departments and on behalf of their ministries.

That is why we had the Honourable Diane Finley appear before us in her capacity as the Minister of Human Resources just last meeting. She fielded questions about the subject of costs for an advertising campaign and was held accountable for exceeding the standards of transparency that exist for advertising.

Today, we have questions about the conduct of a given ministry, but we do not have a minister here to answer those questions. Instead, we have here before us someone who has been instructed by the Information Commissioner that he cannot comment.

So in the interest of respecting ministerial responsibility and its description on page 32, under “Parliamentary Institutions”, I would ask that the committee allow the minister to be responsible for the conduct of the department and the ministry, and that it operate on that guiding principle here. That's my point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

That's your point. I just wanted to see how long you were going to go.

Respectfully, colleagues, it is not helpful to the committee to raise points of order on one matter and to go back to arguing the initial decision of the chair that the Information Commissioner's communication does not supersede the authority and the work of this committee. As approved by this committee, the calling of this witness was made by the committee, the committee's decision.

As to the argument that somehow a minister must respond on behalf of his or her staff, Mr. Poilievre, I submit to you that, as you know, ministers cannot be ordered to come before committees. In fact, just recently, Minister Raitt and Minister Paradis refused to go to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. Ministers cannot respond if they refuse to appear.

The committee did not ask for the minister, and if the member would like to guarantee that the relevant minister will appear before this committee to answer these questions, that would be very helpful. I hope the member will make that inquiry.

That said—

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

You've posed a question to me, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Just a moment. That's a rhetorical question, because I know what the answer is.

Mr. Poilievre, the other point that you raised was this idea that this witness cannot answer questions because it's the ministerial responsibility. Well, with regard to Minister Finley, we have called a witness: Mr. Ryan Sparrow. She is aware of that. Her chief of staff is aware of that. We've had some conversations.

Mr. Sparrow has agreed to appear before this committee on May 13 of his own volition, without me having to issue a summons. He's coming voluntarily to answer questions. Therefore, his decision, with the full knowledge of the minister, would tend to refute the argument you've made.

So I'm going to rule against your point of order, and I am going to have to move now to Mr. Siksay for his seven minutes.

Madame, your seven minutes was up.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Togneri, I wanted to ask if you had been officially delegated authority by Minister Paradis to have any role with the Access to Information Act or the access to information procedure?

[Sébastien Togneri]

Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.

No.

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

So there was no ATI delegation order from Minister Paradis that officially named you?

[Sébastien Togneri]

Thank you for the question.

The answer is no.

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

Mr. Togneri, were you unofficially delegated any authority by the minister to have a role with access to information in his office?

[Sébastien Togneri]

Mr. Chair....

Could you be more precise?